The Dumbest Deaths in the Middle Ages…

Passing around Louis III of France. Louis was born around 865, the eldest son of Louis the Stammerer and Ansgarde of Burgundy. His father was king of Aquitaine and later the king of West Francia. When he died, Louis the Younger’s short reign was plagued with questions about his legitimacy because his parents had married in secret. This meant that Louis had to rule alongside his brother Carloman II as many refused to recognize him as the true king.

After Viking raids became a problem in the Frankish kingdoms, Louis and his brother ambushed the raiders at Saucourt in the summer of 881. The fighting was bloody, but according to the Annals of Fulda, the West Franks slaughtered around 9,000 Vikings and were victorious. At just 16, Louis was a hero among his people and the poem Ludwigslied was written to celebrate his piety and bravery in battle.

When he was about 17 in the following August, it wasn’t a Viking that killed Louis, but rather his love for a young lady. They were both on horseback and Louis was chasing her when she decided to ride home to her father’s house. Louis followed but snapped his head on the lintel of a low archway. He fell from his horse and died from a cracked skull.

His brother was unsuccessful in his war against the Vikings and he died in a hunting accident just 2 years later. Well, hunting accident is putting it kindly. His servant stabbed him in the leg by mistake when they were attacked by a wild boar.

Caught in the act: Basil the First. Basil was a Byzantine emperor during the 9th century, but he wasn’t born into royalty. Basil, born a Macedonian peasant, worked his way up through the imperial court after becoming a favorite of Emperor Michael III. It was around 865 that Michael ordered Basil to divorce his wife and marry Eudokia Ingerina, Emperor Michael’s favorite mistress. A year later, Michael made Basil co-emperor.

In 866, Basil, who was jealous of another courtier, planned Michael’s assassination and placed himself on the throne as sole ruler, the first of the Macedonian dynasty. Despite his humble upbringing, Basil was a successful and well-respected monarch who improved laws and achieved military success.

After an effective 19-year reign, Basil died in the summer of 886. According to the Vita Euthymii, Basil was hunting deer in Thrace when,

“He was giving chase alone, for his companions were tired. But the stag, seeing him isolated, turned in his flight, and charged, trying to gore him. He threw his spear, but the stag’s antlers were in the way, and it glanced off useless to the ground. The emperor, now finding himself helpless, took to flight. But the deer, pursuing, struck at him with its antlers, with the result that it carried him off. For the tips of the antlers, having slipped under his belt, the stag lifted him from his horse and bore him away. And no one knew this had happened till they saw the horse riderless.”

Basil was dragged through the woods for 16 miles before an attendant stopped the deer and cut him loose with a knife.

“Stop.”

The emperor believed the servant was trying to assassinate him and had the man executed shortly before Basil succumbed to his injuries and died.

What goes around: Hatto, so legend says, was Archbishop of Mainz. Now Mainz is a German city but in the 10th century it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Hatto is said to have done some good things during his life like building a church, donating money to the upkeep of a couple of abbeys, and patronizing the Carolingian chronicler Regino of Prüm. However, he was also known as a cruel man who oppressed the peasants under his rule.

There was a small tower set on an island in the Rhine. Hatto placed archers and crossbowmen on the tower so that he could demand monies from any passing ships. In 974, there was a famine in the area. Hatto stored all the grain in his barns and only sold it to the starving peasants at high prices which most of them couldn’t afford. The peasants naturally were angry and fearing a rebellion, Hatto promised to feed them. He told them to meet him at one of the barns where he would give them grain. However, when they got there, the barn was empty. They waited inside.

Hatto arrived and ordered his men to shut and bar the doors before setting fire to the barn and burning everyone inside to death. As the people screamed, Hatto laughed and said,

“Hear the mice squeak.”

Later, Hatto was supposedly set upon by thousands of mice in his tower where they ate him alive. In Robert Southey’s poem, God’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishop, he wrote,

“They have whetted their teeth against the stones, and now they pick the bishop’s bones. They gnawed the flesh from every limb, for they were sent to do judgment on him.”

