Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty by Geoffrey Abbott Page A
Authors: Geoffrey Abbott
Tags: History
Ads: Link
the sun and the attacks of stinging insects, which were attracted by a mixture of milk and honey with which he had been smeared.
Should he, against all the odds, survive for 20 days, he was taken down and, as a degradation, dressed in women’s clothes before being escorted by large crowds to the cliffs, over which he was thrown head first.
DIELE
Instead of having a guillotine, the blade of which requires tall uprights in order to gain momentum, why not have two short uprights, then simply rest the blade on the nape of the kneeling victim’s neck and hit the top of the blade with a mallet, thus driving the cutting edge into, and hopefully through the victim’s neck?
That, as portrayed in old prints, would seem to have been the design and modus operandi of the diele, one of which was used early in the fifteenth century by John of Bavaria to dispatch the ringleaders of a revolt. It is highly likely that such a machine could have been the forerunner of the Italian mannaia seen by Père Jean-Baptiste Labat on his journeys through Spain and Italy in 1730.
DROWNING
‘Two barges laden with people stopped at a place called Prairie-au-Duc... More than eight hundred persons of all ages and both sexes were inhumanly drowned and cut to pieces.’
Wherever there was water, there was a free and straightforward method of disposing of unwanted members of society, whether they were common thieves or murderers, sorcerers or witches. The capital cities of most countries being situated on rivers meant that, for instance, those found guilty of bigamy or patricide in Ancient Rome could be thrown into the Tiber, their bodies first being wrapped in sheets of lead or tied in a sack. In France, in the reign of Charles VI, men committing sedition were tried in Paris and drowned in the Seine, while in Istanbul, Turkey, unfaithful wives were fettered and dropped into the Bosporus.
In England, London’s Thames was a perfect receptacle for convicted mutineers and pirates, and any law-breakers captured in the grounds of the lord of Baynard’s Castle also finished up in that city’s river. In the shires powerful barons maintained their own sets of gallows together with a quagmire, or drowning pit, the former on which to hang male offenders, the latter in which to immerse female thieves.
As a method of determining the guilt or otherwise of suspected criminals, water was considered indispensable, for it was common knowledge that water, being under divine influence, would automatically reject those guilty of sin or crime. So the accused person, naked, with hands and feet bound, would have a rope tied about his or her waist, a knot being tied in the rope about 18 inches from the body.
With witnesses crowding the banks or shore, the suspect would be thrown into the water. The knot sinking out of sight denoted innocence, but woe betide the unfortunate if, somehow, he or she managed to remain on or near the surface.
In the Middle Ages, when superstition was rife, trial by water was widely used in the identification of witches and sorcerers, due to the fact that those consorting with the devil possessed the unique characteristic of being lighter than water, a test maintained by James I to be infallible.
Anyone suspected of being a witch would be examined by a ‘qualified’ witch-finder such as the notorious Matthew Hopkins, who would ‘prick’ for guilt using a needle to search for any insensitive places on the woman’s body. Once allegedly located, such a place was taken as positive evidence of acquaintanceship with the devil, and as confirmation she would be put to trial by water.
Trussed crossways, right-hand thumb to the big toe of the left foot, left-hand thumb to the big toe of the right foot, she would be secured about the waist in the middle of a long rope and, the men on each end standing on opposite banks of the river or stream, she would be lowered into the water. Again, sinking indicated innocence, though doubtless a
Should he, against all the odds, survive for 20 days, he was taken down and, as a degradation, dressed in women’s clothes before being escorted by large crowds to the cliffs, over which he was thrown head first.
DIELE
Instead of having a guillotine, the blade of which requires tall uprights in order to gain momentum, why not have two short uprights, then simply rest the blade on the nape of the kneeling victim’s neck and hit the top of the blade with a mallet, thus driving the cutting edge into, and hopefully through the victim’s neck?
That, as portrayed in old prints, would seem to have been the design and modus operandi of the diele, one of which was used early in the fifteenth century by John of Bavaria to dispatch the ringleaders of a revolt. It is highly likely that such a machine could have been the forerunner of the Italian mannaia seen by Père Jean-Baptiste Labat on his journeys through Spain and Italy in 1730.
DROWNING
‘Two barges laden with people stopped at a place called Prairie-au-Duc... More than eight hundred persons of all ages and both sexes were inhumanly drowned and cut to pieces.’
Wherever there was water, there was a free and straightforward method of disposing of unwanted members of society, whether they were common thieves or murderers, sorcerers or witches. The capital cities of most countries being situated on rivers meant that, for instance, those found guilty of bigamy or patricide in Ancient Rome could be thrown into the Tiber, their bodies first being wrapped in sheets of lead or tied in a sack. In France, in the reign of Charles VI, men committing sedition were tried in Paris and drowned in the Seine, while in Istanbul, Turkey, unfaithful wives were fettered and dropped into the Bosporus.
In England, London’s Thames was a perfect receptacle for convicted mutineers and pirates, and any law-breakers captured in the grounds of the lord of Baynard’s Castle also finished up in that city’s river. In the shires powerful barons maintained their own sets of gallows together with a quagmire, or drowning pit, the former on which to hang male offenders, the latter in which to immerse female thieves.
As a method of determining the guilt or otherwise of suspected criminals, water was considered indispensable, for it was common knowledge that water, being under divine influence, would automatically reject those guilty of sin or crime. So the accused person, naked, with hands and feet bound, would have a rope tied about his or her waist, a knot being tied in the rope about 18 inches from the body.
With witnesses crowding the banks or shore, the suspect would be thrown into the water. The knot sinking out of sight denoted innocence, but woe betide the unfortunate if, somehow, he or she managed to remain on or near the surface.
In the Middle Ages, when superstition was rife, trial by water was widely used in the identification of witches and sorcerers, due to the fact that those consorting with the devil possessed the unique characteristic of being lighter than water, a test maintained by James I to be infallible.
Anyone suspected of being a witch would be examined by a ‘qualified’ witch-finder such as the notorious Matthew Hopkins, who would ‘prick’ for guilt using a needle to search for any insensitive places on the woman’s body. Once allegedly located, such a place was taken as positive evidence of acquaintanceship with the devil, and as confirmation she would be put to trial by water.
Trussed crossways, right-hand thumb to the big toe of the left foot, left-hand thumb to the big toe of the right foot, she would be secured about the waist in the middle of a long rope and, the men on each end standing on opposite banks of the river or stream, she would be lowered into the water. Again, sinking indicated innocence, though doubtless a
Similar Books
