[MR] Wikipedia: Mouse Tower

[Garth Groff via Atlantia]

Noble Friends,

It's a slow news day (medieval-wise) over at the BBC, and there's 
nothing of note to commemorate on Wikipedia. So I'm going to turn to a 
story that has always intrigued me, the tale of the Mäuseturm or Mouse 
Tower.

This structure is on a small island in the Rhine outside Bingen am 
Rhein, Germany. Successive towers have stood here since Roman times, and 
the current tower was built in 1855, a gothic revival fantasy. It is the 
long-vanished medieval tower that interests us. A ruinous tower here was 
restored by the Archbishop of Mainz Hatto II in 968, likely as a station 
to collect river tolls.

Hatto was said to be a cruel oppressor of the peasantry. During a famine 
in 974, he bought up all the remaining grain in the area and sold it at 
outrageous prices. When the peasants protested, he told them the grain 
would be shared from a barn shortly. When the peasants went into the 
barn, his men slammed the door shut and set the building on fire, 
killing everyone inside. Hatto's comment was, "Hear the mice squeak!"

Eventually things got equally hot for Hatto, and he had to flee to the 
tower in the river. Here Hatto was attacked by hundreds of hungry mice, 
who overwhelmed and gobbled him up: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Tower .

It is a good story, but probably just that. Hatto actually died in 870: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatto_II . A similar story is told in 
Poland about Prince Popeil II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popiel . 
There is probably some truth in these tales about the character of both 
men. Stories like this usually don't get made up about people with good 
reputations, Macbeth excepted. A cautionary tale, to be sure.

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge