Mariendom Hildesheim

The legend of the rose tree, a wild dogrose, dates back to the founding history of the diocese of Hildesheim around 815. At the time Louis the Pious, son and successor of Emperor Carl the Great, found a valuable reliquary among the blossoms, which he had lost while hunting. In honour of his grandmother, Louis ordered the construction of a chapel there and then. That is how the legend of the ‘millennium rose tree’ has it. The fact of the matter is: the history of the diocese begins around 815. 50 years later the first large cathedral was erected by Bishop Altfrid.

Eight weeks after the complete destruction of the Hildesheim Cathedral in March 1945, as a result of which the rose tree also burnt, 25 new shoots appeared from a root buried by the debris.