A
few
years ago, husband and I were touring in Bavaria and among the places
we visited was Bamburg, a lovely old
town on a tributary of
the river Maine.
We went into the cathedral and looked round for an
hour or so and I spotted, on the side of the tomb of Heinrich II, a
sculpted stone panel scene which included a blindfolded woman.
Apparently,
from the guide book, she was an unfaithful earlier wife undergoing
a trial of some sort prior to a deserving punishment if seen to be guilty.
I would have liked to take a photo of it to take home and show Chris,
but didn't dare to, since husband would certainly have spotted it and
wondered why? So regrettably I left it.
Then on the way out, a big
surprise. Another blindfolded woman! This time a stone statue on a
plinth, one of a pair representing
the Christian church and the Jewish synagogue. It was the latter that
was represented by a blindfolded woman, she being Jewish, was being
unable to see the true way to God. There were even postcards of her
for sale, but again I didn't like to buy just that one. Chris says
pictures
of her can be found quite easily on the internet (look up 'Ecclesia
and Synagoga').
He
couldn't find anything on the tomb panel but it is briefly described
(in German!) , but not pictured, in the guide book to the cathedral
which I had kept.
What
it did remind Chris of, and which I remembered as well after he
mentioned it, was an illustrated series of childrens English history
books that we had (and may well be in our loft still) and in the
Medieval section was a drawing of such a trial as that on the tomb.
It
was of a blindfolded girl in what appeared to be an abbey, being made
to walk across a stone floor on which were very hot stones straight
out of a furnace (all clearly drawn) like the sculptures at Bamberg,
I believed, lovingly detailed. At that age, we were fascinated by the drawing and what might have been the outcome.
Needless to sat, Chris was only too willing to describe to me the possible outcomes. But I had better not go into those here.
Jane
