In 1184, a royal meeting in Erfurt, in what is now Germany, turned into one of the most grotesque disasters in medieval history.

King Henry VI had gathered nobles and officials to help settle a political dispute. The room was crowded, the building was old, and underneath the floor was something nobody wanted to fall into: a large latrine pit.

Then the wooden floor gave way.

Chroniclers reported that many attendees plunged through the collapsing structure into the cesspit below. Some were crushed by debris, while others drowned in the waste. Estimates vary, but the disaster is often said to have killed around 60 nobles and officials.

Henry VI reportedly survived because he was sitting in a more secure stone window recess when the floor collapsed. In a century full of battles, sieges, and assassinations, this was a political meeting defeated by architecture and plumbing.

Medieval history did not just have dirty politics; it had deadly floor plans.