Mainz, Germany, on the left bank of
the Rhine, the third longest river in Europe, has bounced from German to French
rule many times. This bustling city, capitol of the German state
Rheinland-Pfalz, is home to the oldest castle on the Rhine.
Mainz remained a walled city until
the late 1800s. The old city is 2000 years old, the new city from the 1800s.
There is a mix of old and new buildings, often side by side, but they blend
quite well. Bombing of WW II destroyed 85% of the city. Buildings were needed
quickly and the old facades were not added until the 1960s
Our delightful city docent stopped in
front of St. Martin’s and said, “This 975 cathedral, was built for coronations
at a time when the city had a population of only 2-3000 people. In the 11th and 12th
centuries seven kings were crowned in the cathedral. The cathedral completed in
1009 burned down on its dedication day, but was rebuilt in 1036 and most of the
present structure dates from 1239. The cathedral escaped damage in WW II
bombings, but being made of limestone it is always in some state of repair or
restoration.
“The clock is 200 years old. Look at
the top of the spire. A single cross designates a church, but a double cross
designates a cathedral. Inside, the pulpit will be on the right if it is a
church, on the left in a cathedral. Before people could read, monks had
different floor tile designs so people would know where they were. Dom means dominate,
to the highest power.”
The highlight of my visit to Mainz
was the Gutenberg Museum. Johannes Gutenberg was a Mainz native. After
inventing movable type he printed 180 copies of the Gutenberg Bible, of which 49
remain and are priceless. His error-free replaceable text revolutionized the
printed word.
A docent is necessary to understand the Bibles
displayed in the darkened temperature-controlled room of the Gutenberg Museum,
which opened in 2000. The Bibles have no page numbers. The cost of a Bible was
four oxen, and owning a Bible in those days was a status symbol. The Bible was
delivered as separate pages. Then the purchaser had to take the pages to an
artist for color to be added in various places, then to a binder.
Centuries ago people would pay a
pilgrim to travel to a place or church to relieve them of their sins. This was
called selling indulgences. The
pilgrim would return to the person with a coupon or token as proof that he had
carried out his mission. Pilgrims often wore beards as they had little time to
shave, and beards were seldom seen on men other than pilgrims.
We wrapped up our visit to the museum
in a replica of Gutenberg’s workroom where we watched a demonstration on how
the press worked. It was a tedious process to produce a single page, but once
the page print was set up many pages could follow and it certainly was an
improvement over the time consuming task of hand copying a page, which was
often done by monks.
It was pretty exciting to be in the
place where such history-making events had taken place.
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