The loo: Edmund Ironside. Edmund II was king of the English and began his short reign in 1016. He was the son of Æthelred the Unready and inherited a war with the Danes from his father and was given the nickname Ironside because of his bravery in challenging the invasion led by Cnut. In 1015, Cnut pillaged most of England and despite Edmund fighting five battles against the Danes, he was defeated and had to divide up his kingdom. Keeping Wessex for himself, Edmund agreed that Cnut should rule the rest of the country.

Edmund died after ruling for only 7 months. After William the Conqueror’s invasion of 1066, the German medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen said that he had been poisoned. However, later 12th century writer Henry of Huntingdon said that Edmund was murdered while sitting on the toilet,

“Having occasion to retire to the house for relieving the calls of nature, the son of the Ealdorman Edric concealed himself in the pit and stabbed the king twice from beneath with a sharp dagger and leaving the weapon fixed in his bowels, made his escape.”

Curiosity killed the king: James II of Scotland. James was born in 1430 and was known as Fiery Face because of his vermilion birthmark. After his father James I was violently murdered, James Junior ascended to the Scottish throne when he was just 6 years old. His reign was one long round of power struggle as James tried to keep control of his kingdom and the families of Percy and Douglas feuded around him.

After involving himself in the English dynastic struggles that we now call the Wars of the Roses, James was trying to recover Roxburgh Castle when,

“This prince, more curious than became him, did stand near hand the gunners when the artillery was discharged. His thigh bone was dung in two with a piece of misframed gun that break in shooting by the witch. He was stricken to the ground and died hastily.”

James was just 29 years old.

What’s your poison? Sultan Baibars al-Bunduqdari, commonly known as Baibars, meaning the great panther. He was the Mamluk ruler of Syria and Egypt and was known for his ruthlessness and obsession with holding on to power. Baibars successfully used a network of spies in his quest to keep one step ahead of both the crusaders and the Mongols.

In 1277, his astrologers foretold that a king would soon die of poison. Having just returned from Anatolia, the Sultan was jealous of a popular Ayyubid prince there and believed that in killing the prince, it would satisfy the prophecy. So Baibars invited the prince to a feast in Damascus.

Baibars put deadly poison in his own goblet and offered it to the prince who drank deeply. One of Baibars’ servants took the goblet from the prince and refilled it. Not knowing that the poison had left its trace in the chalice, he gave it back to Baibars, who drank from it. Having a larger dose of poison meant that the Ayyubid prince died quickly that night. But Baibars suffered in agony for several days before he eventually died, fulfilling the prophecy.

Fell down, broke his crown: Béla the First of Hungary. Nicknamed the boxer, Béla was the son of Vazul, a grand prince of the Hungarians. Vazul was kept prisoner and blinded by his cousin, King Stephen I, in the last years of his reign. After Vazul was executed, Béla left Hungary with his brothers Andrew and Levente, but returned after Andrew was crowned king of Hungary in 1046.

Béla rebelled against Andrew, who was mortally wounded on the battlefield, and he became King Béla I in 1060. In an attempt to end conflict with the Holy Roman Empire, Béla released German prisoners. But this still didn’t appease them. He was just about to abdicate in favor of his nephew Solomon, who enjoyed German support when, according to the Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle, his throne broke beneath him. The fall must have been a pretty long drop because Béla, who was said to be half dead from his injuries, died shortly after.

Bad karma: Charles II of Navarre. Charles, known as the bad, ruled the kingdom of Navarre that occupied lands on either side of the western Pyrenees. He was born in 1332. His mother was a princess and his father a count. Charles became king of Navarre in 1349. Also holding land in Normandy, Charles was a major player in the Hundred Years’ War between France and England and repeatedly switched sides to further his own cause.

In 1351, Charles married Joan of Valois, daughter to the French king John II. Despite Charles’ sister, the constable had him assassinated. He plied with the English to acquire more French lands and created anarchy in Paris when he found out that the English king Edward III and the French king had made peace.

