The emperor eats the servants, the king claims he is made of glass, and the pope drinks the devil's health. Megalomaniacs, madmen, sexaholics, paranoids, murderers, cannibals ... Such people sat on thrones and ruled Europe!
Dissocial personality disorder, panic disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia - no one had heard of such diseases in the Middle Ages. Which does not mean that they did not occur. Worst of all, if it fell on the head of state - the king's hallucinations and delusions had real consequences for thousands of his subjects. 
With these five medieval rulers, it is too late to make a 100% diagnosis. One thing is for sure - they weren't quite normal.
5. Richard II Plantagenet, King of England
As a child, he almost lost his crown during Wat Tyler's popular uprising. Then the weak, indecisive young man healed his complexes by oppressing political opponents and basking in court ceremonies. He became a despot, convinced that the king was an anointed divine not to be opposed. And it's not even fitting to look straight in the face.
King Richard II and the "cause" of his madness - Anna Luxemburg, a Czech princess with a large admixture of Polish blood (source:public domain).
Ryszard worsened after the death of his wife, Anna Czeska (by the way, great-granddaughter of Casimir the Great) in 1394. Sometimes he fell into apathy, sometimes into despair, other times he suffered attacks of aggression. The lord who missed Anna's funeral, beat him in the church and put him in jail . He was also having hallucinations.
Some researchers say he was simply a neurotic prone to narcissism, others suspect he suffered from schizophrenia. Megalomania with persecution mania, apathy and hallucinations fit this condition very well.
4. John XII, Pope
His real name was Octavian and he was the son of the Prince of Rome, Albery II, and the nephew of Pope John XI. When Octavian was elected to the Chair of Peter, he was only eighteen.
He was helped by aristocratic connections and the fact that Rome was just going through a decades-long period of so-called "pornocracy" - when the city was ruled by the political intrigues of papal lovers. One of the "heroines" of this era was Marosia, Octavian's grandmother (mother of Alberyk II and John XI, whom she probably fathered with Pope Sergius III!).
Was Oktawian / Jan XII just a shit depraved to the bone, brought up in a pathological and spoiled environment, or a madman? Or maybe both? It is not known. The fact is that during his reign, the Lateran Palace was spoken of as a brothel. During drunken orgies, the pope drank the devil's health and, playing dice, called upon the pagan gods. He is also not used to making the sign of the cross, and why…
Meeting of Emperor Otto I with Pope John XII according to a 15th-century miniature. It was this unbalanced young man who crowned the head of the German king with the imperial crown (source:public domain).
No wonder that in 963 the synod removed the "Holy Father" - "apostate" from power. John XII, however, regained the throne after a few weeks and still had no intention of changing. On the other hand, he murdered or excommunicated the opponents. Soon, however, he said goodbye to this world. It was supposed to happen during sexual games with a married woman when the husband of the papal lover caught the bloody couple. Or is it just an invention of chroniclers who are reluctant to Jan?
3. Henry VI Lancaster, King of England
What does a 24-year-old king do when he sees a graceful and alluring French princess, his future wife? He grimaces in disgust! He has been disgusted by feminine necklines since today . He is said to be very pious, he even has the reputation of a saint. Others, however, think he is just out of his mind.
Who is right, explains himself when in 1453 the monarch, after losing the Battle of Castillon, the last battle of the Hundred Years' War, suffers a panic attack that deprives him of his mental powers for eighteen months. Henryk does not recognize anyone, he has hallucinations, he falls into a stupor .
What happened? Was it the porphyria that he probably inherited from his English grandfather and great-grandfather? Is schizophrenia, plaguing her mother's French ancestors, including mad Charles VI? Researchers are still unsure today. Whatever it was, a man in such a state could not rule the country. So instead of Henry, others rule.
When he recovers anyhow, it is too late. Strife in the country led in 1455 to the War of the Roses between the royal family of Lancasters and the rebellious Yorks. It will last thirty years, and Henryk will not live to see its end. He will spend the last years mainly in a prison cell, where he is said to be killed not by his enemies, but by depression, once more beautifully known as "melancholy".
