Interior
The remaining beautifully hand-carved choir stalls from 1365 may still be found in one of the chapels.
The stone baptismal font dates back to 1229 and has been moved to all parts of the cathedral over the years and now rests near the entrance.
The pulpit installed in 1638 was a gift to the people of Bremen from Queen Christina of Sweden, whose troops - in the course of the Thirty Years' War - had already captured the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, and aimed at gaining the city too. The pulpit has survived the many catastrophes that plagued St Peter's history and remains in its original location.
Two crypts reveal the lower portions of the original walls and columns of the original cathedral. The crypt of the cathedral contains the bodies of almost ninety graves of bishops, archbishops, and others notables.
St Peter's was the original resting place of St Emma of Lesum, a wealthy benefactress of the church, who lived in outside the city in the early 11th century. When her tomb was opened, her body had crumbled to dust except for her right hand; the one that gave aid to the poor. The relic was moved to the church at Werden.
An unusual "Bleikeller" or lead basement is located beneath the nave, which even before the Reformation had a reputation as an excellent place to preserve bodies of the dead in amazing form. Eight mummies in glass-topped coffins can be seen there. The displays lists among those on display: two Swedish officers from the Thirty Years' War, an English countess, a murdered student, and a local pauper. The crypt has become the cathedral's most visited attraction for more than 300 years. The cathedral museum was constructed in one of the side chapels in the 1970s cathedral restoration.
St Peter's has several fine examples of artistic epitaphs for individuals that have survived the many restorations of the cathedral. The three finest are for Chapter Senior Segebade II von der Hude (ca. 1500-1578), Dr. Gerhard Brandis (1518), and Cathedral Provost Sigebade Clüver (1547).
Read more about this topic: Bremen Cathedral
Famous quotes containing the word interior:
“Men expect too much, do too little,
Put the contraption before the accomplishment,
Lack skill of the interior mind
To fashion dignity with shapes of air.
Luxury, yes but not elegance!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Professor Eucalyptus said, “The search
For reality is as momentous as
The search for god.” It is the philosopher’s search
For an interior made exterior
And the poet’s search for the same exterior made
Interior: breathless things broodingly abreath....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“When the delicious beauty of lineaments loses its power, it is because a more delicious beauty has appeared; that an interior and durable form has been disclosed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)