Thread by @14thCdisability

When your teenage nephew asks you to tell the story of the Erfurt Latrine Disaster, how can you not?

Guys, pay attention to that title. This is gonna get messy.

(Hi, Nephew! *waves*)

I had to do some digging on this one, since Germanic/Polish medieval history is a bit out of my wheelhouse. Specifically, I know fuck all about it. But "Erfurt Latrine Disaster" was just too compelling NOT to research.

It's the 12th century. 1184. Imperial Rome has been functionally non-existent for fucking centuries in the West, but the title "Holy Roman Emperor" is still the focus of pan-European squabbling. It's a hot title as much now as it was during the Cadaver Synod.

The current Holy Roman Emperor is one Frederick Barbarossa I. He was crowned by the pope in 1155. I don't know much about him because he's not really central, but I know he had a red beard, since that's what "Barbarossa" means.

In Germany, he was Kaiser Rotbart, which I think is WAY more fun to say.

I'll pause for a moment while you savour the delicious German phonemes.

Kaiser Rotbart
Kaiser Rotbart
Kaiser Rotbart

Anyway. Anyway, Freddy Rotbart has kids. It's the second son, Heinrich, who gets involved in the disaster in Erfurt. Henry is king of, idk, somewhere or other. The incessant squabbling over the "empire" has resulted in some really wacky Dirt Laws.

Who owes who fealty and who is in control of which parcel of land is a fucking MESS. Kings, counts, bishops, landgraves (equivalent of English dukes)... Everyone is squabbling. The maps look like a Republican gerrymander artist's wet dream.

Enter our other two protagonists (antagonists?): Landgrave Ludwig III of Thuringia and Archbishop Konrad I of Mainz, who fucking HATE each other. Like, these two dudes would merrily piss on each others' graves.

Thuringia - also fun to say!

Here's a map of the modern German state of Thuringia, in case you wanted to situate yourself geographically:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuringia

In 1180, Konrad has the unmitigated GALL to build a fortified castle on his own land! HOW DARE.

However, he's not as innocent as he might want you to believe. He parks Castle Heiligenburg on a weird little wiggle of his land RIGHT NEXT TO Ludwig Thingy's land in an act of architectural "I'm not touching you".

As passive-aggressive notes go, building a whole fucking castle is pretty next-level.

And given the chaos of the current Dirt Laws, it gives Konrad a potential chance to snap up some more dirt for himself. Even if he doesn't grab any of LUDWIG's land specifically, ANY land he can snap up is gonna piss Ludwig off.

Castles don't get built quickly at the time, they're not available pre-fab yet.

So the area just remains tense as BALLS for, like, four years.

Maybe Ludwig shoulda built a wall and tried to get Konrad to pay for it.

Who knows.

(My humour is so topical, y'all.)

By 1184, King Heinrich Not-Rotbart of Wherever is fed up with this bullshit. He's travelling to Poland for other reasons, but decides enough is enough with these two chucklefucks. Just stops partway and calls a Diet, a type of council, in the city of Erfurt.

Why Erfurt? I don't actually know. Who cares. History was the clear winner on this one.

It's FATE.

Henry summons Konrad and Ludwig and a bunch of other nobles to Sort This Shit Out, Okay Guys? My source also names Count Gozlar III of Ziegenhain in Hesse, Count Friedrich of Kirchberg, and Count Heinrich I of Schwarzburg.

I'll pause again while you say those names out loud.

I don't know if he planned to firm up the boundaries, like, fix the Dirt Laws once and for all, or if he just wants to knock heads together. I wouldn't blame him for either. Or both.

So he gets all these dick-measuring nobles to come to Erfurt.

Heinrich the Schwartz had his own beef with Ludwig, who'd attacked his territory (dirt) at some point prior. Probably NONE of these guys like each other.

The feud between these two side characters seems to stem from the time Heinrich stole a fancypants manuscript from Ludwig on Ludwig's wedding night, which, harsh, dude.

Heinrich the Schwarz, although a side character, is possibly the most hilarious part of this story. He TAUNTED FATE for his whole life, and she finally called him out.

In an ultimate, iconic, masterFUCKINGclass on foreshadowing, when trying to demonstrate his daring and his trustworthiness, Heinrich would often utter a saying along the lines of: "If I fail, so may I die in excrement."

So the source records.

Yep.

Finally, Henry Not-Rotbart has all the relevant nobles in Erfurt with them, and they assemble, with their armoured retinues, in the Church of St Peter.

The "armoured" part is not irrelevant. Even simple chainmail weighs a long FUCKTON.

In this one room is now gathered somewhere between 60-100 dudes in armour. The sources I looked at had a couple different numbers.

Poor St Peter's is a CHURCH, and maybe it's a historic location but it just REALLY wasn't built for this.

Konrad, Ludwig, and Henry Not-Rotbart have, at a crucial moment, withdrawn themselves to talk this thing through in a small alcove.

The floor gives way COMPLETELY.

The whole thing.

If you want, you can imagine a looney tunes style moment while they all hang there in the air and look down.

And as they look down, 60-100 men in armour DROP.

Unfortunately for all concerned, the room below the council room is the latrine room for the monks who live at St. Peter's. THAT room is no better equipped to hold the weight of all those armoured men than the room above it, particularly when you add 9.8m/s^2.

Plus, I guess, the weight of the floor/ceiling ALSO dropping.

And they smash through that floor as well.

Latrines, well, they're just indoor outhouses. No plumbing. The pits themselves haven't got any, like, doors or windows or anything. Who on earth would want to have a DOOR into a massive pit of decomposing human shit?

And I can only imagine that the structural integrity of the remaining latrine flooring around the edges of the room was pretty dicey.

A speedy rescue was just not in the cards, is what I'm getting at.

All those bickering counts, bishops, landgraves, and their trusted retinues, just... drowned.

In a pit of liquid shit.

Personally I suspect the methane gas probably didn't help, but regardless of the precise cause of death... yeah. They all drowned. In the latrine.

Sorry, guys, I'm not even going to look for a gif for this. Use your imaginations.

Ludwig, Konrad, and Henry Not-Rotbart survive by hanging onto some iron rails until help eventually arrives and figures out how to get to them without adding to the body count.

I cannot IMAGINE hanging there, in my heavy-ass armour, praying with a fervency and devotion I've never before felt that the iron railing I'm clutching doesn't give way.

Listening to the death gurgles of a bunch of dudes I really don't actually LIKE but who I probably didn't want to drown in a latrine.

Details on the rescue mission are tragically unrecorded, but we know Henry Not-Rotbart survived to succeed his father Rotbart as Holy Roman Emperor 1191.

Oh, and Ludwig got his stolen book back.

That's pretty much where the sources end the story. "And they drowned, the end."

And that is the Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

@emccoy_writer I hope you don't mind me alerting you to another story.

@NeolithicSheep idk, I just think you'll find this tragic error in judgment entertaining.