Even his death was bad. In 1387 when he was 54 years old, according to Robert Blagdon’s book, Paris, as it was and as it is,

“Charles the Bad, having fallen into such a state of decay that he could not make use of his limbs, consulted his physician, who ordered him to be wrapped up from head to foot in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy so that he might be enclosed in it to the very neck as in a sack. It was night when this remedy was administered. One of the female attendants of the palace charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom. But as there was still remaining an end of thread instead of cutting it as usual with scissors, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.”

Thank you so much for watching this episode of Medieval Madness. Please do subscribe if you’re enjoying this video, as we do release videos now a couple of times a week, so be sure to hit the bell icon to be notified whenever we upload a new one. Cheers everyone, and I’ll see you in the next video.

Part 2: The Legacy of Madness (Expansion Part)

The grand theater of medieval demise did not close its curtains with the burning tapestry of Charles the Bad, nor did the dark ironies of fate cease to hunt those who wore crowns of gold and iron. To understand the full scope of this historical absurdity, one must peer beyond the parchment of the initial chronicles and examine how these bizarre occurrences reshaped the very political landscapes of Europe and the Levant. The vacuum left behind by a fractured skull, a shattered throne, or an exploding piece of primitive artillery was rarely filled with peace; instead, the strange deaths of these monarchs triggered sequences of historical comedy and tragedy that lasted for generations.

Consider the immediate aftermath in West Francia following the low archway that claimed young Louis III. The kingdom was left completely exposed to the Nordic terrors sailing down the Seine. When his brother, Carloman II, met his own equally ridiculous end by the panicked blade of his own servant during a boar hunt, the Carolingian dynasty in the West was effectively crippled. The crown fell into the hands of Charles the Fat, a ruler whose sheer incompetence and physical infirmity made him the mockery of his contemporaries.

Had Louis III simply ducked his head beneath that fateful lintel, or had he possessed a more modest sense of romantic pursuit, the unified front against the Vikings might have held. Instead, the local lords realized that their kings were too fragile to protect them from the northern axes. This realization directly accelerated the rise of feudalism, as local counts began building their own fortifications without royal permission, completely changing how land and power were managed in Europe.

In the glittering courts of Constantinople, the bizarre death of Basil the Macedonian peasant-turned-emperor sent shockwaves through the eastern Mediterranean. The tragic irony of a man surviving the ruthless, cutthroat politics of the imperial palace only to be carried off by an angry stag for sixteen miles was not lost on the citizens. The execution of the faithful servant who had tried to save Basil with a hunting knife created an atmosphere of pure paranoia within the Great Palace.

Courtiers began to whispers that the emperor’s final act of tyranny—killing his savior—had brought a curse upon his lineage. Yet, despite the strange manner of his departure, the Macedonian dynasty he established endured for centuries, proving that a peasant who could climb to the throne could also survive the historical embarrassment of being unhorsed by a deer’s antlers. The laws he revised remained the bedrock of Byzantine justice, even if his final judgment on his own rescue party was flawed by the madness of his final hours.

Far to the west, the legend of Archbishop Hatto and the Mouse Tower became a powerful piece of propaganda that traveled along the Rhine for centuries. While modern historians argue whether the prelate was truly consumed by a swarm of vengeful rodents or simply died of a sudden illness during a time of extreme civil unrest, the story served as a warning to the ruling classes. The image of a greedy lord locked in his stone tower while nature itself turned against him became a favorite cautionary tale among the oppressed peasantry.

It showed that while a lord could command archers and iron gates, he could not protect himself from the collective hunger of his people, symbolized by the relentless, gnawing teeth of the mice. The small tower on the Rhine remained a grim monument, a physical reminder that cruelty and hoarding grain during a famine could result in a fate far more terrifying than a standard military defeat.

