Gone Medieval - Foolish Medieval Fatalities

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Who survives when medieval deaths are turned into Top Trumps? In this riotous made up game of Foolish Fatalities, Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis rank the most ridiculous ends of the Middle Ages, from a latrine disaster and Henry I’s fatal fish, to a king laughing himself to death and a ghoulish deadly bite delivered by a severed head. Expect gore, gossip, and (at least) one unforgettable toilet death.MOREThe White Ship DisasterListen on AppleListen on SpotifyJames II and the Deadly Black DinnerListen on AppleListen on SpotifyGone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, produced by Amy Haddow and Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week plus ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianica and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were. And how we got here.

Airfort, Germany, 1184. In the Holy Roman Empire, a group of nobles gathers in the city on a hot summer's day for what should be a routine assembly. It's an opportunity to settle disputes, reaffirm alliances, and conduct the usual business of power. gathered in the upper room of an ancient church, the hall fills with men of rank and influence. Lords and landholders, a cacophony of voices rising and falling in greeting, and argument.

The heat is thick and heavy within the old stone walls. But beneath the press of bodies, unseen but ever present, is a cesspit. overflowing from neglect. The floorboards creak as more men arrive, and something about the structure begins to feel less certain. Quietly at first, imperceptible to those in the heat of politics and power-making.

Then, without warning, the story takes a turn no one could have anticipated. Between 60 and 100 of those gather, are about to meet their maker, submerged and swallowed up in, well, the most unappealing possible way. Listen, everybody makes mistakes. We've all done something daft, something ill-judged, something that didn't quite go to plan.

And medieval people were no different. But what if your actions, or lack of them, are so terribly misguided, or the situation you find yourself in is so negligent that it doesn't just finish badly, with people basically dying. But it ends up in the historical record, remembered for centuries for just how gruesomely bizarre it is. Today, I've bribed the guards to release Matt Lewis from his duties, cleaning out the cesspit beneath history hit towers, and swelling out the pigs for a special game of Top Trumps, in which we try to outdo each other.

with the most absurd deaths and foolish fatalities of the medieval period. These are the deaths that make you pause, wince, and maybe just feel a little bit better about your own worst decisions. Okay, Matt, here we go. Listen, we are letting you up from the dungeon so we can gamble. Right? Absolutely. I'm going to start us off. Okay, I've been allowed up from the dungeon,

but I'm going to take us down even first. than that. I'm going to start us off with the air fur latrine disaster. Oh. Which I mean, there is not a word of that that doesn't sound like an amazing story, is there? I mean, this has got to be one of the most classic tales of how not to die from the medieval period, right? Like, this is got to be up there in terms of ways that you don't want to go. It's got household recognition for medievalists. I think we could say that. Why don't you talk the lovely listeners through the specifics?

How to die in a toilet. I mean, not for the last time today. How to die in a toilet. So we are here in the summer of 1184. So right in July, it's lovely and warm. Imagine everything is steaming and smelling lovely. Henry the 6th in the Holy Roman Empire is trying to arbitrate a land dispute. A couple of his nobles are arguing.

nothing too new there. He decides to get them all together in a big room, bang their heads together and sort it all out. And they all get together in this room on a kind of second floor of a building. There seems to be some dispute about which building precisely it was, so not 100% sure. But they're apparently on a second floor of a building. Everybody crams in there. And you can only imagine, I think, that there's this kind of creaky, breaky noise, because it turns out there's some rotten and Joyce in the floor that they're standing on. So as these kind of 60 or more people pile into this room, creak, creak, crash, bang. The floor falls through. A whole load of people fall through the floor with it. And we're told they also, the weight of them crashes through the

first floor as well. And underneath the first floor is a great big, stinking underground cesspit. All of the toilets for this place are directed in here. So the accounts tell us, that maybe 60 people die during this from a variety of crush injuries, drowning in a pile of poo. I mean, that's a pretty bad way to go. Broken bones, all kinds of injuries. Interestingly, though, Henry the 6th and one of his, I think it's archbishops who are there, I kind of say, because they're sitting in a stone alcove in a window. So, you know, they're chilling out by the window and the floor falls out and they're sort of left there sitting thinking, whoops, it, daisy, what do we do now?

And they have to sit there until people turn up with ladders up to the windows to try and rescue them. And yeah, you know, it's a pretty horrible way to go. So the way we're going to try and work some of these, we're going to give them all kind of scores on our little top Trump's game. So the first category that we've got is kind of a level of absurdity out of five. And I've gone for five here because it's impossible not to laugh at 60 Nobleman fall into a pile of poo. You know,

it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people. Absolutely. Yeah. The second category that we've got is the political impact of the absurd death that we're talking about.

And I've kind of gone for a two here in that it has fairly local significance. The Holy Roman Empire doesn't die. So there isn't that kind of huge crisis that would cause. There's some local, you know, several counts are killed in this disaster.

So there is some local kind of fallout from it. But it doesn't seem to cause a big political disaster. So I've gone pretty low on the political impact for it. And then the third category that we've got for each of these is kind of believability. How sure are we that this actually happened? And I've gone for a four out of five on this because we do have several accounts that give us the details of it. Again, they're not sure where it happens precisely, but they seem pretty clear both about the details and the fact that this did really happen.

So we've got a kind of total score of 11 out of 15 for the airfare latrine disaster, which seems pretty low for essentially posh people dying in a toilet. Well, listen, we simply love to see it to a certain extent. You just know the peasants were laughing for months. But I do think fundamentally it is just kind of like a fun factoid, right? And it is a pretty fun factoid, like, I mean, no. shade, I don't want to die in a pile of poo either. That would be awful. But I think that you are bang on here. It doesn't have any wide-reaching ramifications. It mostly just is something that

gets brought up as a bit of a laugh, which also kind of goes to show you how people really feel about nobility generally. I mean, even now they're like, T-he-he-he. You know, no one was really saying, oh, we should all feel awful for all these nobles even at the time. So I think you're pretty bang on there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think toilet humor, you know, is timeless. So, sure. Posh people dying in a toilet feels like a strong start for us, I think. So you now need to come up with something. You need to come up with an absurd medieval death that beats one of my categories there. Okay. Well, get ready with me. Because I am bringing to the table Godfrey the hunchback.

