In 1444 a girl from Nijkerk wanted to enter the St Agnesconvent. She had a small modest wooden Maria statue with her, and because she was ashamed by its 'cheapness', she decided to throw it into a partly frozen canal of Amersfoort. That night, another Amersfoort woman, dreamt about the Maria statue, and when she went to get water from the canal, she found it. So she took it home, and burned a candle, which lasted three times as long as normal. She confessed this to a priest, who took the statue and placed it in the OLV chapel on December 26th, 1444. Because the statue made miracles happen, pilgrims started to visit Amersfoort to be cured from diseases, mainly limb diseases. Pilgrims visited Amersfoort from 1444 until 1545, which made it possible to build the Lange Jan and adjacent church.
