During the fourteenth century Mainz shared the power and glory of the other cities of the Rhenish Confederation, then in the full flush of its heyday.  Its cathedral witnesses to its aforetime civic splendour.  This magnificent building took upward of four hundred years to complete, and its wondrous brazen doors and sumptuous chapels are among the finest ecclesiastical treasures of Germany.

The Fiddler

In the cathedral of Mainz was an image of the Virgin, on whose feet were golden slippers, the gift of some wealthy votary.  Of this image the following legend is told: 

A poor ragged fiddler had spent the whole of one bitter winter morning playing through the dreary streets without any taking pity upon his plight.  As he came to the cathedral he felt an overmastering desire to enter and pour out his distress in the presence of his Maker.  So he crept in, a tattered and forlorn figure.  He prayed aloud, chanting his woes in the same tones which he used in the street to touch the hearts of the passers-by.

As he prayed a sense of solitude came upon him, and he realized that the shadowy aisles were empty.  A sudden whim seized him.  He would play to the golden-shod Virgin and sing her one of his sweetest songs.  And drawing nearer he lifted his old fiddle to his shoulder, and into his playing he put all his longing and pain; his quavering voice grew stronger beneath the stress of his fervour.  It was as if the springtime had come about him; life was before him, gay and joyful, sorrow and pain were unknown.  He sank to his knees before the image, and as he knelt, suddenly the Virgin lifted her foot and, loosening her golden slipper, cast it into the old man’s ragged bosom, as if giving alms for his music.

The poor old man, astounded at the miracle, told himself that the Blessed Virgin knew how to pay a poor devil who amused her.  Overcome by gratitude, he thanked the giver with all his heart.

He would fain have kept the treasure, but he was starving, and it seemed to have been given him to relieve his distress.  He hurried out to the market and went into a goldsmith’s shop to offer his prize.  But the man recognized it at once.  Then was the poor old fiddler worse off than before, for now he was charged with the dreadful crime of sacrilege.  The old man told the story of the miracle over and over again, but he was laughed at for an impudent liar.  He must not hope, they told him, for anything but death, and in the short space of one hour he was tried and condemned and on his way to execution.

The place of death was just opposite the great bronze doors of the cathedral which sheltered the Virgin.  “If I must die,” said the fiddler, “I would sing one song to my old fiddle at the feet of the Virgin and pray one prayer before her.  I ask this in her blessed name, and you cannot refuse me.”