Does this ring a bell? What a name? What a name to begin with? Yeah, all right. Cast your mind back. We're going back in time from the air for latrine disaster. We are going to 1076, okay? And we have got Godfrey the 4th, and he is the Duke of Lower Lorraine, right?

And he is attacked while on a latrine. Okay? So listen, we got a latrine, the bridge to the latrine, right? And this happens in Antwerp. So, you know, we're talking about like a really incredibly fancy place. You know, being the Duke of Lower Lorraine is rather a big deal. These are towns that are incredibly important in terms of the cloth trade. So it is kind of odd to have like a fancy lad of this caliber struck in such a way. So okay, listen. More particularly, the way. The way. way that he is attacked is him from below. Ew. So.

So this isn't him falling into the toilet. This is the toilet coming to get him. That is right. So, you know, he's using the toilet as one does in perfect oblivion. And an assassin hits him with a spear from underneath. Which, yikes.

You know, listen, we don't love it. it's not exactly the way that anybody wants to be attacked at all. You don't want to feel vulnerable even anyway, you know, like as a general rule of thumb, but certainly not when you got your literal pants down. I mean, come on, right? And also what kind of sucks for him is this is sort of a slow death, right? You know, getting poked with a spear, it's not very nice. It's not very nice.

But it's also not very fast, right? You know, there are internal injuries. there's bleeding out. Also probably, I would imagine, if you're poked with a spear from within a latrine, we are probably going to be looking at some infection issues. So it's not a very fast thing, which isn't particularly great for poor old Godfrey here, right? I mean, I kind of feel two things with this. I mean, can a man not even go to the toilet in peace anymore?

I mean, of all the places in the world where you might have expected to enjoy a little bit of me time and not have to worry about anything else. But I feel that we need to shout out to the assassin as well. I mean, this is clearly a guy who's sitting under the toilet waiting for the right bottom to appear above him to stick his spear into. Right? Like, this is one of the things I'm like, I'd like, was he given a lineup? Do you think that someone like, you know, drew the bum in question and was like, take a look out for that one? Or, you know, did he just get lucky? Artist's compression of God for his backside. You know, who's doing the research on this? How many people did they have working on the case, right?

It seems like a bit of a mission. I mean, is this a private Godfrey toilet, or are you passing over several people who are above you relieving themselves and thinking, this isn't my time? I mean, this is the thing, right? I don't think that we have that many examples of absolutely perfectly private toilets at the time. You know, this is the Middle Ages. Like, that's not usually how things go.

You've just sort of got a latrine that is handy. Now, maybe if it's the middle of the night, night, you know, this is a latrine that is closest to Godfrey's bedroom, but even then, people don't sleep alone, right? So, yeah, like, how do we know if that's the bum? Did he just get lucky? There are so many questions surrounding this particular, this story. But, I mean, also, I think it's important to point out that this is kind of happening as a result of a lot of the power struggles that are happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the time, right? Like, you will know, for example, that my good friend in yours, Matilda of Tuscany, is very particularly

embroiled in some issues with Godfrey at the time because, bra, that's her husband. Right. So there were some people who were saying that Matilda might have been involved, for example. We know who's done the research. We know who's drawn the bum to aim for. Exactly, right. They're like, listen. And you know what, to an extent?

I'm like, yeah, I guess that does make sense. But I don't know. I think Matilda is a little too religious for all of that. Maybe I'm being naive, but I do think that she's kind of too afraid of the literal fear of God to get involved in that. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. It's a lot.

So given that we're still in the toilet, where are you beating down my airfare latrine disaster? Okay. Where are you trumping? Okay. Okay, listen, is it as absurd? No. Right. It's still pretty absurd. I'm saying that we're at a four here.

You know, we are murdered in a toilet by a spear. Come on, it's funny. Right. And if we hadn't just had the air for latrine disaster, it would probably seem higher. But like, let's just be honest. Now, where you're definitely getting higher, though, is political impact, right?

Because one of the things that happens as a result of this is Godfrey is on the side of the imperial faction of the investiture contest, right? So he's kind of like pro Henry and now we are one more guy down and suddenly the Pope's stock is rising, right? So I'm putting political impact here at a four, which definitely. So there is an international dimension to this, which there wasn't before. Yeah, absolutely. Like this has wide reaching implications, whereas the airfurt situation is just kind of funny, right? So, but where it does fall down in comparison to the litreine disaster is in the believability stake. So we're at about a three here, right? And this is because there are those who say

that this is kind of like a dramatic story that is surrounding an attack on Godfrey. Now, one way or another, we do believe that Godfrey was attacked and he died, right? So he absolutely was assassinated. Whether or not that happened in this way is up for debate because, you know, to a certain extent, again, this is embarrassing, right? You know, the idea of being caught with your pants down. That is something that these guys could be poking fun at. This might be satirical. So believability here is a three. And I guess here's a juke who's not dying a noble death, is he? He's not dying a warrior's death. He's not dying a peaceful death in his bed. So are we thinking that it could have been embellished? It could be a little bit apocryphal to embarrass him and all

of those kinds of things. And again, it's not the first or last time. We're going to hear about a medieval death that involves something entering the fundament. It seems to be a fairly favorite thing of medieval people who don't know how people died to imagine it was something like this. Listen, medieval people and bums are a match made in heaven. They have never met a joke about a bum they didn't like. They have never seen an opportunity to make that joke that they didn't like. So what I absolutely do believe about this is medieval people were giggling. Right.

So shout out to them. They're allowed to have a fun time too. Absolutely. Another nobleman dead on the toilet. Who's going to cry over that? I think having put Godfrey, I was going to say firmly to bed. but firmly on the toilet, but I don't know. A lot.

I'm going to move on, and I'm going to try and outdo you on believability. And I actually think this is one that I might be able to outdo you on political impact as well, but I'm going to go for believability. And I'm going to talk about Henry I, the First of England. Oh, this is so good. It should have been mine. Oh, oh, Matt. Oh.

