Medieval Torture **************** Torture is the the deliberate, systematic, cruel and wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more torturers in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason. Many cruel devices or tools were designed and used to inflict unbearable agony on a victim. The objective of this torture were to intimidate, deter, revenge or punish. It was most often used as a tool or a method for the extraction of information or confessions. The Medieval period of the Middle Ages was violent and blood thirsty. In those barbarous times the cruel and pitiless feeling which induced legislators to increase the horrors of tortures, also contributed to the aggravation of the fate of prisoners. Torture chambers were included in many castles. Law or custom did not prescribe any fixed rules for the treatment of hapless prisoners who faced torture. The medieval torture chambers were located in the lower parts of castles. The entrances to many torture chambers were accessed through winding passages which served to muffle the agonising cries of torture victims from the normal inhabitants of the castle. Torture chambers and dungeons were often very small, some measured only eleven feet long by seven feet wide in which from ten to twenty prisoners were often incarcerated at the same time. The word 'torture' comes from the French torture, originating in the Late Latin tortura and ultimately deriving the past participle of torquere meaning 'to twist'. Many characteristically Christian tortures rely on a twisting of the limbs, twisting ligatures, or by turning screw mechanisms as the Church discouraged the shedding of blood. The Norman French who came to England with William the Conqueror used torture to extract treasure from the Anglo-Saxons in their new kingdom. During the Anarchy, the Norman supporters of both of the claimants to the throne practised torture to extract gold and silver from the peasantry. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1139 puts it: "They hanged them by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung fires on their feet; they put knotted strings about their heads, and writhed them so that it went to the brain ... Some they put in a chest that was short, and narrow, and shallow, and put sharp stones therein, and pressed the man therein, so that they broke all his limbs ... I neither can nor may tell all the wounds or all the tortures which they inflicted on wretched men in this land." Medieval and early modern European courts all used torture, depending on the accused's alleged crime and social status. Many different types of torture were used, and these gruesome methods were a freely accepted form of punishment and interrogation. Torture was inevitably used as the quickest method to extract confessions, or to obtain the names of any accomplices or other information about most crimes. It was accepted by both the Lords and the peasants as a legitimate way to obtain these testimonies and confessions for use in legal enquiries and trials throughout the Middle Ages and continued, all be it unlawfully, as late as the beginning of the 19c. This barbarous custom of punishment by torture was on several occasions condemned by the Church. As early as 866, we find, from Pope Nicholas V's letter to the Bulgarians, that their custom of torturing the accused was considered contrary to divine as well as to human law: "For," says he, "a confession should be voluntary, and not forced. By means of the torture, an innocent man may suffer to the utmost without making any avowal; and, in such a case, what a crime for the judge! Or the person may be subdued by pain, and may acknowledge himself guilty, although he be not so, which throws an equally great sin upon the judge." Despite this, and other please, the practise of torturing victims continued. Our ancestors were not squeamish. The sight of a man lopped of his ears, or slit of his nostrils, or with a seared brand or great gash in his forehead or cheek could not affect the stout stomachs that cheerfully and eagerly gathered around the bloody whipping-post and the gallows for the show. Torture was abolished in England in 1640, although it did not stop entirely until many years later... The Village Stocks ****************** The stocks consisted of large upright, hinged wooden boards. When a person is placed in the stocks, their feet are locked in place, and (rarely) their hands or head, or these may even be chained. With stocks, boards are placed around the legs, whereas in the pillory they are placed around the arms and neck and fixed to a pole, and the victim stands. However, the terms can be confused, and many people refer to the pillory as the stocks. Since stocks served an outdoor public form of punishment its victims were subjected to the daily and nightly weather. As a consequence it was not uncommon for people kept in stocks over several days to die from heat exhaustion or hypothermia. The practice of using stocks continues to be cited as an example of torture, cruel and unusual punishment. Insulting, kicking, spitting and in some cases urinating and defecating on its victims could be applied at the free will of any of those present. In the Cambridge Trinity College Psalter, an illuminated manuscript illustrating the manners of the twelfth century, may be seen the quaint pictures of two men sitting in stocks, while two others flout them. So essential to due order and government were the stocks that every village had them. Sometimes they were movable and often were kept in the church porch, a sober Sunday monitor. In 1351 the 'Statute of Labourers' was introduced requiring every town to provide and maintain a set of stocks. This had been implemented as a reaction to the Black Death, which had halved the population. The consequent scarcity of labour had enabled agricultural labourers to demand increased pay. The Statute attempted to discourage this trend by providing that anyone demanding (or offering) higher wages should be set in the stocks for up to 3 days. Stocks were later used to control the unemployed. A statute passed in 1495 required that vagabonds should be set in the stocks for 3 days on bread and water and then sent away (where presumably they would have faced a similar fate). If a vagabond returned to the same parish, he or she would receive another 6 days in the stocks. These punishments were however seen as excessive and the lengths of time in the stocks were later reduced to 1 and 3 days respectively. A Statute of 1605 required that anyone convicted of drunkenness should receive six hours in the stocks, and those convicted of being a drunkard (as opposed to be caught drunk) should suffer 4 hours in the stocks or pay a substantial fine (of 3 shillings and 6 pence). A slightly later Statute made it legal to set those caught swearing in the stocks for 1 hour, if they could or would not pay a 12 