Bishop Willigis
Bischof
Willigis in der Klosterschule
Nach dem Gemalde von Lindenschmitt
In the year 1000 there was a very pious priest in
Mayence
called Bishop Willigis. He was only the son of a poor wheel-wright, but
by
his perseverance and his own merit he had attained to the dignity of
first
priest of the kingdom. The honest citizens of Mayence loved and
honoured
the worthy divine, although they did not altogether like having to bow
down
to one who had been brought up in a simple cottage like themselves.
The bishop once reproved them in gentle tones for
thinking
too much of mere descent. This vexed the supercilious citizens, and one
night
they determined to play Willigis a trick. They took some chalk and drew
enormous
wheels on all the doors of his house.
Early next morning as the bishop was going to
mass, he
noticed the scoffers' malicious work. He stood silently looking at the
wheels,
the chaplain by his side expecting every moment that the reverend
prelate
would burst forth in a terrible rage. But a gay smile spread over the
bishop's
features, and ordering a painter to be sent to him, he told him to
paint
white wheels on a scarlet back-ground, visible to every eye, just where
the
chalk wheels had been drawn, and underneath to paint the words,
"Willigis!
Willigis! just think what you have risen from." But he did not stop
there.
He ordered the wheel-wright to make him a plough-wheel, and caused it
to
be placed over his couch in memory of his extraction.
Thereafter the scoffers were put to silence, and
the
people of Mayence began to honour and esteem their worthy bishop, who,
though
he had been so exalted, possessed such honest common-sense.
White wheels on a red ground have been the arms of
the
Bishops of Mayence ever since.
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