The Erfurt Latrine Disaster: When 60-100 Nobles Drowned In A Pit Of Human Excrement
In July 1184, Henry VI, King of Germany (later Holy Roman Emperor), held court at a Hoftag in the Petersberg Citadel in Erfurt.
On the morning of 26 July, the combined weight of the assembled nobles caused the wooden second story floor of the building to collapse and most of them fell through into the latrine cesspit below the ground floor, where about 60 of them drowned in liquid excrement.
King Henry was said to have survived only because he sat in an alcove with a stone floor.