pence fine. In practice the authorities preferred offenders to pay fines as the monies were used to fund poor relief. The last recorded instance of the stocks being used in England was in Newbury in 1872. According to a contemporary account, "Mark Tuck, a rag and bone dealer, who for several years had been well known as a man of intemperate habits, and upon whom imprisonment in Reading gaol had failed to produce any beneficial effect, was fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in the Parish Church on Monday evening. Twenty-six years had elapsed since the stocks were last used, and their reappearance created no little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being attracted to the spot where they were fixed. Tuck was seated upon a stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on the part of the police, he escaped without being interfered with by the crowd." England had virtually abolished stocks and pillories by the middle of the 19th century. The Pillory *********** This "essence of English punishment" - the pillory or stretch-neck - can be traced back to a remote period in England and on the Continent, certainly to the twelfth century. Seen in a prominent position in every village and town, its familiarity of presence was its only retrieving characteristic; near church-yards and in the public squares it was nearly always found and local authorities forfeited the right to hold a market unless they had a pillory ready for use. It was an upright board, hinged or divisible in two, set at head height, with a hole in which the head was set fast, and usually with two openings also for the hands. Often the ears were nailed to the wood on either side of the head-hole. Examples exist of a small finger-pillory or thumb-stocks, but are quite rare and indeed may be Victorian trinkets. In England, criminals who avoided the hangman's noose might instead receive their punishment in the pillory. Once locked into the mechanism, the prisoner would be pelted with rotten eggs, vegetables or even excrement by members of the public. Unbelievably but inevitably, this provided a free form of popular village entertainment. It would be impossible to enumerate the offences for which Englishmen were pilloried: among them were treason, sedition, arson, blasphemy, witch-craft, perjury, wife-beating, cheating, forestalling, forging, coin-clipping, tree-polling, gaming, dice-cogging, quarrelling, lying, libelling, slandering, threatening, conjuring, fortune-telling, "prigging," drunkenness, impudence. One man was set in the pillory for delivering false dinner invitations; another for a rough practical joke; another for selling an injurious quack medicine. All sharpers, beggars, impostors, vagabonds, were liable to be pilloried. So fierce sometimes was the attack of the populace with various annoying and heavy missiles on pilloried prisoners that several deaths are known to have ensued. On the other side, it is told in Chamber's Book of Days that a prisoner, by the sudden collapse of a rotten footboard, was left hanging by his neck in danger of his life. On being liberated he brought action against the town and received damages. The pillory in England has seen many a noble victim. The history of Puritanism, of Reformation, is filled with hundreds of pages of accounts of sufferings on the pillory. When such names as those of Leighton, Prynne, Lilburne, Burton and Bastwick appear as thus being punished we do not think of the pillory as a scaffold for felons, but as a platform for heroes. Who can read unmoved that painful, that pathetic account of the punishment of Dr. Bastwick. His weeping wife stood on a stool and kissed his poor pilloried face, and when his ears were cut off she placed them in a clean handkerchief and took them away, with emotions unspeakable and undying love. After 1637 it became the recognised punishment for those who published books without a licence or libelled the government. The most famous pillory in London was at Charing Cross. When the public disagreed with the verdict of the court they turned the event into a demonstration against those in power. When Daniel Defoe was pilloried in 1703 for libel, the crowd covered the pillory in flowers and gave him an ovation when he arrived at Charing Cross. In the 'Encyclopaedia of Antiquities' by Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, 1825, he records: Mr Douce has various figures of ancient pillories. The first is a round one of the 13th century upon brick work for four persons the heads and hands being in holes as now. The second is within a lofty cage which turns upon a pivot, 14th century. The third is the carcan or ring to a post In the fourth the neck is put within a cleft post. This is Anglo Saxon and according to Strutt is the parent of our present pillory. Criminals were whipped in this position with a scourge of three cords each having a large knot at the end of it. The fifth is for perjury as now, with a man's name above. The sixth is a double pillory of two circles, one within and above the other, standing upon a round tower but under a pine end roof. There was also a ladder of punishment similar to a pillory which the criminal was forced to mount. They were permanent erections in our towns for they appertained even to persons who had not right of gallows and were, like them, marks of feudal power.... As usual, in France, torture using the pillory was very public and excessive. When it was only required to stamp a culprit with infamy he was put into the pillory, which was generally a kind of scaffold furnished with chains and iron collars, and bearing on its front the arms of the feudal lord. In Paris, this name was given to a round isolated tower built in the centre of the market. The tower was sixty feet high, and had large openings in its thick walls, and a horizontal wheel was provided, which was capable of turning on a pivot. This wheel was pierced with several holes, made so as to hold the hands and head of the culprit, who, on passing and re-passing before the eyes of the crowd, came in full view, and was subjected to their hooting and jeers. The pillories were always situated in the most frequented places, such as markets and crossways. The pillory, as a recognised form of legal punishment, was outlawed in Britain in 1815, except in cases of perjury, and was abolished completely in 1837. The Whipping post ***************** Normally there would have been two shackles on the front of the whipping post at the bottom for the feet and a couple of holes on the back near to the top where the shackles to restrain the hands would be tethered. The unwilling participant would therefore be standing facing the post, with his back exposed and with his arms wrapped around the top of the post, leaving him in a perfect position for a good whipping. However, quite often the village pillory doubled up as the "whipping post". John Taylour, the "Water-Poet," wrote in 1630: "In London, and within a mile, I ween There are jails or prisons full fifteen And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and cages." Church and city records throughout England show how constantly these whipping-posts were made to perform their share of legal and restrictive duties. In the reign of Henry VIII a famous Whipping Act had been passed by which all vagrants were to be whipped severely at the cart-tail, "till the body became bloody by reason of such whipping." This enactment remained in force nearly through the reign of Elizabeth, when the whipping-post became the usual substitute for the cart, but the force of the blows was not lightened. (in the early 1900's it was common practice to keep a boy to be whipped in place of a prince who was to be punished, hence the term "Whipping Boy") The poet Cowper has left an amusing account of a whipping which he witnessed: "The fellow seemed to show great fortitude, but it was all an imposition. The beadle who whipped him had his left hand filled with red ochre, through which, after every stroke, he drew the lash of the whip, leaving the appearance of a wound upon the skin, but in reality not hurting him at all. This being perceived by the constable who followed the beadle to see that he did his duty, he (the constable) applied the cane without any such management or precaution to the shoulders of the beadle. The scene now became interesting and exciting. The beadle could by no means be induced to strike the thief hard, which provoked the constable to strike harder; and so the double flogging continued until a lass of Silver End, pitying the pityful beadle thus suffering under the hands of the pityless constable, joined the procession, and placing herself immediately behind the constable seized him by his capillary pigtail, and pulling him backwards by the same, slapped his face with Amazonian fury. This concentration of events has taken more of my paper than I intended, but I could not forbear to inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the constable the beadle, and the lady the constable, and how the thief was the only person who suffered nothing." Whipping, specifically flogging, was abolished in England in 1964, but had been in decline for two hundred years and widely despised as a barbarous archaism, even in the 1780's. All the whipping of women was abolished in 1820 and it is difficult to find evidence of the public flogging of men after the 1830's. The Drunkard's cloak ******************** A Drunkard's cloak was a type of pillory used in various jurisdictions to punish miscreants and drunks. Drunkenness was first made a civil offence in England by the Ale Houses Act 1551 and the drunkard's cloak became a common method of punishing recidivists, especially during the Commonwealth of England. From 1655 Oliver Cromwell suppressed many of England's alehouses, particularly in Royalist areas, and the authorities made regular use of the cloak. Their punishment for these offences was novel. If putting the offender in the pillory or stocks failed to induce sobriety, they had their law officers take a cask, remove one end, cut a hole in the other end for the head and two in the sides for the hands and force the convicted drunk to parade around town wearing this heavy garment for a set period. This was the drunkard's cloak. An early description of the drunkard's cloak appears in Ralph Gardiner's England's Grievance Discovered, first published in 1655: "men drove up and down the streets, with a great tub, or barrel, opened in the sides, with a hole in one end, to put through their heads, and to cover their shoulders and bodies, down to the small of their legs, and then close the same, called the new fashioned cloak, and so make them march to the view of all beholders; and this is their punishment for drunkards, or the like." Thumbscrews *********** The use of the thumbscrew was a common middle-ages method of inflicting intense pain on prisoners. The thumbscrew was a very simple device designed to crush whatever was inserted. Typically thumbs, but even fingers or toes, were placed in the vice and slowly crushed. The crushing process was achieved by varying degrees of the screws which were applied and its toothed iron bars. The force of thumbscrews was such that they bone could be crushed and broken. The thumbscrews were useful to interrogators as they were a portable means of torture and not restricted to the confines of the torture chamber.... The Rack ******** The Rack was used on prisoners for Stretching and Dislocation. In medieval England torture by stretching and dislocation using the Rack was common. The rack was a simple machine consisting of a rectangular wooden frame. The wooden frame had a roller at each end. The victim's feet were manacled to one roller, and the wrists were manacled to the other. A handle and ratchet were attached to the top roller and were turned very gradually stepwise to increase the tension on the chains. The victim was tied across a board by his ankles and wrists. The rollers at either end of the board were turned, pulling the body in opposite directions. The victims body was initially stretched. Limbs would be dislocated and prolonged use would end with limbs being torn from their sockets, inducing excruciating pain.... The Scavengers Daughter *********************** The Scavengers Daughter was a device which was invented in England. This device was designed to have the opposite effect to that of the rack. The body was compressed as opposed to being stretched. This rack was invented by the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, Leonard Skevington (or Skeffington) during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547). A derivation of his name led to the device he initiated, or was the father of - the Scavengers Daughter although it was first referred to as Skeffington's Irons. The device consisted of one single iron bar that connected iron shackles closing round the victim's hands, feet and neck. This rack positioned the head to the knees of the victim in a sitting position. It compressed the body as to force the blood from the nose and ears.... Dislocation *********** Although mostly seen in France, torture by dislocation was practised in England, but is here described from Orleans. For 'ordinary' torture the accused was stripped half naked, and his hands were tightly tied behind his back, with a ring fixed between them. Then by means of a rope fastened to this ring, they raised the poor man, who had a weight of one hundred and eighty pounds attached to his feet, a certain height from the ground. For the 'extraordinary' torture, which took the name of 'estrapade', they raised the victim, with two hundred and fifty pounds attached to his feet, to the ceiling by means of a capstan; he was then allowed to fall several times successively by jerks to the level of the ground, by which means his arms and legs were completely dislocated.... Iron Balls ********** Recorded as practised at Avignon in France, the 'ordinary' torture consisted in hanging the accused by the wrists, with a heavy iron ball at each foot; for the 'extraordinary' torture, which was then much in use in Italy under the name of veglia, the body was stretched horizontally by means of ropes passing through rings riveted into the wall, and attached to the four limbs, the only support given to the accused being the point of a stake cut in a diamond shape, which just touched the end of the back-bone. A doctor and a surgeon were often present, feeling the pulse at the temples of the patient, so as to be able to judge of the moment when he could not any longer bear the pain. At that moment he was untied, hot fomentations were used to revive him, restoratives were administered, and, as soon as he had recovered a little strength, he was again put to the torture, which went on thus for some six consecutive hours.... Water Torture ************* Again in France, in Paris, for a long time, water torture was used. This was the most easily borne, and the least dangerous torture we know of. A person undergoing it was tied to a board which was then supported horizontally on two trestles. By means of a horn, acting as a funnel, and whilst his nose was being pinched, so as to force him to swallow, they slowly poured four coquemars (about nine pints) of water into his mouth; this was for the 'ordinary' torture. For the 'extraordinary', double that quantity was poured in . When the torture was ended, the victim was untied, "and taken to be warmed in the kitchen," says the old text.... The Spanish Boot **************** The Spanish boots were high boots made of spongy leather that were placed on the accused's feet, he was then tied on to a table near a large fire, and a quantity of boiling water was poured on the boots, which penetrated the leather, ate away the flesh, and even dissolved the bones of the victim.... The Foot Press ************** The foot press consisted of a pair of horizontal iron plates which tightened around the foot by means of a crank mechanism in order to lacerate the flesh and crush the bones of the foot. Variations were added, including the addition of hundreds of sharp spikes to the plates and, horrifically, a crank mechanism was connected to a drill, so that when the instrument was tightened around the foot a hole was drilled in the centre of the instep.... The Foot Roast ************** Foot roasting was also a method commonly used. The soles of the feet were smeared with lard and slowly roasted over red-hot coals. A bellows was used to control the intensity of the heat and a screen could be interposed between the feet and the coals as the victim was questioned. If the questions were not answered satisfactorily, the screen was withdrawn and the naked soles were again exposed to the flames. Foot roasting was inflicted during the persecution of the Knights Templar. Their leader, Jacques de Molay was burnt until his feet were charred to the bone resulting in his metatarsal foot bones falling to the floor.... Brodequins ********** Tortures specifically for the legs were used called Brodequins. The victim was placed in a sitting posture on a massive bench, with strong narrow boards fixed inside and outside of each leg, which were tightly bound together with strong rope; wedges were then driven in between the centre boards with a mallet; four wedges in the 'ordinary' and eight in the 'extraordinary' torture. Not infrequently during the latter operation the bones of the legs would literally burst. The brodequins which were often used for ordinary torture were stockings of parchment, into which it was easy enough to get the feet when it was wet, but which, on being held near the fire, shrunk so considerably that it caused insufferable agony to the wearer.... Burning and Branding ******************** The punishment of branding was adopted in the Dark and Middle Ages by the Anglo-Saxons. In 1547 the Statute of Vagabonds ruled that vagabonds, Gypsies and brawlers were ordered to be branded, the first two with a large V on the breast. the last with F for fighter (brawler). Slaves too who ran away were branded with S on cheek or forehead. This law was repealed in 1636. There were various other methods and devices used to torture or punishing a victim using branding or burning techniques. A red-hot brazier was sometimes passed backwards and forwards before the eyes of the accused, until they were destroyed by the scorching heat. Red hot pokers were applied to various parts of the body. Various other marks were branded on to the flesh using red hot branding irons. A branding-iron had a long bolt with a wooden handle at one end and a brand with a letter at the other. Two iron loops were used for firmly securing the hands during the excruciating process. Torture just for women ********************** Wyuen Pine ("women's punishment") as referred to in Langland's "Piers Plowman" (1378). The Brank, or Scold's Bridle **************************** The brank, also called the gossip's bridle, or dame's bridle, or scold's helm, was truly a: "brydle for a curste queane." It was a shocking instrument, a sort of iron cage, often of great weight; when worn, it covered the entire head. It was specifically used as a torture for women in order to inflict humiliation and discomfort as opposed to pain. The device was a locking iron muzzle, metal mask or cage which encased the head. There was an iron curb projecting into the mouth which rested on the top of the tongue. This device prevented the shrew from speaking. In some instances the iron curb was studded with spikes which inflicted pain if the victim spoke. Some branks had a bell built in which drew attention to the scold as she walked through the streets. The woman would be humiliated by the jeering and comments from other people. A scold was a term given to a gossip, shrew or bad tempered woman during the Middle Ages. A scold was defined as: "A troublesome and angry woman who by brawling and wrangling amongst her neighbours breaks the public peace, increases discord and becomes a public nuisance to the neighbourhood." Ralph Gardner, in his book entitled 'England's Grievance Discovered in Relation to the Coal Trade.' printed in 1665, says of Newcastle-on-Tyne: "There he saw one Anne Bridlestone drove through the streets by an officer of the same corporation, holding a rope in his hand, the other end fastened to an engine called the branks, which is like a crown, it being of iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gag or tongue of iron forced into her mouth, which forced the blood out; and that is the punishment which the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and scolding women; and he hath often seen the like done to others." The Ducking Stool ***************** The Ducking Stool (trebucket, castigatory, or cucking-stool) was specifically used as a torture method for women. The device was a chair which was hung from the end of a free-moving arm. The woman was strapped into the chair which was situated by the side of a river. The device would then be swung over the river by the use of the free-moving arm. The woman would then be ducked into the freezing cold water. The length of immersion into the water was decided by the operator and the crime of which the woman was accused. It could last for just a few seconds but in some circumstances this punishment process could be continuously repeated over the course of a day. The crimes which most often deemed such a punishment were prostitution and witchcraft. Scolds were also punished by this method. When he device was used in cases of witchcraft, it was seen as a foolproof way to establish whether a suspect was a witch. The ducking stools were first used for this purpose but ducking was later inflicted without the chair. In this instance the victim's right thumb was bound to left toe. A rope was attached to her waist and the 'witch' was thrown into a river or deep pond. If the 'witch' floated it was deemed that she was in league with the devil, rejecting the 'baptismal water'. If the 'witch' drowned she was deemed innocent. This particular method of ducking was also inflicted on men accused of witchcraft. Sometimes there were other exceptions, and quite often quarrelsome married couples were ducked, tied back-to-back. The Scold's Cart **************** A tumbrel, or scold's-cart, gumstool and coqueen-stool was a chair set on wheels and having very long waggon-shafts, with a rope attached to them about two feet from the end. When used it was wheeled into a pond backward, the long shafts were suddenly tilted up, and the scold sent down in a backward plunge into the water. When the ducking was accomplished, the tumbrel was drawn out of the water by the ropes. Collinson says in his History of Somersetshire, written in 1791: "In Shipton Mallet was anciently set up a tumbrel for the correction of unquiet women." Torture today ************* Torture was abolished in England around 1640, and denounced in the 'English Bill of Rights' of 1689. Peine forte et dure (Law French for "hard and forceful punishment") was still allowed in England between 1640 and 1772, a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system in which a defendant who refused to plead ("stood mute") would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or they died... The Age of Enlightenment in the western world further developed the idea of universal human rights, although the legislation in place is a rather grey area. The adoption of the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' in 1948 marks the recognition (at least nominally) of a general ban of torture by all United Nations member states. Its effect in practice is limited, however, as the Declaration is not ratified officially and does not have legally binding status in international law, being considered part of 'customary international law'. The English 'unanimous Law Lords judgement' on 8 December 2005 ruled that, under English law tradition: "torture and its fruits" could not be used in court. (The Guardian 8th December 2005). However, the information thus obtained by torture could be used by the British police... The Americans have devised a sneaky trick to get around this, called 'Extraordinary Rendition'. This is the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one country to another. During the U.S. war on terror under the administration of President George W. Bush, the term became infamous with American practices of abducting and transferring terrorism suspects to other countries known to employ torture, for the purposes of "interrogation". The process still continues under the Barack Obama administration, although new rules have now been put in place that claim to prevent the torture of any 'abducted individuals'... Medieval Executions ******************* Since we started writing down the history of our race, man has frequently come up with extreme and cruel methods of killing for punishment. Below is some of the history and just a few of the most revolting methods of execution from English history. Thankfully none of them are in use today. About 450 BC, the death penalty was often enforced by throwing the condemned into a quagmire. By the 10th Century, hanging from gallows was the most frequent execution method. After 1066 William I opposed taking life except in war, and ordered no person to be hanged or executed for any offence. However, he allowed criminals to be mutilated for their crimes. During the middle ages, capital punishment was accompanied by torture. Most barons had a drowning pit as well as gallows and they were used for major as well as minor crimes. In 1279, two hundred and eighty nine Jews were hanged for clipping coin. Under Edward I (1442-1483), two gatekeepers were killed because the city gate had not been closed in time to prevent the escape of an accused murderer. Burning was the punishment for women's high treason and men were hanged, drawn and quartered. Beheading was generally accepted for the upper classes. One could be burned for marrying a Jew. Pressing became the penalty for those who would not confess to their crimes. The executioner placed heavy weights on the victim's chest. On the first day he gave the victim a small quantity of bread, on the second day a small drink of bad water, and so on until he confessed or died. Under the reign of Henry VIII (1491-1547), the numbers of those put to death are estimated as high as 72,000. Boiling to death was another penalty approved in 1531, and there are records to show some people were boiled for up to two hours before death took them. When a woman was burned, the executioner tied a rope around her neck when she was tied to the stake. When the flames reached her she could be strangled from outside the ring of fire. However, this often failed and many were literally burnt alive. In Britain, the number of capital offences continually increased until the 1700's when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death. These included stealing from a house in the amount of forty shillings, stealing from a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps. However, juries tended not to convict when the penalty was great and the crime was not. Reforms began to take place. In 1823, five laws passed, exempting about a hundred crimes from the death penalty. Between 1832 and 1837, many capital offences were swept away. In 1840, there was a failed attempt to abolish all capital punishment. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more and more capital punishments were abolished, not only in Britain, but also all across Europe, until today only a few European countries retain the death penalty. Burning at the stake ******************** The punishment by burning was always inflicted in cases of heresy, or blasphemy. In France, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, fifty-nine Templars were burned at the same time for the crimes of heresy and witchcraft. And three years later, on the 18th March, 1314, Jacques Molay, and a few other dignitaries of the Order of the Templars, also perished in the flames at the extremity of the island of Notre Dame. It is not known when burning was first used in Britain, but there is a recorded burning for heresy in 1222, when a deacon of the church was burnt at Oxford for embracing the Jewish faith so he could marry a Jew. Many burning executions were public. It was the custom for the condemned to take part in a Death procession. The victim in his shirt, barefooted, the rope round his neck, followed by the executioner, and holding in his hand a wax taper, with a weight, which was definitely specified in the sentence which had been passed upon him, but which was generally of two or four pounds, prostrated himself at the door of a church, where in a loud voice he had to confess his sin, and to beg the pardon of God and man. When a victim had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man. Care was taken to leave a free space round the stake for the victim, and also a passage by which to lead him to it. Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a shirt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains. After this, faggots and straw were thrown into the empty space through which he had passed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once. Sometimes the executioner, in order to shorten the sufferings of the condemned, whilst he prepared the pile, placed a large and pointed iron bar amongst the faggots and opposite the stake breast high, so that, directly the fire was lighted, the bar was quickly pushed against the victim, giving a mortal blow to the unfortunate wretch, who would otherwise have been slowly devoured by the flames. Another merciful method designed to reduce the suffering were to place gunpowder in the wood to ensure a quick death. If a condemned person was really fortunate he would be strangled to death before being chained to the stake.... Burning was outlawed in England within the provisions of the 'Treason Act' of 1790. Hanging ******* The most common form of execution in the Middle Ages was execution by Hanging. In every town, and in almost every village, there was a permanent gibbet, which, owing to the custom of leaving the bodies to hang till they crumbled into dust, was very rarely without having some corpses or skeletons attached to it. According to prescribed rule, the gallows were placed in an important part in the political as well as the criminal history of that city. The criminal condemned to be hanged was generally taken to the place of execution sitting or standing in a waggon, with his back to the horses. When the criminal arrived at the place of execution the noose was placed around his neck from which he was suspended and thereby strangled to death. When the words "shall be hung until death doth ensue" are to be found in a sentence, it must not be supposed that they were used merely as a form, for in certain cases the judge ordered that the sentence should be only carried out as far as would prove to the culprit the awful sensation of hanging. In such cases, the victim was simply suspended by ropes passing under the arm-pits, a kind of exhibition which was not free from danger when it was too prolonged, for the weight of the body so tightened the rope round the chest that the circulation might be stopped. Many culprits, after hanging thus an hour, when brought down, were dead, or only survived this painful process a short time. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder (in 1965 in Great Britain and in 1973 in Northern Ireland). Although not applied since, the death penalty was not abolished in all circumstances until 1998. The Gibbet ********** Gibbeting, or hanging in chains, was a way to display the bodies of executed criminals as a means to warn others of the consequences of crime. Used predominantly in England and its colonies, the gibbet could be a simple gallows-type structure, or a metal cage. The gibbets, with bodies inside, were commonly placed along roads and waterways, to deter pirates and highway robbers. Though gibbeting was usually done post-humously as a punishment in addition to death, until the 17th century condemned criminals were sometimes placed in a metal cage alive to die of thirst. Captain William Kidd was gibbeted when executed for piracy in 1701. Kidd had to be hung twice (the rope broke on the first attempt) before his body was hung in chains over the River Thames. England outlawed gibbeting in 1834. Hang, Drawn and Quartered ************************* This quintessentially English barbaric form of execution was reserved for the most hated prisoners who had usually been convicted of treason. The form of execution referred to as being Hung, Drawn and Quartered was nicely described by a middle-ages chronicler called William Harrison: "The greatest and most grievous punishment used in England for such as offend against the State is drawing from the prison to the place of execution upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead, and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their bowels and members [genitals] are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire, provided near hand and within their own sight, even for the same purpose." The Quarters of the the body were then taken and hung in prescribed locations in the City of London as a deterrent to all English citizens. This evil and sadistic form of execution was invented in 1241, specifically to punish a man called William Maurice who had been convicted of piracy. This form of execution was no respecter of rank. It was used to execute traitors to the English, including those of royal birth. In 1283 David, the last Welsh Prince of Wales (Dafydd ap Gruffydd (c. 1235 - 3 October 1283), was tried for treason against King Edward I and was sentenced "to be drawn to the gallows as a traitor to the King who made him a Knight, to be hanged as the murderer of the gentleman taken in the Castle of Hawarden, to have his limbs burnt because he had profaned by assassination the solemnity of Christ's passion and to have his quarters dispersed through the country because he had in different places compassed the death of his lord the king". William Wallace (c1270 - 1305) now famous as 'Braveheart' was hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield on 23 August 1305. His limbs were displayed, separately, in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth. In the 1500's, a total of 105 Catholic martyrs were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in