Emperor Henry dies at Messina
The Annales Placentini report that Emperor Henry died in the city of Messina in Sicily in 1197.
What this does and does not establish
Piacenza text and TEI agree at lines 749–751 (TEI IDs bsb00000726_00043_14–16). Marbach text and XML agree under MCXCVII at line 2569: the earlier refuge at Messina (2581–2583) is separate from the final illness narrative (2594–2606), which places him at Messina, mentions an intended journey to Palermo, then reports his relapse and death. The Piacenza death sentence explicitly supplies the city; this is not a claim about burial or disposition of his body.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- Europe
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- MCLXXXXVII, indictione prima, quarto Kal. Octubris, in vigilia sancti Michaelis
- How we use it
- Year-level placement is limited to the dated source entry.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Read piacenza.txt lines 735–769 and piacenza.xml lines 741–762: the explicit MCLXXXXVII at 749 maps to AD 1197, between MCLXXXXVI and MCLXXXXVIII. Read marbach.txt and marbach.xml lines 2560–2619, including the MCXCVII heading at 2569 and the death narrative at 2594–2608. Piacenza's quarto Kal. Octubris means 28 September by inclusive Roman reckoning; its Michaelmas vigil wording agrees with Marbach's pridie ante prefatum festum, referring back to Saint Michael's feast. These September dates fall within Julian AD 1197. Original quotation begins at line 750, character 35851.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Iohannis Codagnelli Annales Placentini
Giovanni Codagnello; MGH critical edition
Quoted text (Latin)
imperator Anricus obiit
in Scicilia, in civitate Mixine.AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
Emperor Henry died in Sicily, in the city of Messina.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Iohannis Codagnelli Annales Placentini. OpenMGH, MGH and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CC BY 4.0. https://www.mgh.de/en/digital-mgh/openmgh Markup removed with line breaks retained. Project English translation.
Exact source version
91c7a3ff5b4663870475332942ae4205524dbd82efc7bcb67dccde18acc04178Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-06. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s1101_messina_1197_1197_0
Exact revision fingerprint
8b19c099f87916d1b2e161eb3f1243aa71890f8b56f3bc6e87615c7c756baf81