Story
The story of St. Rumbold's Cathedral
The people of Mechelen have a curious nickname: Maneblussers, or Moon Extinguishers. The story goes that their ancestors saw a fire blazing behind the tall windows of this tower and ran up it passing buckets of water, only to find it was mere moonlight shining through the clouds. The church was begun shortly after 1200 and consecrated in 1312. The tower, raised between 1452 and 1520, was designed to reach about 167 metres, higher than any church tower would ever attain.
It was meant to carry a 77-metre spire, but for financial reasons only seven metres of it were built, hence its unusual flat top. Even so, it stands 97.28 metres high, and its 514 steps have been climbed by Louis XV and Napoleon. It holds 49 bells; the largest, the bourdon Salvator, strikes the hours and weighs 8 tons.
For centuries the tower kept the city documents and served as a watchtower. The church has been a cathedral since 1559.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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