Stuff You Should Know
Hosted by Josh Clark
Original podcast
A terrible thing happened in Germany in the summer of 1184. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2,846 words · 4 speakers
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Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and Chuck's here too. Jerry's here too. Dave's not, that's okay, because Jerry's here covering for him and this is stuff you should know, short stuff.
That's right. And we're going to issue a trigger warning on this one. You see there in the title, the words latrine disaster. So I don't think we need to over explain what's coming.
No, if you're easily grossed out, then be careful with this. When I was researching and writing this one, I noticed that my stomach was actually upset. It's so gross in places.
Was it really?
Yeah. I'm not easily, I have a fairly iron stomach when it comes to stuff. And this one got me a little bit. So, but let's start at the start. We're going to go all the way back to 1184 CE, nearly a thousand years ago. And we're going to go to, is it Thuringia?
I guess. I'd never heard of that word, but that's probably right.
So it's a state that's still around in Germany, almost smack dab in the center of modern day Germany. And in Thuringia in 1184, there was a dispute. The reason for the dispute is lost to history. But we know that it was between Ludwig III, who was landgrave, AKA prince of Thuringia. So he's a very powerful person in the region. And the other guy, the other disputant was Conrad of Wittelsbach, who was at the time the Archbishop of Mainz, who was also a very powerful person in the reason, region.
That's right. And like you said, we don't know exactly why. And frankly, it doesn't matter as far as this story goes. What matters is during this time, this is the High Middle Ages, there was the King of Germany, Heinrich the, what is that, VI? He would eventually become the Holy Roman Emperor. He knew this was coming, so he was on a sort of campaign to lobby different rulers in various lands to say, hey, let's change the line of succession for the Holy Roman Emperor to, where bloodline is the key, instead of just being crowned by the Pope, because I'm in that bloodline. And so, he was trying to just get people on board with his plan is kind of the backdrop there.
Yeah. And that would have taken a huge amount of power from the Pope. So it was a pretty big deal. And surprisingly, he was fairly successful at raising support from it around the kingdom. But there were some holdouts still, and a lot of them were concentrated in the Thuringia area. So when he heard about this dispute between Ludwig and Conrad, he saw an opportunity to basically show up and act fairly kingly and mediate and hopefully resolve the dispute. So he would be killing two birds with one stone by showing up in the town of Erfurt, which is the capital of Thuringia, which he did in July of 1184. And he convened what's called a Hoftag. I'm just killing it with the German pronunciations today, if I do say so myself.
I may just go to have a nap. You're doing so great.
Thanks.
So a Hoftag is just like a assembly, like an informal assembly, not a formal meeting. And there were a lot of the local rulers, some of them came because they were told to, you know, because of this dispute. Some were just like, hey, the king's going to be there. Maybe I can get some face time, which is exactly what he wanted. And it was held very keeley.
Sure. That works.
There's another word. I just can't find it again. Morning recording.
Importantly.
Sure. It was held at Petersburg Citadel, which was a fortress there in Erfurt, still there today. It was about 15 years old at that time. And even more key to this is the latrine layout. And maybe we'll take a little break and talk about that layout right after this.
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So Chuck, now's the point where we talk about medieval latrine design, which I know way more about today than I did just a couple of days ago.
Good band name.
Yeah.
I mean, it's actually a terrible band name, but a band name.
Right, a band name. Well put.
So around, during the medieval era, especially this time in the, the High Middle Ages, which is what we're talking about today, there were a bunch of different latrine designs. And probably some of the fanciest were latrines where the, the actual restroom where you relieved yourself was essentially a little alcove, just off of like a hallway, or just very importantly, off of the banquet room, because it was considered rude at the time, at least in parts of Germany, to excuse yourself from the table during a dinner. The problem was these dinners were really, really long. And so the solution was to just put the latrines right by the table so that you could continue on with your conversation while you were relieving yourself in this doorless restroom.
That was the norm, not excusing yourself from the table and going to use a bathroom way far away from the table.
Yeah, exactly. The toilet seats is sort of what you might imagine from a latrine. It was wooden. There was a hole cut in the center. They did have a masonry basin that would direct the, the stuff downward. And, you know, they would wipe their, their butts with hay or grass or moss or something like that.
Moss would be nice.
Moss would be okay, like a nice green moss.
A big clump of it.
Yeah. But suffice to say, these rooms were disgusting and smelly. The ammonia could get so bad, sometimes they would hang their clothes near there because they thought, they may be right about this, that ammonia could kill mite.
Yeah, just the smell.
Yeah, so hang your clothes up near there. And what would happen if you look at the outside of a castle? A lot of times, these restrooms were projected outward from the wall itself a little bit. There was a hole in the bottom and the waste just dropped out of that.
Just trickle down some sides of the castle, the walls of it. And I guess it depends on how long, how far the alcove was projected off of the castle walls. But I would guess without these tubes that later evolved to kind of deposit it more cleanly toward the ground, especially in a wind, that waste would just kind of trickle down the castle walls, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
Yeah, and it would go, maybe just be washed away to whatever waters nearby. If you were unlucky, you might have a moat full of that. You did mention tubes eventually in places like France, they would actually have like plumbing piping on the outside of the walls to make it just a little neater. But then they found out, hey, people can climb up these pipes to gain access to the castle, so those aren't good.
