Interesting to think about the horrible ambient smell that must have existed even in these noble-class locations at the time. A wooden floor built over a giant open sewage pit.
<p><pre><code> > A feud between Landgrave Louis III of Thuringia and Archbishop Conrad of Mainz, which had existed since the defeat of Henry the Lion, intensified to the point that King Henry VI was forced to intervene while he was traveling through the region during a military campaign against Poland. Henry decided to call a diet in Erfurt, where he was staying, to mediate the situation between the two and invited a number of other figures to the negotiations.
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So… was the feud resolved at all by the incident? It may have taken key players / drivers out and the absurdity of the situation might have given all parties a reason to pause. On the other hand it could have made it worse. I will investigate behind a proper keyboard in a bit, but if anyone else here knows please quench my curiosity.
The key is they broke the <i>second</i> floor, fell down through the <i>first</i> floor, and into the cesspool.<p>Likely most were knocked unconscious by the fall (that's gonna be anywhere from 15-30 feet) and then drowned.
> King Henry was said to have survived only because he sat in an alcove with a stone floor.<p>I cannot stop imagining this event from his perspective and wondering what words might have been spoken just before the collapse.
"about 60 of them drowned in liquid excrement"<p>I am so sorry to do this, but: What a shitty way to go.<p>Seriously, though, the though of drowning is terrifying to me when it's clear, fresh water, but drowning in a literal cesspool sounds much worse. I don't know if the poor souls who died in this incident noticed the difference. But it sounds really terrifying. Also, the poor people who had to recover the bodies for a proper burial.<p>With 900+ years of distance it's easy to chuckle at it, but if you try to put yourself into these people's shoes, it's not funny. OTOH, there were so many awful things going on back then, I wonder if this one really stuck out to anyone but the victims' relatives.
I wonder how people connected to the victims reacted. Perhaps they accused the host of a red wedding type murder? Or perhaps they thought it was divine intervention?
Meta: I find it weird how many HN posts have no connection to either hacking or news, and yet are so tonally perfect for the audience here, and for me personally. I’m thinking specifically of obscure/weird Wikipedia pages and pop history/science articles. This is the stuff that keeps me coming back. Great share.
Somehow nobody thought this could have been an assassination. The convenience was there. It must have been a relief for King Henry, too.<p>Do the history books tell if there was a sufficiently anal investigation and whether they ever got to the bottom of it?
Nails would have been rather rare in that time period (or any time up to about 1700).<p>They did exist, but weren’t generally used as they weren’t very strong (wrought iron is.. well, not steel) and had to be made by hand
Surprisingly little information for such an impactful event. How did people respond? Did people not get angry with the king? And I would have expected some architectural information, technical drawings of how this could have happened etc.