London. Guy Fawkes was sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering in 1606 for his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, a failed attempt to assassinate King James I of England and VI of Scotland. Fawkes managed to jump from the scaffold and break his neck, thus killing himself and avoiding the tortures of disembowelment and quartering. His body was nevertheless quartered, and the parts put on display. Being Hung, Drawn and Quartered was only applied to men, women found guilty of treason were burnt at the stake. Unbelievably, this punishment remained in English law until 1814. Quartering ********** This is a French version of the English execution method of being hung, drawn and quartered. Quartering may in truth be considered the most horrible penalty ever invented. This punishment dates from the remotest ages. In almost all cases, the victim had previously to undergo various accessory tortures: sometimes his right hand was cut off, and the mutilated stump was burnt in a cauldron of sulphur; sometimes his arms, thighs, or breasts were lacerated with red-hot pincers, and hot oil, pitch, or molten lead was poured into the wounds. After these horrible preliminaries, a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow. These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed, as if for towing a barge. These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were all suddenly urged on with the whip in different directions, and thus all the limbs were strained at one moment. If the tendons and ligaments still resisted the combined efforts of the four horses, the executioner assisted, and made several cuts with a hatchet on each joint. When at last, for this horrible torture often lasted several hours - each horse had drawn out a limb, they were collected and placed near the hideous trunk, which often still showed signs of life, and the whole were burned together. Sometimes the sentence was that the body should be hung to the gibbet, and that the limbs should be displayed on the gates of the town, or sent to four principal towns in the extremities of the kingdom. When this was done, "an inscription was placed on each of the limbs, which stated the reason of its being thus exposed." The breaking wheel ****************** The breaking wheel was also known as the Catherine Wheel and it was a cruel medieval execution device. This form of execution was used in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and well into the 19th century. The criminal would be attached to a cart wheel and his arms and legs stretched out along the spokes. The wheel would be made to turn while a heavy metal bar or hammer would deliver bone breaking blows to various parts of the body between the spokes. If a merciful execution had been ordered, after a large number of bones were shattered, fatal blows would be delivered. In cases where mercy was not offered, the criminal would remain on the wheel until they died - this could sometimes take days and the person would die of shock and dehydration. After the shattering was complete, the limbs of the person would be woven between the spokes and the wheel would be hoisted to the top of a pole for birds to eat the, sometimes still living, body. In France, a special grace was sometimes offered in which the criminal would be strangled to death before the blows were delivered, or after only two or three. Sawing ****** Though less common than other methods, execution by sawing was used in Europe, ancient Rome, China and parts of the Middle East. The condemned was hung upside down and sawed vertically in two. In the middle ages, a really macabre crime had to be committed in order to face this terrifying execution. The criminal is hung upside down, just long enough for the blood to rush to the brain. Then, the executioner begins to saw the person in half, starting with the groin, all the way to the very top of the skull. Because they were hung upside down, the person stayed alive until the saw reached the abdomen. Asians performed the execution in a more gruesome, cruel way. Instead of hanging the criminal upside down, they would put him (or her!) her right side up and start sawing from the top of the skull, to the groin. Decapitation ************ Prisoners were sentenced to having their head struck off their body. The axe was used for this purpose which resulted in the head often being roughly hacked off the victim, requiring several blows. When clemency was granted a sword was used which removed the head by one swift cut. Decapitation by sword (or axe, a military weapon as well) was sometimes considered the honourable way to die for an aristocrat, who, presumably being a warrior, could often expect to die by the sword in any event. In England it was considered the privilege of noblemen to be beheaded. This would be distinguished from a dishonourable death on the gallows or through burning at the stake. In medieval England, the punishment for high treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered but in the case of nobles and knights it was often commuted to beheading. Female commoner traitors were burned at the stake. If the Executioner's axe or sword was sharp and his aim was precise, decapitation was quick and was presumed to be a relatively painless form of death. If the instrument was blunt or the executioner clumsy, however, multiple strokes might be required to sever the head. The person to be executed was therefore advised to give a gold coin or two to the executioner to ensure that he did his job with care. The guillotine is a device designed for carrying out executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended. The condemned person is secured at the bottom of the frame, with his or her neck held directly below the blade. The blade is then released, to fall swiftly and sever the head from the body. Conceived in the late 18c this was one of the first methods of execution created under the assumption that capital punishment was intended to end life rather than inflict pain. The French Revolution began in 1789. The new civilian assembly rewrote the penal code to say, "Every person condemned to the death penalty shall have his head severed." All classes of people were now executed equally. The first guillotining took place on April 25, 1792, when Nicolas Jacques Pelletie was guillotined at Place de Greve on the Right Bank. Ironically, Louis XVI had his own head chopped off on January 21, 1793. Thousands of people were publicly guillotined during the French Revolution. Although it was specifically invented as a human form of execution, it has now been outlawed in France although the last guillotine execution was as recent as 1977. Boiling ******* This method was favoured by the infamous King Henry VIII. Statute 22 was passed in 1531 by Henry, and it made boiling a legal form of capital punishment. It