Here is a man who has pretty much stolen the throne. You know, he was never meant to be king, youngest son of the conqueror. steals the throne from his older brother, imprisons his older brother for his entire life, has more illegitimate children than any other monarch of England has recorded. It's supposed to be something like 22 for certain and maybe some more are floating around out there as well. So this guy is well into the 20s of illegitimate children,

famously has an issue with less legitimate children. but he is desperately trying to hang on to the throne I think until his grandson, his oldest grandson, Henry, who is probably named for him, is old enough to take over from him because otherwise he's going to end with a succession crisis because he only has a legitimate daughter and I think he envisages that that's going to cause all kinds of problems.

So in 1135, by this point he's been king for 35 years. He's in his mid-60s. But generally, you know, a fairly robust kind of guy. he's been active all of his life. There's no real sense that he's ill. But in 1135, we get him sitting down to a feast, and he seems to have ordered a bunch of lampreys, one of his favourite foods, these kind of big, I don't know,

like shrimp-y things. I don't even want to think what a lampre taste like. I've never tried one, and I don't want to know. Apparently, Henry I first loves them. And we're told that his physicians have said, you know what, Henry, you shouldn't be eating this. It's bad for your cholesterol, bad for your blood pressure. I don't know what it is, but at your age, Henry, you shouldn't eat them.

And I like to imagine it being, you know, at your age you shouldn't eat them. And Henry saying, get stuff, guys. I'm pretty robust for a guy in his mid-60s. I'm going to have a go at these lampreys and I'm going to show you. And he eats himself into sickness and dies from what the chronicles describe as a surfeit of lampreys, eating too many lampreys. Which, I mean, you know, I think they told you, Henry, And you bought this kind of on yourself. So in terms of scoring this, I've gone for a three on the absurdity.

So our lowest score on absurdity yet. It's not, it's daft, isn't it? Eating stuff that your doctors have told you not to eat to the point that you kill yourself. Kind of. Daff, but not the most absurd thing we've heard because it doesn't involve a toilet. Yeah. We can't give it a really high score. Yeah, absolutely.

I agree with you there. Also, I think one of the things we have to keep in mind is doctors, you know, physicians in the middle ages, they're probably like, oh, yes, if you eat too many lampreys, it's going to make you colder and wetter. And as a result, you know, your humors are going to be out of alignment. So really, is that what killed him or was it just overeating? So, you know, I do think that, like, it brings the absurdity level down because it's not like this is a direct medical intervention that may or may not have worked, right? We do need to keep that in mind. Yeah, yeah. And this one scores really highly as well on political impact.

It's got a five for political impact, which is as high as it can get, because as I said, Henry was kind of holding on for his oldest grandson to be old enough to succeed him. And he fails to do that. His oldest grandson is still a baby when he dies. And so his death in this unexpected way before anyone was, was thinking they were going to have to worry about all of this kind of thing really sparks one of the most serious succession crises in medieval England. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is going to have a huge impact on the political life in England for the next, you know, what would have been a reign of someone, right? This is setting us up for the anarchy. This is where all the trouble comes from, right? So this is kind of.

of as bad as it gets in terms of how things can shake out if you are an English person. So yeah, I think we have to, we have to give it to the political impact. It's pretty big. It's pretty big. Yeah, I think so. Because, you know, we're talking about 19 years of basically civil war that follows it, the end of the Norman dynasty, the arrival of the Anjavine dynasty at the end of all of that. It's pretty seismic in terms of the impact that it has. But I went for trumping you on believability just because it's got a four on believability. So everyone seems pretty sure that, you know, he ate too many lampreys, got a bit of a tummy ache and died in the night. There doesn't seem to be too much doubt about the fact that it happened.

Quite why the lampreys killed him might be up for grabs. Nobody's too sure about that. But it seems pretty certain that, you know, he ate all of these lampreys. Physicians are told him not to, and that seems to have been what finished him off. Listen, you know, hoomst among us has not overindulged and thought they were dying, right? So a relatable king, what can we say? I mean, I may well be found dead one day from a surfeit of Pringles or something. I don't know. I have to say also just shout out on this particular one.

A surfeit of Lampreys, one of those phrases that lives rent-free in my head. And also, you know, if anyone's got an aspiring indie band out there, great name for a band. Great name for a set, like a difficult second album. Surfeit of Lampreys. Go for it, guys. I like it. Yeah. So what's your overall scoreier than, Matt?

So we've gone for an overall 12. to 15 for this, which is a pretty high score. You know, Henry the first death, I think, as we pointed out, is pretty silly and pretty disastrous for England as well. Well, Matt, I'm coming at you with a story to warm the hearts of Czech people, okay? Because today, I want to bring you the tale of your friend and Montwell now. He's not our friend. He's not our friend. He's my enemy. This is John of Luxembourg. He's sometimes known as John of Bohemia. I wish you wouldn't. Okay. I wish you wouldn't call him that. But he is the father of my favorite Czech guy, the emperor Charles the Force. And he is also known in the Czech lands as Kralseiz, or the foreign king. Right. Okay. So bad guy, in my opinion. Not a great dude treats the noble kingdom of Bohemia.

as though it is a bank account and spends all his time basically chasing the ladies and going to tournaments, right? But he is a consummate soldier and he, because he has great ties with the French court, ends up on the 26th of August 1346 at the Battle of Cressy

as so many nobleman and royal people do. Now, here's where this get stupid because being killed at the Battle of Chrissy look many such cases that's hardly new, right? It's not a weird thing to

be killed at the Battle of Chrissy, but he really seems to have wanted this, right? As the name, John the Blind, might indicate my good friend could not see at this point in his life. And

the tide is already turned against the French. Things have gone really, really badly. And many people, including his son, who was much smarter than he was, are beginning to retreat. But not John. No, no, because he is a king. And what he decides to do is order his knights to tie their horses together with his and then charge at the English cavalry. Which I cannot stress enough are being protected by a great number of Kentish bow.

And the entire point is it's very difficult to get near them in this particular battle. But in fairness to John, he can't see that, can he? He doesn't, he doesn't know. He's like, I would simply, I would simply charge. Why hasn't anyone done that, right? And his belief is that he can still strike a blow. His words, not mine, against the English. Spoiler alert, maybe he did strike a blow, but he also died.