Yeah, in 1203, there was a siege of Chateau Gallard, and the invaders actually climbed up the sewage pipes into the castle to gain access. And do you know how badly you want to get into a place to climb up a medieval waste pipe through the latrine?
Well, the waste is at least on the inside of the pipe.
Right, I think that you had to climb up the inside of the pipe to get into the castle.
Oh, I thought that I pictured it as like a pipe running down the outside of the castle that they would just climb up.
Yes, but eventually, all you're doing is hanging out on the outside wall of the castle. Yeah, I hadn't actually considered your interpretation, and it's possible, that's right. My mind just immediately went to the idea that they had to tunnel up through the inside of the pipe.
Oh, like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption.
Yeah, yeah, which is probably, I'm sure Stephen King was inspired by the Chateau Gallard story.
That's right. All right. So none of that really matters because all that matters is that's how it worked in some places, but in this particular Petersburg Citadel, it didn't work like that at all. It worked like this is there was a latrine and you did your poo poo and your pee pee and it just went right under the floor into a disgusting cesspool that would maybe be cleaned out once a year by some very unfortunate servants.
Yeah. Can you imagine like you'd have to get in there with buckets and rakes and have to clean it out because of this kind of cesspool that would be like just a pit in the basement? They usually had some like slits in the top between, you know, the foundation of the, or in the foundation of the castle so that they could only get so full before they kind of overflowed. But that means that there was always some in there that you had to kind of clean out. And I just can't imagine doing that because it turns out that in the Petersburg Citadel, the latrine was, was in the basement. So the floor above the latrine, we would guess the first floor, that's where the hofftag was, was held. And even though
the Petersburg Citadel was built just like 15 years before, there were so many people, not just nobles, but all of the attendees and advisors that each noble brought with them, that the floor actually collapsed and sent a lot of people into the cesspool below.
Yeah. I mean, they say that between 60 and 100 people died. So, I mean, what percentage of that was of the total people? Like, was it hundreds and hundreds of people in there? Or did most of them die?
So I have the impression that a significant portion, I'm just guessing here, a significant portion died because 60 to 100 people, like you said, that was just the nobles whose deaths were recorded. Remember, each noble had multiple people with him. So, yeah, ostensibly hundreds of people died from falling into the cesspool. And one of the main ways they would have died is from drowning, probably being held under by other people climbing over them to try to get out of the cesspool. And honestly, you can't really blame those people for reacting like that.
No, you're trying to get out of there. You're stepping on the nobleman next to you's head to get to get out of there.
On his Burger King crown?
Yeah, exactly. There was one source you found that said someone may have died from stench and that may have been like an ammonia death. If the ammonia level was higher than, I think you found 5,000 parts per million, they could have suffered from a respiratory arrest and died.
Yeah, and that's a significant amount. I think at 0.2 parts per million, humans can start to detect it by smell. So you can imagine how how crazy 5,000 parts per million would be. But, I mean, if they're using ammonia in the actual restrooms above to kill mites, who knows? It's entirely possible that some people did die like that.
But, my friend, what happened with the Hoff tag? Did it kill all of our major players?
No, what's astounding is that all three of the major players, Heinrich, Conrad, and Ludwig, all survived.
That's, I mean, it's just dumb luck, basically. I think Heinrich and Conrad had stepped into an alcove that wasn't on that floor that collapsed. And I don't think anyone knew where Ludwig was at the time, at least it's not recorded in history, but we know Ludwig survived.
Yeah, his death was was recorded at six years after the the Erfurt-Luttrein disaster. So somehow he survived, but we know he survived. And the fact that Heinrich didn't die is considered by historians who talk about this sort of thing as a world changing event. Because, like we said, he went on to become Holy Roman Emperor. He also became, and this is a hat tip to our friends at Historic Mysteries, who I got this from, he went on to become the King of Burgundy, Italy, and Sicily. He became feudal overlord of the Kings of England, Lesser Armenia, and Cyprus, and tributary lord of North African princes.
Jeez.
He got around.
Yeah, and he became overlord of England because he captured or held Richard I hostage. And that's Richard the Lionheart from the Robin Hood myths. And as ransom, he said, I'll let you go, but you have to give me control over your kingdom in England. And Richard I reluctantly agreed.
Richard I should have said, man, you almost died in a pool of poop.
I don't want to hear it from you.
What's remarkable to me is that if you go to the Petersburg Citadel website, they do not say anything about this amazing, amazing, though gross, amazing story.
Yeah, the other thing that's a little hinky about it is that I could not, for the life of me, find even a reference to the name of a primary source for this. So I have no idea where it came from. If it's made up, it has become fact so thoroughly that, again, historians write about this kind of thing. Like, everyone talks about it, from, you know, BBC History Extra to 92.3 rock radio station's website for some reason.
Wow. Well, maybe one day we'll do a follow-up called the Latrine Disaster Hoax.
Maybe. Maybe we'll find out one day.
Good story. It was written by a seven-year-old German, apparently.
That's right, in 2018.
Let's see, that's it. We just kind of stopped talking about the disaster, which means short stuff is out.
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Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated