4 ms·

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

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.

threegates 4y ago
I think a wooden raised platform was built above the ground floor. This gave way and they broke through the ground floor which may have been made of some other material like tiles or something. I doubt they would have gathered in a place like that if not isolated from the smell.
ogurechny 4y ago
My exact thought. Wooden floors — not even strong enough to bear the crowd — and the cesspool large enough to fit 60 people? That's not the place for king's accommodation, even in time when everyone was used to the smell of the stables. If anything, the ammonia would corrode the hell out of any metallic objects in the building, like nails. Without reading German links, I suppose that either some architect had had a bright idea that a giant 640 KP latrine should be enough for every occupation, and thus wouldn't ever need to be scooped, or that people were mostly crushed by rubble, and the adjacent common-sized latrine also broke. Though in some periods latrines were used to make certain chemicals, and therefore the building could be seen as what we now call a chemical plant.
- ilovecurl 4y ago
  "Saltpeter" AKA potassium nitrate was indeed harvested from latrines and other places where animal dung was collected/deposited. It was a valuable commodity as a key component of gun powder. Although gun powder would not come into widespread use in Europe for 2-3 hundred years after this event occurred.
- tharkun__ 4y ago
  Since you mentioned not reading the German version I went and checked and it's got a bit more info, though not a lot. [...] im oberen Stockwerk der Dompropstei des Marienstiftes zu Rat, als der alte und wohl auch morsche Boden des zweiten Geschosses plötzlich unter der außergewöhnlichen Last der vielen Menschen zusammenbrach. Dabei stürzten die meisten Anwesenden in die Tiefe, wo auch der Boden des ersten Geschosses dem plötzlichen Aufprall dieser Last nicht standhielt, sodass die Herabstürzenden noch tiefer in eine darunter liegende Abtrittgrube fielen [...] andere wurden durch nachfallende Balken und Steine erschlagen oder verletzt. So this mentions that this building didn't just have a ground floor w/ the latrine below it but one storey above. It's that second storey which was old and rotten and collapsed and broke through the ground floor, which wasn't strong enough to hold sixty people plus the broken top floor crashing into it. Unlike the English version that just mentions people drowning in excrement, this also mentions further falling debris like joists and stone simply hitting and thus killing or at least injuring people. Btw, this is what this looks like today: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurter_Dom#/media/Datei:Erfurter_Dom_von_Oben_08.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurter_Dom#/media/Datei:Erfu...
  - jl6 4y ago
    So is this a well-known part of popular lore in Germany? I can only imagine that if this had happened in England, every primary school pupil would know about it and there would be a toilet-themed gift shop on the site today.
  - ogurechny 4y ago
    It says it happened in the deanery of a different church in the fortress (nitpick: not surrounded by this fortress at that time). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterskirche_(Erfurt) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterskirche_(Erfurt) Its auxiliary buildings are long gone, and even auxiliary buildings from later centuries are long gone, too, and the church itself was converted and rebuilt many times.
danjc 4y ago
Something smells off about this story. It’s got linked references but I can imagine this ending up being disproven as one of those fictitious Wikipedia articles.
- garciansmith 4y ago
  The primary sources, both chronicles, are cited in the article, reproduced in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (a series of edited Medieval texts, known for being carefully edited). There could be issues, of course, like the original authors of the chronicles making up the stories, but this isn't just a baseless Wikipedia hoax. The Chronicle of Reinhardsbrunn, at least, does make specific mention that the nobles fell into a cesspit (cloaca) and died miserably by suffocating in the filth (sceno suffocati miserabiliter interierunt).
  - danjc 4y ago
    I was half joking. You just can’t make this stuff up though.
- zby 4y ago
  Most probably they just died from the fall and only one or two landed in the latrine. But the latrine was the most salient part of the story - so it was what everybody was talking about and then it was recorded that way.
  - TylerE 4y ago
    It seems latrine isn’t really accurate either. More like an (open…) septic tank
- jprd 4y ago
  I see what you did there.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yobbo 4y ago
Since they did not have water toilets, it would not be viscous like sewage. It would have consistency similar to a barnyard manure pile. To fill a floor to a depth enough to "drown" would require several years of collecting, which means it would be well decayed and much closer to soil than sewage. But it sounds too improbable to have happened.

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.

threegates 4y ago

I think a wooden raised platform was built above the ground floor. This gave way and they broke through the ground floor which may have been made of some other material like tiles or something. I doubt they would have gathered in a place like that if not isolated from the smell.

ogurechny 4y ago

My exact thought. Wooden floors — not even strong enough to bear the crowd — and the cesspool large enough to fit 60 people? That's not the place for king's accommodation, even in time when everyone was used to the smell of the stables. If anything, the ammonia would corrode the hell out of any metallic objects in the building, like nails. Without reading German links, I suppose that either some architect had had a bright idea that a giant 640 KP latrine should be enough for every occupation, and thus wouldn't ever need to be scooped, or that people were mostly crushed by rubble, and the adjacent common-sized latrine also broke. Though in some periods latrines were used to make certain chemicals, and therefore the building could be seen as what we now call a chemical plant.

ilovecurl 4y ago
"Saltpeter" AKA potassium nitrate was indeed harvested from latrines and other places where animal dung was collected/deposited. It was a valuable commodity as a key component of gun powder. Although gun powder would not come into widespread use in Europe for 2-3 hundred years after this event occurred.
tharkun__ 4y ago
Since you mentioned not reading the German version I went and checked and it's got a bit more info, though not a lot. [...] im oberen Stockwerk der Dompropstei des Marienstiftes zu Rat, als der alte und wohl auch morsche Boden des zweiten Geschosses plötzlich unter der außergewöhnlichen Last der vielen Menschen zusammenbrach. Dabei stürzten die meisten Anwesenden in die Tiefe, wo auch der Boden des ersten Geschosses dem plötzlichen Aufprall dieser Last nicht standhielt, sodass die Herabstürzenden noch tiefer in eine darunter liegende Abtrittgrube fielen [...] andere wurden durch nachfallende Balken und Steine erschlagen oder verletzt. So this mentions that this building didn't just have a ground floor w/ the latrine below it but one storey above. It's that second storey which was old and rotten and collapsed and broke through the ground floor, which wasn't strong enough to hold sixty people plus the broken top floor crashing into it. Unlike the English version that just mentions people drowning in excrement, this also mentions further falling debris like joists and stone simply hitting and thus killing or at least injuring people. Btw, this is what this looks like today: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurter_Dom#/media/Datei:Erfurter_Dom_von_Oben_08.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurter_Dom#/media/Datei:Erfu...
- jl6 4y ago
  So is this a well-known part of popular lore in Germany? I can only imagine that if this had happened in England, every primary school pupil would know about it and there would be a toilet-themed gift shop on the site today.
- ogurechny 4y ago
  It says it happened in the deanery of a different church in the fortress (nitpick: not surrounded by this fortress at that time). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterskirche_(Erfurt) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterskirche_(Erfurt) Its auxiliary buildings are long gone, and even auxiliary buildings from later centuries are long gone, too, and the church itself was converted and rebuilt many times.

danjc 4y ago

Something smells off about this story. It’s got linked references but I can imagine this ending up being disproven as one of those fictitious Wikipedia articles.

garciansmith 4y ago
The primary sources, both chronicles, are cited in the article, reproduced in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (a series of edited Medieval texts, known for being carefully edited). There could be issues, of course, like the original authors of the chronicles making up the stories, but this isn't just a baseless Wikipedia hoax. The Chronicle of Reinhardsbrunn, at least, does make specific mention that the nobles fell into a cesspit (cloaca) and died miserably by suffocating in the filth (sceno suffocati miserabiliter interierunt).
- danjc 4y ago
  I was half joking. You just can’t make this stuff up though.
zby 4y ago
Most probably they just died from the fall and only one or two landed in the latrine. But the latrine was the most salient part of the story - so it was what everybody was talking about and then it was recorded that way.
- TylerE 4y ago
  It seems latrine isn’t really accurate either. More like an (open…) septic tank
jprd 4y ago
I see what you did there.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yobbo 4y ago

Since they did not have water toilets, it would not be viscous like sewage. It would have consistency similar to a barnyard manure pile. To fill a floor to a depth enough to "drown" would require several years of collecting, which means it would be well decayed and much closer to soil than sewage. But it sounds too improbable to have happened.