And he also got his men killed. And, you know, we don't know exactly how he died because, you know, is he just one of the hundreds upon hundreds of people who was killed by the arrows, quite possibly? If you can't see, it's pretty easy to get your bell rung in the melee as well. Or if you can't see and you get knocked off your horse, very, very easy to get trampled in all that mud at Chrissy, right? but we do know about this one because like depending on who you ask some people are like oh isn't it heroic right and some people are like oh it's like quite tragic and i think if you asked english people they'd be like well that seems quite stupid um and i mean interestingly

if you ask check people they're like oh thank god finally this is brilliant okay this guy is out of the way, can we just kind of like get on with things with his son, which they do immediately. But I don't know. I suppose if you were John and you were such a terrible king, maybe this is the only way you can get yourself a good reputation. So, I mean, to be fair, maybe it's just a form of PR that I don't really understand, right? I mean, I think a couple of things on John. I am very well aware of your hatred of John.

So I'm not going to get you to try and feel sorry for him or think anything nice about him. I feel like there's two things here. This could have been hugely heroic. You know, the guy who's lost his sight just wants to die as a medieval knight in a battle, desperately trying to fight, trying to craft that legacy for himself. There's something admirable in that. Dragging two men down with you and forcing them to die tied to you in a weird kind of bondage session of melee death, makes this not very heroic. It makes this pretty horrible. You know, did these two guys volunteer to be strapped to the king and ridden to their death?

I don't know. I very seriously doubt it. But it can't have been pleasant for them. So the fact that he wants to do this, fine. I can get down with that. The fact that he feels the need to drag two people along with him is not good. This is John all over. I'm sorry.

This is just how he is just so selfish. He's always thinking about himself. He's never thinking about the good people of Bohemia or indeed his own knights. Okay? So, I mean, I do. That is something that I think about often, though, is those knights. And now, to be fair to him, this tends to be the thing, if you don't know Czech history, which most people don't. This is usually the thing that people know about John.

So, to what extent, I mean, he's actually played a blinder. because, you know, at least people know this story. But, I mean, whether or not you go along with his romanticized view is another thing entirely, right? And, I mean, accordingly, I think I'm giving it a pretty high absurdity level in that. I think it's a four. Now, I'm not awarding it all five points because for all five points, I need you to not drag those other nights down with you. Right? It's like it's just a little too sad to be fully absurd.

You can't even do absurd properly for you, can he? No, this man, this is the only thing he ever did for me was die. But, you know, fair enough, fair enough. Political impact? I am going for a three because it does have a political impact in that finally Charles is able to take the throne in his own right. But the impact that it makes is everyone is pretty happy about it. Right. So this is like, this is generally one where everyone was like, whew, great, you know. And so, you know, I think that when we kind of mean political impact, we mean that it has a destabilizing influence, whereas this particular death has an actual stabilizing influence, which, hmm, hmm, you know. And then, unbelievability, we're giving it a four. Everyone pretty much agrees that this happens. John's detractors say that this happens. John's supporters of whom there is presumably one or two.

Like basically people that Charles pays off to write about his family are like, isn't that heroic question mark, right? Like so, yeah. And we do get this story that, you know, even the Black Prince, Edward the Black Prince is so impressed. He comes across John's body on the battlefield and there is this legend that he takes John's ostrich feather badge and his motto of it. seen as the Prince of Wales's badge and motto, as they have been

ever since, which I, you know, people dispute whether that's true or not. But, you know, even his enemies are having some sense that he's done something fairly striking. Maybe not clever, but striking. Listen, he would be spending all his money on ostrich feathers. This guy.

This guy. Why don't you see to the safety of the roads in Bohemia? John. No, it's just all ostrich feathers and you dig this guy. I feel like I need to drag you down off your soapbox. Otherwise, we're going to get a really long rant about John. Listen, it's an 11.

It's an 11 out of 15. That's what we need to know. We can move on. The point is I'm right and I'm glad John is dead. Thank you. Right. I am next going to pick out something that I think trumps your political impact with John. Maybe has a bit more of an impact than that.

And this is the death of James II, the King of Scotland. And people may know kind of roughly what happens to him. It's a fairly well-known story. So James becomes king of Scotland at the age of about six. He inherits from his father. So he has this big, long minority. As always, there are families that try to dominate the government in Scotland who are trying to keep him forever young.

And he ends up, effectively he ends up using his marriage. to Mary of Gelder's as a way to sort of emancipate himself from his minority, to declare himself as a of age and to take control of the government himself. And one of the things that James is really into is guns and stuff that go bang, because he's a boy. Yeah. Who isn't. You're in a world where you've suddenly got all of these things that make loud noises and go bang.

James loves artillery. And he's, you know, obsessed with all of these things. And so kind of by 1460, James is focusing on Roxburgh Castle, which is a place that the English have still held onto after the Scottish Wars of Independence. The English are still there. And he's kind of bugging James. And he's thinking he wants to drive the English out of Roxburgh. And what better way to do it than all of his new toys. He's got new toys and he's going to bring them out to play.

And so he turns up there in the summer of 1460 and wheels out all of his cannon. and begins to bombard Roxburgh Castle. And on the 3rd of August, in 1460, we're told that he's standing next or near to one of these cannons and it backfires, it explodes, and he is taken out by his own gun, that he had invested all of this money

and all of this timing in the belief that it would help him get Roxburgh Castle back and help him make a name for himself. And I think it makes a different name for himself than he would have wanted it to because he dies at the hands of his. I mean, literally hoist by his own potard, I guess. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

I mean, it is one of the stories where you're just like, yeah, well, that's that, right? And I think it is important to keep in mind that at this point in time in the 15th century, you know, canon are a relatively new invention. And they do blow up, right? It is not that unusual for them to misfire, backfire, blow up and take people along with them. And they have to, therefore, be approached with a surfeit, not of lampreys, but of caution. Right. And James, I think probably just because, you know, he's a lad, just doesn't think about it that way.

