Weird History | A King, an Archbishop, and a Cesspit

In the summer of 1184, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa sent his eighteen-year-old son, King Henry VI, to Erfurt to settle a land dispute between Archbishop Conrad of Mainz and Landgrave Ludwig III of Thuringia. The two had been in open conflict since Conrad returned to Mainz the year before, and Henry called a royal assembly in the cathedral provost’s residence to hear them out. Everyone gathered on the upper floor. Nobody seemed too concerned about the open cesspit under the building until the beams gave out.

This is the first episode of Weird History, a new monthly segment from 15-Minute History hosted by Dan Lindsay. Each month he’ll bring a story from the stranger side of the past, as long as it actually happened.

Join us as we go through what the medieval chroniclers wrote about the collapse, including who died in the pit and how the king and the archbishop got out. We’ll also find out what came of the feud. A room full of the empire’s most powerful men fighting over land on top of a pit of human waste. If that isn’t a metaphor for medieval Europe, we don’t know what is.