began to be used for murderers who used poisons after the Bishop of Rochester's cook gave a number of people poisoned porridge, resulting in two deaths in February 1531. It was employed again in 1542 for a woman who used poison. The act was repealed in 1547. The convicted would be forced to strip naked and swim in a vat of boiling liquid, or sit in a vat of cold liquid, which later became heated and boiled. The liquid used inside of the vat was either water, tar, oil, or acid. This punishment was most often reserved for poisoners. More rarely employed than other methods of execution, boiling was used throughout Europe and Asia until the 17th century. Depending on the level of suffering intended, the victim was either placed in boiling water or oil, or made to sit in a cauldron full of cold liquid until it reached the boiling point. Alternatively, the victim could be fried to death in a large shallow pan of hot oil. In Europe, boiling was used throughout the Middle Ages to execute poisoners and forgers. More recently, the Uzbek government is reported to have boiled several people who opposed the political regime. Muzafar Avazov, 35, is believed to have been killed by immersion in boiling water in Uzbekistan as recently as 2002. Photographs of his remains show severe burns covering up to 70% of his body, consistent with boiling. The Garotte *********** Used in Spain for hundreds of years, the garotte is an efficient means of execution by asphyxiation. In an early version, the victim was tied to a stake and a loop of rope was placed around his or her neck. A rod in the loop was turned until the rope tightened, choking the victim. In later versions, the stake was replaced with a chair in which the victim was bound, and the rope was replaced with a metal collar. Until 1940, Spain implemented a version of the garotte which included a metal spike which was driven into the spinal cord as the collar tightened. Capital punishment in Spain is banned under the Constitution of 1978. Immurement ********** Bloodless but cruel nonetheless, immurement is the practice of encapsulating a living person in a wall, where they die of dehydration or hunger. According to Eastern European folklore, a sacrificial young maiden would be immured upon the completion of a large-scale building project. Roman Vestal Virgins, and Roman Catholic nuns, who broke their solemn vows of chastity were said to be sentenced to death by immurement. As reported in the 19th century magazine, Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, a skeleton was discovered in a wall at Coldingham Abbey in Berwickshire, Scotland, believed to be the remains of an immured nun. When Richard II of England was deposed in 1399, he was held prisoner in Pontefract Castle until his death only a few months later. Rumours soon circulated that he'd been shut up in a room and starved to death so his body would show no marks of violence. In 1610 Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous serial killer known as "The Blood Countess", was sentenced for her crimes to a form of prolonged immurement, walled inside the tower of her castle with only a tiny slot left open for food and water. She survived for four years before succumbing to her fate. The Blood Eagle *************** Spoken of in the Orkneyinga Sagas, the Blood Eagle supposedly involved cutting the ribs of the victim by the spine, breaking them so they resembled wings, and then pulling the victim's lungs out through the opening. Salt would then be sprinkled on the wound. Examples of those killed this way may have included King Ælla of Northumbria in 850, Halfdan son of King Haraldr Harfagri of Norway, King Edmund (a victim, like Ællaa, of the great Danish Viking king Ivarr), King Maelgualai of Munster, and just possibly Archbishop Ælfheah of Canterbury in 1012. It was thought to have been practised widely in Scandinavia and is known from old writings to have been used in Ireland and in England by the Viking raiders. There is actually very little real evidence that it happened at all, just the old saga descriptions. Oliver Cromwell's head ********************** Following the death of Oliver Cromwell on 3 September 1658, he was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey, equal to those of monarchs before him. At the restoration, Charles II opened a new parliament by ordering the disinterment of Cromwell's body from Westminster Abbey and the disinterment of other regicides John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, for a posthumous execution at Tyburn. After hanging "from morning till four in the afternoon", the bodies were cut down and the heads placed on a 20-foot (6.1 m) spike above Westminster Hall. In 1685 a storm broke the pole upon which his head still stood, throwing it to the ground, after which it was in the hands of private collectors and museum owners until the 25 March 1960, when it was buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. The symbolic value of the head changed over time. While it was spiked on a pole above the London skyline, it gave a potent warning to spectators. In the 18th century, the head became a curiosity and a relic. The head has been admired, reviled and dismissed as a fake throughout the centuries. After Thomas Carlyle dismissed the head as "fraudulent moonshine", and after the emergence of a rival claimant to the true head of Oliver Cromwell, scientific and archaeological analysis was carried out to prove the identity. Inconclusive tests culminated in a detailed scientific study by Karl Pearson and Geoffrey Morant, which concluded, based on a study of the head and other evidence, that there was a "moral certainty" that the well travelled head did actually once belong to Oliver Cromwell. The discovery of the Ashmolean skull reputed to be that of Cromwell was the original head's first rival claim, but the events did not add up. The story of that head was: In 1672, Oliver's skull was blown off the north side of Westminster Hall down into the leads of the same and taken thence by Mr. John Moore... Sometime after this he gave it to Mr. Warner, apothecary, living in King Street, Westminster. Mr. Warner sold it for 20 broad pieces of gold to Humphrey Dove, Esq... This skull was taken out of Mr. Dove's chest at his death in 1687. However, the head was conclusively seen on Westminster Hall as late as 1684..... Sources: "Old Time Punishments", W. Andrews "Faiths and Folklore", W. C. Hazlitt "Curious Punishments of Bygone Days", Alice Morse Earle "A History of Torture in England," L.A. Parry "History of Somersetshire", Collinson "A History of Torture" George R. Scott The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 'Encyclopaedia of Antiquities', Thomas Dudley Fosbroke Chamber's "Book of Days" listverse.com Oxford English Dictionary. www.pbs.org www.middle-ages.org.uk history.howstuffworks.com www.medieval-life-and-times.info www.oddee.com