Ratzeburg Cathedral

The Ratzeburger Dom stands on the northern tip of Ratzeburg’s old town island, the highest point in the town. Built of brick in the Romanesque style, it replaced a Slavic shrine to the goddess Siva. Bishop Evermod began work in 1160 under the patronage of Henry the Lion, making it the oldest of the four ‘Lion Cathedrals’ in northern Germany. Inside the church lie the relics of Saint Ansverus, killed during a Wendish uprising in 1066. The domed crossing rises above a three-aisled nave, while the south porch of 1220 shows a patterned gable in opus spicatum brickwork. A bronze lion, a copy of the Brunswick original, has stood on the cathedral close since 1881. The medieval complex includes a complete late-Romanesque cloister and chapter house built for the Premonstratensians in the 13th century. A high roof lantern crowns the crossing, and the south transept wall still bears the pattern of cannonballs known as the ‘Ratzeburg skittles’. The interior holds some of northern Germany’s earliest choir stalls and fine carved altarpieces from the late 15th and early 17th centuries.