And so this is one of these things that this all could have been avoided just by not being this hands-on with a gun. But on the other hand, you know, you know how dudes are. They love a canon. What can I say? You know, if you put a cannon out there that people could fire right now, I think that the number of dudes who would perhaps injure themselves is not in the zeros, right? You know, it's... Yeah, and I wonder how many people listening, if you're a man, have you done this?

If you're a woman, do you know a man who's done this? Going back to a lit firework, because it doesn't look like it's gone off yet. It's that kind of thing, isn't it? You know, I can imagine the aftermath with the... The inquiry beginning almost immediately into, A, who made this canon that just blew the king up, but also B, who told James he could stand there? Or who didn't tell him that that was a really bad idea. Oh, my God.

You know, it is, there is a death, a fairly horrible death, so you can't laugh that hard. But listen, I'm giggling. I'm giggling. What could I say? Yeah. What can I say? So in terms of scoring this, it's got a three for absurdity because it falls into the daft category rather than being hilarious. You know, it's silly.

It's something that could have been avoided, as you said, but maybe isn't the most absurd thing that we've heard so far today. There's no poo involved in this at all, Matt. Can anything win without the involvement of poo? That's the question. We have to see. We've got a while to try and find out. Where I think it does better than John's death is maybe the political impact,

because here is the King of Scotland dead. So we've got another king who is dead. said, to some extent John had willingly voluntarily gone to his death. This is the King of Scotland dying on a military campaign without actually wanting to. And also because he leaves behind a son in James III who is only nine years old. So Scotland having had a long minority with James II is now thrown back into a long minority with James III. And that's just going to allow all of those factions to emerge again, all of those families to try and assert themselves over the king.

and you've again got the issue of a child king and how does he get out of his minority and what kind of king is he going to be when he gets there because the traditional view is that child kings are never ever a very good idea. So here we've got a child king who's made it's adulthood who has died but left behind him another child king. So I think it's got a four for the political impact

because it's pretty significant for Scotland. And it's got a five for believability because there doesn't seem to be any doubt about what happened here. James stood too close to a cannon that exploded and he died. There is complete unanimity about this. I've never seen it disputed or doubted. So we've gone hard with a five on believability of this, which gives it a total score of 12 out of 15. So I think it's fairly significant, not the daftest thing we've heard, but pretty significant. Yeah, and I think that it's an important one to get in the conversation because it is a bit

of an absurd death, you know, maybe not a funny ha-ha absurd. But as you say, you know, listen, we got to cover all the parameters here, right?

But look, there's different ways to be stupid. And I'm trying them all, Matt. But look, I feel as though this is not sufficiently absurd, so I'm going to come at you with something more.

What have you got? Let's bring it back. Let's bring it back to the silly one. Now, this is one of my very, very favorite stories from the Middle Ages generally. Baby, we got to talk about Peter Bartholomew, right? Coming in hot? It's not fair you got this one. Coming in hot.

I wanted this one. So good, right? Okay, in the first place, shout out to one of our few non-royal or noble guys involved. And now, Peter Bartholomew, right? He, in the year of our Lord 1099, is involved in the first, crusade, and more particularly, he is bogged down in Antioch, as so many Europeans are at the time. They are underneath a terrible siege. Everybody's starving. Morale is in the gutter, right? But you know what Peter decides is going to turn this ship around is he believes, or at least he states that he has found the Holy Land.

under the floorboards and church. Which is interesting because there's a, there are already a few holy lances floating around Europe at the time.

But you know, hey, what's one more? Listen, you know, if you have a curious mind, you can think of lots of varying possibilities. To his credit,

we do see from the sources that this has provided a fair morale boost to the troops. Orwin says, yay, yay, we've got the Holy Lance. Now, whether or not everybody knows the story of like he just found it just now. That's another question.

But they all decide they've got the Holy Lance. Everybody rallies around. They manage to get on out there and break the siege. I say, before we go any further, what is the Holy Lance? I mean, it sounds like something from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We've got a Holy Hand grenade. What's the Holy Lance? Okay, so the Holy Lance is, you know, when Jesus is being crucified.

And at the end, they start feeling sort of bad for him. him with all of the pain and one of the soldiers decides to pierced Jesus's side, which ends his suffering, right? So this becomes a relic, first of all, because they decide that the guy who pierced his side, who they start calling a St. Longinus, which literally just means St. Lance, but like, okay, cool, go for it, bro. So, you know, you've got a relic associated with him. And also, you've got something that touched Jesus, right? And because Jesus ascended into heaven, we don't have a whole lot of bodily relics associated with him. I say we don't

have a whole lot. We've got like eight of his foreskin and like mouths and mouths and mouths full of baby teeth. But listen, we're taking what we can get. Apart of that. And so interesting that Peter would decide he's found this in particular, while all of the Christians are suffering in the

Holy Land and want their suffering to end, he's managed to find the relic that ended Christ's suffering on the cross. Exactly. So, you know, it is a very poetic move. And whether or not. He is intentionally doing that. Is up for debate. But listen, it kind of works. It raises everybody's spirits. They charge out of the city. They manage to break the siege. Hooray.

A couple days later, everyone starts going, buddy, listen, great work. Great work cheerleading. But is that really the holy lance? And Peter's like, yeah, it is. Shut up. That's a direct quote. Direct quote. That's what it says in. all the sources. And he says, not only is this the Holy Lance, but I am willing to undergo an ordeal by fire in order to prove this. Now, in this case, what we mean by that is essentially they light a huge, huge fire. And he walks through it carrying the lance and a branch. And guess how this goes? Right? Like, his idea is that for a guy who I was kind of assuming, is probably making this up. It's a bit of a, you know, a bit of a PR stunt, good for morale and all that kind of thing. This is really extreme in an effort to prove that that it's genuine. This is making me wonder whether he did think that he had found something serious. Because why not, you know, why not go, oh, I've lost it now. It must have disappeared. It arrived when

we need it and it's gone now. What can I say the end? But he's going in hard on this really is the holy lance that I thought. You know, I suppose that there's kind of rather a lot in it. for him. I know maybe he genuinely believes this, you know, or maybe he thinks that he can kind of like get through the fire. But the theoretical idea behind this is that if he's

telling the truth, since he's got this holy relic, it will protect him. It does not protect him. Spoiler alert. I mean, oh, what? He walked into a fire with two pieces of wood and it didn't they well. And so he suffers some

fairly severe burns. And he takes a while to die. All right. It's not a pretty way to go. It is pretty drawn out. My favorite thing about this, though, right? Is that he insists as he is dying from these terrible burns from walking through this fire that it's not, it's not the birds that are killing him. He's like, no, I'm just sick.

