22. The Medieval Nobles Who Drowned in a Latrine
The Holy Roman Empire was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire”, as Voltaire once quipped. In the twelfth century, however, it was at least an empire. Back then, it was a bewildering patchwork of territories ruled by rival nobles and clergy who were often at each other’s throats. Counts who ruled one area had to watch their backs against neighboring archbishops, who in turn dreaded the machinations of nearby landgraves (the German equivalent of English dukes) with designs on the church’s lands. Unsurprisingly, that unholy jumble of territories and rulers was a recipe for endemic conflict.
Feuds flared up all the time, and Emperors of the Holy Roman and those who subbed could do little to prevent them. So the next best option was to try to at least keep the conflicts from getting out of control. In 1184, one feud between Archbishop Conrad I of Mainz and Landgrave Ludwig III of Thuringia threatened to destabilize the empire – beyond its usual level of instability. So King Heinrich VI called a meeting at the city of Erfurt to try and hash things out. The medieval peace conference was prematurely and tragicomically cut short when dozens of aristocrats and clergymen drowned to death in liquid excrement.