St. Lambert's Cathedral, Liège (or in full, the Cathedral of Our Lady and St. Lambert; ) was the cathedral of Liège, Belgium, until 1794, when its destruction began. This enormous Gothic cathedral, dedicated to Saint Lambert of Maastricht, occupied the site of the present Place Saint-Lambert in the centre of Liège. History Saint Lambert, bishop of Maastricht, was assassinated in Liège about 705, and was initially buried in Maastricht. The site of his martyrdom became a place of pilgrimage, and his successor, Saint Hubert, returned the body and reburied it there. Shortly afterwards, the bishop's seat was transferred from Maastricht to Liège, and Lambert's shrine became a cathedral. Several structures succeeded each other on the site. The first was a martyr's shrine or mausoleum (martyrium), commissioned by Saint Hubert. Unusually, it was oriented to the west, which may account for the existence of a west choir in later cathedral buildings. Two cathedrals followed. The first, built towards the end of the 8th century, was in Carolingian style. In 978 Bishop Notger installed a chapter of sixty canons. He then built a new church from around the year 1000, in Ottonian style, with a special crypt for the relics of the martyred saint. The architecture was that of the Holy Roman Empire. The new cathedral had a massive westwork, two choirs at opposite ends, two transepts, each with a tower over the crossing, adding to the monumentality of the structure, and a cloister at the east end. It is noticeable from the groundplan that the entrances were in the north and south sides of the building, and not along the east–west axis. Frederic of Lorraine, later Pope Stephen IX, was canon and archdeacon of this church before being raised to the cardinalate by Pope Victor II. Many alterations were made to it during the decades 1140–1180. The disgraced and excommunicated Emperor Henry IV, who died on 7 August 1106, was buried here by the Prince-Bishop Otbert, after the entrails and heart had been removed. The German bishops protested and declared that the cathedral would be considered contaminated as long as the body stayed there. Emperor Henry V therefore had his father's remains disinterred and moved to Speyer Cathedral, on 15 August 1106. During the night of 28/29 April 1185 a violent fire broke out in one of the houses next to the cloisters, to which it immediately spread, and from there