I just deal. That's, yeah. Something. I've got a bit of a call. It's probably that. I have dysentery. Yeah, everybody does, right? So he does end up dying.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that he did indeed die of the burns, which everyone pretty much agrees on in April of 1099. Shout out. What of the best to ever do it? One of the stupidest deaths, completely self-inflicted. I'm going all the way. I think the level of assertity on this is five. Because as you say that, he could adjust.

I think he may well be right. You didn't have to do it, bro. Like, come on. He did it to himself. I think one of the favorite bits of the story that I came across was there was a papal legate who was around at the time called Ademar of Le Pui. And this guy was like, Peter Bartholome is a charlatan and he's lying. He hasn't really found the Holy Lance.

And Peter's like, no, I have. I really have. And then Adamar dies kind of in 1098. At which point Peter starts saying, do you know what? I've had a vision of Adamar. and it turns out that he knows now that I was right. I really did find a holy lance. He's visited me in my visions.

The guy who called me a charlatan has been proven wrong. I mean, he's really going two feet all in on this, isn't he? And then to walk through fire, to willingly do that seems crazy. I mean, we can talk about a world where there is much more religious conviction that perhaps you will get protected from these kinds of things. But it still feels like it has to be a five for absurdity, doesn't it? It is just bonkers. To be fair to him, you know, much in the way that the story everybody knows about John the blind is that he dies in this silly way at Chrissy.

This is the thing we know about Peter Bartholome, right? He enters the historical record because he just goes all the way. He's like, I stand ten toes down on this, right? But look, you know, wherever falls down is a political impact because this is just some guy, right? And to his credit, the politically impactful thing that he already does is, you know, rallying the troops in terms of kind of helping to break the siege of Antioch. It doesn't do anything after he dies, though, right? And the believability on this is pretty high. It's at a four.

Everyone does kind of believe that he did this to himself. Yeah. But he disputes why he died, right? Which is why I'm giving it a four and not a five. Because there's that one holdout person who's literally convinced it wasn't the fire that killed him after he, walk through the fire. And it's him. It's the guy, right? So, so fair enough. But that is so important because I think it bumps the absurdity up. You know, it is really the icing on the cake. So listen, it's another 11 out of 15, but you got to talk about it. It's too funny not to. Absolutely. And

at least we're not talking about the believability of whether or not he actually found the Holy Lance. Maybe we don't want to get into that. But he definitely walked through fire and died from the fire, Unless you believe Peter. I am going to come back at you then with something that I think has a pretty significant political impact because Peter's death has very little impact. So I'm going to go hard next on some political impact. And a person that I didn't know very much about, this is a guy called King Martin of Aragon. And he is around in the kind of the late 14th century into the early 15th. He dies in 1410.

And there is lots of dispute about why he actually dies. But he's king of Aragon and he's been on the throne by the time that he dies for kind of 14 years. And there's lots of dispute about the way that he dies. But the story we're going to go with because it's the funny one, which may or may not be true, but has been reported and recorded ever since, is that someone who I presume is a jester at his court tells him a joke. Unfortunately, nowhere is it recorded what this joke was. And perhaps that's a good thing because this report claims that having been told this joke, King Martin of Aragon, laughs himself to death.

He gets it an absolute fit of uncontrollable laughter and dies as a result of it. I mean, what is this killer joke? I mean, there's some sources that say it's something to do with a goose, but a geese that funny? I don't know. I mean, my guess would have been bum, again, knowing medieval people. But fair enough, goose, sure. I mean, geese have bums. It could be a goose's bum.

Goose bum. Ah, see, now we're cooking. All right, okay. This is historical investigation live, this is. We're doing important work here, right? Look, I will say good for him. What a way to go. You know, like, we should all be so lucky as to laugh ourselves to death.

That's pretty ideal in terms of, you know, all the horrors that we've seen, you know, dying slowly of burns, drowning in poo, things of this nature. This is a pretty nice one, right? So, you know, good for him. He secures a nice way out of this life. And we love that for Martin. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's other sources that say he could have died of the plague or it's possible that he's kind of slipped into a coma or even that he was poisoned. but I'm just going to stick with

Guy laughed himself to death. Yeah. So I've gone for this one. I've gone for a level of absurdity of four. So less than Peter Bartholomew. But it's hard not to laugh at someone who laughs themselves to death. There's clearly a funny joke being told. And I kind of want to know what that joke is.

I would believe it more if I knew what the joke was. How about that? How about that? Yeah, yeah. And I've gone for a political impact here of a five. I've gone in high. out of five because his death causes a huge succession crisis. All of his heirs of his body are already dead.

They've pre-deceased him. And there ends up being a huge succession dispute that eventually ends with his nephew taking the throne. But we have to have this huge agreement called the compromise of Casp, which kind of sets out who's going to rule which of the territories and all of this kind of thing. And there is a huge halava that kind of reshapes the politics of the Iberian. Peninsula because King Martin has gone and left himself to death. But where this one really does fall over is the believability.

So it's got pushed to a two and a half on believability. And maybe it doesn't even deserve that because there are so many different accounts of how Martin died. But as I said before, this is recorded and it does persist, this idea that he left himself to death. So he's ended up kind of pretty high with an 11.5 out of 15 because it's pretty absurd and it's pretty significant politically, but it might well not have happened. I would be more likely to believe the story if I knew what the joke was.

Tell me the joke. Tell me the joke, guys. Even out of context, I just want to know. I'm going to come with you on this if you tell me the goose joke. Because otherwise, I have to be like, yeah, it couldn't have been the plague, right? It's got to be, it's got to be the joke. History says it's a goose. We're suggesting it was probably a bum as well.