2. Justin II, Byzantine Emperor and
His name was Flavius Iustinus Iunior Augustus and he was the nephew of the famous Emperor Justinian I. The monarch did not leave an heir and did not make it clear who should be his successor.
Despite his disgust with the feminine charms of the French princess Margaret, Henry VI took her as his wife. Image from "Vigiles du roi Charles VII" (source:public domain).
Justinian's nephew won the "race" to the throne thanks to court coterie. He must have been helped by his marriage to Sophia, the niece of the famous empress Theodora, Justinian's wife. The ruler, however, turned out to be poor.
After the defeat of the army in Syria in 573, he apparently could not stand the tension and lost his mind. Admittedly, Justin had made some bizarre decisions before, for example ordered his courtiers to beat his son-in-law but this time no one could have doubts about the deplorable state of his psyche.
He even tried to throw himself out of the palace windows, so Empress Sophia ordered them to be properly secured. He also ordered the courtiers to ride the throne on wheels through the corridors, where he attacked and bitten the servants he encountered. Well, he even ate two of them! In order to somehow tame the emperor's aggression, Justin was threatened with phantoms - and he then hid under the bed like a child! However, organ music turned out to be the best at calming the ruler. He could listen to her for hours…
Unable to count on her twisted husband, Zofia took the helm of power into her own hands. It helped her a lot that she was the niece of the famous Empress Theodora. Mosaic from the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, depicting Theodora with her entourage (source:public domain).
The empire was on the brink. Having a crazy husband for her husband, Zofia took matters into her own hands. After all, she was Theodora's niece, so thanks to her teachings she was able to deal with both men and politics. She marginalized Justin II and ruled in partnership with General Tiberius. The unfortunate, ill monarch finally abdicated in AD 578 and died shortly thereafter.
1. Charles VI, King of France
During the military expedition to Brittany in 1392, a copy of one of the knights of Charles soundly struck a soldier's helmet. It is hard to believe, but this banal event caused a real amok in the king. "Betrayal!" He screamed violently, as if someone had suddenly roused him from sleep. "They want to hand over the king to their enemies!".
The article was inspired by the series of novels by Maurice Druon entitled "The Cursed Kings" (Otwarte Publishing House 2016).
Then threw his sword at his own soldiers . Blood spilled, and none of the attacked dared to raise a weapon against their ruler. Four people died before Karol was overpowered.
Maybe it can be explained? First, an expedition to Brittany was undertaken to punish the conspirators who had tried to kill the king's friend. Second, before the incident with the lance, some leper tramp had told Charles that someone was looking for his life. If we add to this the innate oversensitivity and hypochondria of the monarch, the matter of his outbreak does not become so strange ...
Unfortunately, it was not the last and worst prank of the ruler. The king realized it was glass! He forbade anyone to touch him, his clothes were stuffed with pillows. It also happened that he suddenly lost his memory, forgot who he was, did not want to wash or change clothes. Priests and medics did not help. Exorcising and drilling holes in the skull (to lower the blood pressure!) proved to be just as useless. They simply could not win over the schizophrenia that plagued the family of Charles from his mother's side, Joanna Bourbon.
The medics tried to counteract Charles VI's disease. In vain. A miniature from Jean Froissart's "Chronicles" from around 1470 (source:public domain).
The king was not fit to rule. But the regency over him was such a tasty morsel that there was a conflict between two parties:the royal brother of Louis and the duke of Burgundy John without Trwoga. When Ludwik was stabbed to death on Jan's order in 1407, the civil war broke out. As a result, the Burgundians allied with the English who invaded France. In this way royal sickness drove the country utterly shattered .
The last madness of Charles VI was to make a shameful peace with England and to announce the successor not of his own son, but ... of the English king. As a result, power over France could soon fall into the hands of Henry VI Lancaster, not much healthier in mind than the "glass" ruler. The French, however, had enough of these crazy people and chose Charles VII, who defeated the English with the help of ... "haunted" Joan of Arc.