Hatto

Hatto, the name of two archbishops of Mainz, who have a somewhat conspicuous place in the history of Germany. The first of these was chosen Archbishop of Mainz in 891, and died in 913.—The second archbishop of that name was a monk of the monastery of Fulda, and succeeded the celebrated Rabanus Maurus, well known in the history of the eucharistic controversies, as abbot of the monastery of St Boniface, about the year 942. In the second expedition of the Emperor Otho I. into Italy in 961 Hatto was sent as his ambassador from Pavia to Rome; and after his return, on the death of Archbishop William, he was raised to the see of Mainz, and continued one of the chief directors of the imperial counsels. Of his after-life and of his personal character the most opposite accounts have been given. By some he is represented as a zealous reformer, and an upright and successful administrator; by others as a selfish and hard-hearted oppressor of the poor; and the strange legend of his being devoured by rats, which Southey has perpetuated in his well-known ballad, is represented as an evidence of the estimate that was popularly formed regarding him. It is by no means improbable, however, that this legend is of a much later date, and that its real origin is to be traced to the equivocal designation of the tower on the Rhine, Mäusethurm, near Bingen, which has been selected as the scene of the occurrence. Mäusethurm, 'Mouse-tower,' is possibly only a corrupted form of Mauth-thurm, 'Toll-tower,' a sufficiently descriptive name; but the modified form of the word might readily suggest a legend of mice or rats. Another etymology is from muserie, an old word for ordnance. The date at which the Mäusethurm was built is unknown, and it is far from certain that it is not much later than the time of Hatto. It was stormed by the Swedes in 1635. Archbishop Hatto died in 969 or 970. See Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1869), and Max Beheim, Die Mäusethurm-sage (1888).