And that's as far as we can get. The old goose bum. All right, well, listen, I'm bringing it back to the silly stuff. Okay. I'm so unlike you. I know. I'm such a serious person, Matt. But I think we have to shout out really quickly, the Dick of Clarence.

You know where I'm going with it. Oh, I know where this is going. Good old George, bad old George. Ah, so our friend George Plantagenet in 1478 is a right. and he is in the Tower of London, as is the style of the time. Listen, he was just trying to do some light treason against his brother Edward VIII, and you could blame him. You know, everybody loves it. It is the thing to do. We love a bit of treason. Now, allegedly, allegedly, because he is told that he is going to be killed for said treason, which is, yep, that's the punishment.

he is allowed to choose how he is going to die because he is, you know, a royal. So he gets to have these little niceties. His brother's going to kill him, but, you know, make your decision up. And also, allegedly, he says, because he is a gourmand, he is a bon vivant. He is a man on the town. He says, okay, I want to be drowned in a barrel of sweet momzy wine. baby. If I'm going out, I'm going out

Magaloof style. You know, and good for him. Good for him. It's a great idea in terms of delicious taste. I still would want to drown myself. Like, that's not very nice. I think I'm going to choose head cut off every time.

But I just don't have the style of a duke. Let's be so honest about it. And look, it's a great story. It's one of those ones that gets brought up all the time. If you go to the Tower of London, you are going to hear someone muttering about it, possibly me if I'm there at the same time. But we have to give it a five on the absurdity scale because it's just such a rich guy thing. Like, it's so silly. Come on, man.

Because if it happened, he chose it for himself as well, which is a weird way to choose to die. He died like he lived as a fancy little lad, okay, right? Political impact on this pretty high. It's a four. I mean, one way or another, this is a plantagenet that we're talking about here. This is a result of a conspiracy and it is going to help to destabilize the plantagenets at the time, which is going to lead to your favorite thing in the world, Matt. But it's pointed to as one of those things that drives a wedge between Edward VIII and his younger brother Richard,

you know, that they disagree over what should have happened to George. So perhaps the significant impact that we see of this is its role in what happens in 1483. You know, Edward IV, the fourth son is deposed? Is George's fate playing into that at all quite possibly? And, you know, so we have to, we can't discount that, right? Believeability on this, though, I'm going to be so real with you. It's low. I don't think this actually happened.

I think that this is this is an apocryful story in. my opinion, but it does tell us a little bit about George himself and his proclivities. So there is still a little bit of truth to it in that we know how he might feel about things. So it's 11 out of 15. Yeah, yeah. And there's an interesting story that there's a portrait believed to be of his daughter, Margaret, and the portrait has a barrel charm around a wrist. And the suggestion is that that's a pointing to the way that her dad died.

But yeah, we don't really have any concrete evidence to make us believe that it really happened that way. Maybe she's just also a chilled chick who loves to chug wine. You ever think about that? What, girls can't have hobbies? Maybe she takes after her dad in one way. That's right. I'm going to come at you with something a bit more believable, but only a little bit more believable. I'm not sure I can beat you on absurdity or political impact with this, but I can maybe shade it on believability.

And this is Louis III of France, who was around in the ninth century. He's, what is he, like a great, great grandson of Charlemagne. So he's, you know, around when the time of Charlemagne's empire is fracturing and there's lots of disputes about all these different patchwork of territories that will one day become kind of France and Germany and all of that kind of thing. And he's also dealing with some Vikings, because he's round about the right time for a load of Vikings to be attacking his territories too. And the thing about Louis is he, unusually for the period, is doing quite well.

against the Vikings. He's managing to push them back. He's managing to defeat the Vikings at a time when nobody else is able to do that. But in 882, we're told that, you know, he's a young man. He's having some military success. What he really wants now is a woman. But not a wife. He's obviously just having a moment. He spots a young woman who he quite likes the look of and begins to ride after her on his horse. She runs away for reasons best known to her, but probably completely understandable. Yeah, chicks love it when you are chasing them down on horseback. What could I say? I mean, does it get more romantic than being pursued through the streets by a strange man? She does the natural thing and she runs home. Runs in through the doorway of home.

Louis is determined that he is not going to give up on this chase, spurs his horse on and rides through the doorway of her house at full pelt on his horse and cracks his head on the lintel of the door. Smashes his skull in, spills his brains and dies from the injuries. He's 18 years old and he's literally just killed himself in an effort to chase a woman. It's a pretty crazy...

What could I say? Oh yeah, I mean, what could possibly go wrong when the world is run by people like this, hey? we've gone for this not being too absurd I mean it's got a two for absurdity it's a little bit daft but it's also it brought it on himself a little bit

he's behaving in a pretty creepy way the political impact we've gone for a three it doesn't have a huge long term impact but you know he had been having success against the Vikings which stalls the Vikings begin to do a little bit better in his area when he's gone. And all of his stuff, all of his lands go to his brother,

which unites a bunch of territory in West Francia and maybe starts the movement towards this consolidation of lands that will eventually become something like France. So there's a bit of a political impact there, but not a huge one. And the believability, it's got a three. So it kind of just shades George. George had a two. This gets a three because there seems to be more consensus in the sources

that it could be an anecdote, but it's generally broadly accepted that he dies by smashing his head on the lintel of a door riding his horse. Like, you know, the wise and wherefores are another thing entirely, but, you know, he did bonk his bonnet. We can all agree on that.

Okay, well, look, I am going to go in with a higher absurdity rating. Okay, listen. This is Sigurd the Mighty. Do you know this one? This is quite a fun one, okay? He is the Earl of Orkney, also in the 9th century. And he, as many earls of Orkney are wont to do,

is involved in some hand-to-hand combat with a rival. And he best, said rival. To celebrate, as Vikings are wont to do, he cuts the dudes head off. Now, also as Vikings, are want to do, he very much decides he's going to flaunt it, right? Like, this is how we butter our bread, baby. This is how you know not to mess with the Earl of Orkney, right? I'm going to, I'm going to ride around with a severed head on my saddle and show you people what's what, right?

