Worms

A city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Upper Rhine about 60 kilometres south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main, with about 84,646 inhabitants in 2022. A pre-Roman foundation, it is one of the oldest cities in northern Europe. It was the capital of the Kingdom of the Burgundians in the early fifth century, which is why the medieval legends of that period, notably the first part of the Nibelungenlied, are set there. Worms has been a Roman Catholic bishopric since at least 614 and was an important palatinate of Charlemagne. Its cathedral is one of the imperial cathedrals and among the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Germany. It prospered in the High Middle Ages as an imperial free city, and the Diet of 1521, held at Worms, ended with the Edict of Worms declaring Martin Luther a heretic.