Emperor Louis The Pious Survived A Building Collapse

In 817, less than four years after succeeding Charlemagne as emperor of the Franks, Louis the Pious, as his name suggests, attended a Maundy Thursday service with over twenty companions. After the sermons and ceremonies were over on that holy day, Louis began to exit the church, his route taking him through a corridor dominated by wooden arches. The unsuspecting emperor of the Franks, however, was not aware that the wooden beams above his head were constructed of disastrously poor quality materials. The arched corridor had apparently either been built with rotting wood or otherwise was poorly maintained. Consequently, right as the emperor and his companions were passing under the arches, the rotted beams suddenly snapped and the passageway toppled down on top of their heads.

According to the Royal Frankish Annals, Louis the Pious and twenty other churchgoers were caught in the collapse. While no deaths were reported, many of the people walking under the unstable arcade were severely wounded. Fortunately for Louis, he was reportedly the least injured of all those affected. Even so, he did not escape the collapse unscathed. He suffered a bruised chest, a cut or scratched right ear, and another bad bruise on his right thigh, which was caused by falling lumber. It reportedly took Louis twenty days to recover from his wounds, but after that time had passed, he felt well enough to go on a hunting trip.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Scholz and Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor Paperbacks / University of Michigan Press, 1972.

The Mysterious Earthen Miracles of 822

In 822, a little under a decade after Louis the Pious (r. 814-840) became sole emperor of the Franks, something really strange occurred in his realm. The chroniclers of the Royal Frankish Annals wrote about the incident in their entry for the year 882. According to them, not only did unexplained earthen structures appear that year, but the mysterious creations were also found in multiple locations in the empire.

In the region of Thuringia, a peculiar ditch was found, measuring about fifty feet long and four feet wide. The dirt excavated from the spot had not traveled far; approximately twenty-five feet from the ditch was an elevated block of earth, and, like the ditch, it measured fifty feet long and four feet wide. The authorities, or at least the chroniclers, could not find any motives or suspects for the weird rectangle of soil.

The next incident occurred in Arendsee, near Magdeburg, in Frankish-controlled Saxony. There, an unordered earthen dam appeared on a local stream or river after just one mysterious night of work. No one in the region came forward to claim that they had worked on the project, leaving the chroniclers of the Royal Frankish Annals, and the royal court that they worked for, baffled by the structure’s sudden appearance.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Louis the Pious (from BL Royal 16 G VI, f. 198v) on a pixabay.com soil background, both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Scholz and Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor Paperbacks / University of Michigan Press, 1972.