So he's got this head. He puts it on his horse, and he's having a little bit of a parade about going, you like that? Severed head. Killed my rival. But here's the thing. thing. It is alleged that as he is writing, the teeth of the head sort of scratch his leg, and there's a resulting wound which becomes nastily infected. And as a result, Sigurd then dies soon after. And look, you and I have got to say, now this, Now that's absurd, baby. Like, what do you mean? Getting bitten to death by a dead person is pretty absurd.

Like, he's not a snake, bro. Like, come on. He's hardly just, like, sitting there and giving it a gnaw afterwards. Now, I will say, okay, like, yeah, humans' mouths are filthy, and it is pretty easy to get infected if someone does give you a bit of a chop. Now, whether or not that can happen, as you are riding around town, trying to show people what a big bad warrior

you are. That's another question. But we got to say, that's a five out of five. That's just stupid. That is an absurd and very silly way to go, right? Like, heads off to Stigard, right? Political impact on this

medium. It's about a three. Like, right, he's the Earl of Orkney. So, of course, this is going to have some impact, but let's also be so for real. These are Vikings, we're talking. about they're constantly killing each other right like there's a new Earl of Orca. There'll be another one in the next ship. Yeah exactly like

you know you wait ages for one to come along at once right that's how it is unfortunately though the believability on this one is low this is a saga story you know and the sagas will also be like and then Thor showed up right and like

listen and I I simply love to see it do I think Thor actually showed up no do I think that a guy I got bitten or at least scratched by a severed head. Probably not. But I still like the story. I still like to talk about it because it's funny. So look, it's a 10 out of 15, but let's be so for real.

It's a good giggle as well. It is. It's a good story. Right. I've got kind of a last card to play. And you know how in a deck of top trumps is always that one that's almost undefeatable? I think you might have arrived at that card. Okay.

Because this kind of affects someone that we've already spoken about, little bit, but this is 25th of November 1120, which may well be a date that rings bells all over the place. You do not. Oh, come on, Matt. I can't believe this. We have weedled in at the end of this, the white ship disaster. I mean, it rightly positioned us as a disaster.

So there's a fantastic episode of Gone Medieval with Charles Spencer all about the white ship disaster if you want to learn loads of detail about all of this. But essentially, you've got a bunch of young blokes, and we're going to. end up in a third story. Who'd a thunk? A bunch of young guys going to race a ship over the channel.

So the king of England is Henry I, who we've mentioned earlier. He has already set sail for home across the channel from Barfleur to England. His only legitimate son and heir, William Adeline,

is going to get on this white ship, which is kind of newly fitted, newly appointed. It's kind of like giving 17-year-olds the keys to the Ferrari and telling them to go knock themselves out. And as they're preparing to get on the ship, they're bringing on barrels of wine, tons of stuff, they're getting

drunk, they're encouraging the crew to get drunk. What could possibly go wrong? So as night falls, as it turns dark, all of these drunk people sail out from Barfleur Harbor, they make it, I don't know, like 50 metres before they smash the side of the ship into this rock that everybody knows is there. It's still there today. Everybody knows that this is a hazard, but guess what? They're all drunk and they don't manage to avoid this rock. They are all pulled down to the sea. Nobody really swims at this point. They're all wearing their lovely fine silk clothes that give them zero protection against

the November Channel waters. So they can't swim. They're freezing to death as well. We get odd bits of stories of people bobbing up. One point one chronicle says that the captain the ship bobs up and says, oh, where's the prince? And somebody else who's bobbing around still says he died. gone to the bottom of the seat. And the captain is so convinced that he's going to be in trouble

for this that he just allows himself to sink and he's like, oh yeah, might as well just go now because I hate to think what the king's going to do to me for this. There's one survivor, a man named Barrow, who's a butcher from Ruan, who was kind of chasing the royal court to get some bills paid and he's saved by the fact that he's wearing this lovely big feces, woolen coat that protects him from the cold and helps him to float a little bit. So all of the rich people sink, one of the very few poor people on board is the only person that survives. So yeah, it's a terrible, terrible story. We've gone for a level of absurdity of four, so not undefeatable, but it is a bunch of young

folks getting drunk and getting the crew of their ship drunk too, and then probably in their last moments wondering why on earth they've crashed a ship. What could they have done to avoid this? Who knows? Political impact, I mean, we've gone hard on a five. because this is what drives Henry the first to try and appoint Empress Matilda as his heir. So she is his only surviving legitimate child by that point. He's aware that there's going to be a huge succession problem because he hasn't got a son.

And so this is a thing that feeds into the anarchy and everything that comes after that. So we talked about Henry's death is kind of sparking all of that off. But this is the fuse being lit on all of those things that are going to come. And we've also gone hard with the believability of five. So top score on that too, because all of the chronicles are pretty adamant about what happened. The ship definitely sank. William Adeline definitely died in there and they were definitely drunk as well. So this gets a 14 out of 15.

It's a hard score. It's probably the undefeatable card in the deck. You're going to have to come up with one of your stupid absurdity fives just to beat this card, I think. Well, Matt, I can't do that. So it's the point. There's no point, Matt. Showing me up. This is why I keep you in the dungeon.

Okay, look. No. What am I meant to do with this? But I mean, honestly, mate, I think that one's so good. There's just nowhere to go. I'm calling it in. You win. You are in so many ways my superior.

But this is just one more example. So what a treat. What do I win a week in the dungeon? Yeah. All expenses paid, babe. Well, listen, you know what? If I gave you any money, you'd just spend it on drink. And as we've all seen, when mixed with boats, that can lead to a disaster. So we're calling it in. Get me a barrel of malmsey wine and some fireworks that don't go off immediately. Matt, pleasure is always. You're a scholar and a gentleman. And apparently, a bit of a card shark.

Thank you so much for coming to visit. Always an honor. Always fun. Thanks for having me. Well, there you have it. Gone Medieval's official ranking of some of the most foolish, unfortunate deaths the Middle Ages has to offer. Let us know in the Spotify comments

what you think about the rankings or if you have any honorable mentions that we've missed. Thanks to Matt for coming to chat and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, The Trials of Jard of Arc,

by signing up at historyhit.com forward slash description. And if you like mat and I's foolishness, we have got a special something coming up for you in the next few weeks, so watch this space. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions

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