- Bishop Hatto and the Mauseturm -

Over a thousand years ago, the town of Mainz along the River Rhine was home to Bishop Hatto. In those days, holy men were also Prince's and Hatto held both titles. The city prospered and Hatto collected his share as the Lord of the land.

But Hatto was a greedy man and soon the wealth he was collecting from his people was not enough. He soon set his sights on the ships traveling along the Rhine. And in order to stop the ships so they could pay taxes, Hatto had a stone tower built on the small island in the middle of the river near the town of Bingen.

After a few years of practically robbing his subjects and those traveling along the river, bad weather set in which brought vast amounts of rain and caused the river to overflow and ruin crops and vineyards in the area. The people suffered while Hatto continued to demand the same amounts of tribute as in the good years.

The villagers traveled to the palace to beg the Bishop to grant them some food and supplies from his vast stockpiles. But the Bishop laughed and said he would rather fill his stockpile with mice than to give one piece of corn to the villagers. This angered them and they began to attempt an assault. The Bishop quickly told them all to go to the stockpiles and help themselves to as much food as they could carry. So into the building the villagers went and happily gathered food to take home.

But as they made their way to the door to leave, they found the door was locked and they were trapped inside. Then Hatto ordered the building to be set on fire. Slowly the building began to burn, killing the trapped people inside. Now the flames had scattered hundreds of thousands of mice that use to feed on the food from the stockpiles and those stockpiles were being burned up in the fire. This caused the mice to all move towards the palace in search of food. As they ate their way through the food in the palace, Bishop Hatto began to panic and fled for the stone tower in the middle of the river to get away from the mice. He thought the mice would not be able to cross the river, but he was wrong. As he crossed the river to the castle tower, the mice followed. Many drowned in the river but twice as many made it across as those that drowned. The mice trapped Hatto in the tower and eventually ate him alive.

So the Mouse Tower, or the Mauseturm as it is still called today, is a fitting name for the tower on the island near Bingen.