Spire, Or Spires (Ger. Speyer or Speier), a town of Bavaria, capital of the district of the Palatinate, on the left bank of the Rhine, at its junction with the Speyerbach, 16 m. N. E. of Landau; pop. in 1871, 13,241. It has a cathedral in the Romanesque style, remarkable for its size and antiquity; it was damaged by the French in 1689, but has been partly restored with great splendor; it contains the tombs of eight emperors, fine monuments, and a hall of antiquities. Very little is left of the imperial palace, where in 1529 the diet was held at which the Reformed princes made the protest from which originated the name of Protestants. - Spire was a Roman military station under the name of Augusta Nemetum (previously Noviomagus), and is said to have had a Christian community in the 2d century, and a bishop in the 3d. In the 7th century it was known under the Latin name of Spira. The town became of great importance as the ordinary residence of the emperors of Germany, and the seat of the imperial chamber or supreme court of appeal and of several diets. The French laid it in ashes May 31, 1689. It was rebuilt in 1699, but never recovered its ancient prosperity.

After the French occupation (1801-'14) it was in 1816 given to Bavaria. - The bishopric of Spire, one of the oldest in Germany, long enjoyed the rights of sovereignty, and the prince-bishops, whose castle was at Bruchsal, had an enormous income. More than half of the territory was given to France by the treaty of Luneville, Feb. 9, 1801, and the rest to Baden in 1802.