In England, the legacy of Edmund Ironside’s alleged toilet assassination lingered as a dark stain on the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. The sheer undignified nature of the report, whether true or a fabrication by later Norman chroniclers to legitimize their own conquest, highlighted the vulnerability of medieval rulers. It proved that armor of the finest iron meant nothing if a king could be reached through the very plumbing of his own fortress.

When Cnut the Great assumed total control of the English throne following Edmund’s sudden demise, he took great pains to present himself not as a foreign conqueror, but as the legitimate successor to an unfortunate king. The story of the dagger in the pit served as a permanent reminder to future monarchs that security was an illusion, and that danger often lurked in the most private and mundane corners of daily life.

The exploding cannon at Roxburgh Castle did more than just break the thigh bone of James II of Scotland; it transformed the entire nature of Scottish warfare and royal minority rules. James, whose curiosity got the better of him, became a textbook example of why monarchs should leave the management of early black powder weapons to the common soldiers. His death left Scotland with yet another child king, James III, who was only eight years old at the time.

This repeated cycle of royal minorities allowed the ambitious and violent Scottish nobility to constantly reassert their power, plunging the realm into decades of internal conflict. The castle itself was eventually captured and dismantled by the Scots so that it could never be used against them again, but the lesson remained clear: the new age of gunpowder did not care for royal birthmarks or the divine right of kings.

In the sands of Syria, the self-poisoning of Sultan Baibars altered the trajectory of the Crusades. Baibars had been the most formidable enemy the Christian kingdoms had faced since the days of Saladin. His intricate spy network and utter ruthlessness had systematically dismantled the Crusader strongholds along the coast.

His sudden, agonizing death from his own poisoned chalice gave the surviving Latin states a temporary reprieve that they desperately needed. The Mamluk elite were forced to turn their attention inward to resolve the succession crisis, allowing the remnants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to survive for a few more decades. The astrologers who had predicted the death of a king were proven correct in the most exact way possible, demonstrating that in the game of medieval politics, those who prepared a trap were often the first to fall into it.

The shattering throne of Béla the Boxer in Hungary remained one of the most absurd architectural failures in royal history. The collapse of the royal seat did not just break the body of the king; it shattered the fragile political stability that Hungary had managed to achieve after years of civil war. The rapid return of his nephew Solomon, backed by German forces, threw the kingdom right back into the center of Holy Roman Empire politics.

The incident forced future Hungarian builders to construct royal furniture with much greater care, ensuring that thrones were sturdy enough to support the weight of a warrior king. The image of a king being fatally wounded by his own seat of power became a metaphor for the unstable nature of medieval rule, where the very institutions meant to elevate a leader could collapse beneath them at any moment.

Finally, the tragicomic end of Charles the Bad of Navarre stood as the ultimate example of medical malpractice and terrible luck. The image of a king wrapped like a mummy in brandy-soaked linen, only to be accidentally set ablaze by a careless maid with a candle, became a dark legend throughout the courts of Europe. It illustrated the dangerous state of medieval medicine, where the remedies prescribed by the most learned physicians were often far more lethal than the illnesses they were meant to cure.

The territory of Navarre, caught between the competing powers of France and Castile, lost its most cunning and unscrupulous master. Charles had spent his entire life spinning a web of complex political alliances and betrayals, only to have his life ended by a loose thread and a single spark of fire. His death brought an end to his chaotic schemes, allowing the French crown to breathe a sigh of relief as one of its most persistent thorns was removed from its side by a domestic accident.

These stories, preserved in the faded ink of ancient chronicles, show us that history is not just a grand march of battles and treaties. It is also a collection of human errors, unexpected accidents, and moments of pure absurdity. The rulers who shaped the world with their armies and laws were, in the end, vulnerable to the same small mistakes, bad luck, and bizarre twists of fate that affect every human being. Whether facing a low archway, a startled deer, a faulty piece of furniture, or a careless servant, the monarchs of the Middle Ages discovered that death could arrive in ways that no king could ever foresee or conquer.