ts and
their faithful servants, but ever the furious archbishop ordered
forward new bands to fill the gaps. Day by day the ranks of the
defenders became thinner. Prominent everywhere in this hand to hand
struggle were the heroic forms of the twelve Templars, in white mantle
with blood-red cross. At last, at a breach which had been defended
with leonine courage, one of the noble twelve sank beneath his
shattered shield, and closed his eyes in death. A second shared his
fate, then a third. The others, bleeding from many wounds and aided by
the sorely diminished remnant of their retainers, redoubled their
brave efforts, but still death made havoc in their ranks. When, on the
evening of the day of fiercest onslaught the victorious besiegers
planted their banner on the captured battlement, the silver-haired
veteran, the former spokesman, stood with blood-flecked sword among
the bodies of his fallen comrades, the last survivor. Touched by such
noble heroism the archbishop informed him that he would be allowed to
surrender; but calling down the curse of heaven on worldly churchmen
and their greed of land, he raised on high his sword and rushed upon
his foes. Pierced with many wounds the last of the twelve sank to the
earth, and over the corpse of this noble man the soldiers of Mainz
pressed into the fortress itself.

Peter von Aspelt preserved Lahneck as a place of defence and residence
for an officer of the Electorate of Mainz, and nominated as first
holder of the post, Hartwin von Winningen. The castle remained in the
possession of the Electorate of Mainz for 300 years, but the sad story
of the twelve heroic Templars is remembered in the neighbourhood of
Lahneck to this day.

COBLENZ

Riza

In the first quarter of the 9th century, when the pious Ludwig, son of
Charlemagne, was struggling with his misguided children for the
imperial crown, a church was built in Coblenz to St. Castor, the
missionary who had spread christianity in the valley of the Moselle.
The four-towered edifice arose on a branch of the Rhine.

The palace of the Frankish king stood at this time on the highest
south-western point of Coblenz, on the site of a former Roman fort,
and near by was a nunnery, dedicated to St. Castor. In this building
lived Riza, a daughter of Ludwig the Pious, who had early dedicated
her life to the church. Every day this king's daughter went to mass in
the Castor church on the opposite side of the Rhine. So great gr