Drowning in a Pit of Shit Part 2

The sinking of Tony Blair's hopes of becoming the first president of the European Union has delighted some and dismayed others. However, it is not the first time the unelected leader of a pan-European community has seen everything collapse around him. In the following account, the sinking feeling was more than metaphorical - resulting in a mass drowning in a medieval privy. The horror!

In 1184, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I summoned a Diet (an Imperial assembly) in the German city of Erfurt. Business as usual, one might think...

 

The Emperor… had occasion to go to the privy, whither he was followed by some of the nobles, when suddenly the floor that was under them began to sink; the emperor immediately took hold of the iron grates of a window, whereat he hung by the hands till some came and succoured him. Some gentlemen fell to the bottom where they perished. And it is most observable, that amongst those who died was Henry, Earl of Schwartzenburg, who carried the presage of his death in a common imprecation of his, which was this, If I do it not, I wish I may sink in a privy.

(Nathaniel Wanley – The Wonders of the Little World 1678)

The Emperor escaped but at least eight princes and several nobles and knights were left to drown.

Spot the difference?

Frederick I                 Tony Blair