Such a death was considered humiliating
The most popular types of execution in the Middle Ages were beheading and hanging. Moreover, they were applied to people of different classes. Beheading was used as a punishment for noble people, and the gallows was the lot of the rootless poor. So why did the aristocracy beheaded and the common people hanged?
Beheading is for kings and nobles
This type of death penalty has been used everywhere for many millennia. In medieval Europe, such punishment was considered “noble” or “honorable.” Mostly aristocrats were beheaded. When a representative of a noble family laid his head on the block, he showed humility.
Beheading with a sword, ax or ax was considered the least painful death. A quick death made it possible to avoid public agony, which was important for representatives of noble families. The crowd, hungry for spectacle, should not have seen the low dying manifestations.
It was also believed that aristocrats, being brave and selfless warriors, were prepared specifically for death from knives.
Much in this matter depended on the skills of the executioner. Therefore, often the convict himself or his relatives paid a lot of money so that he could do his job in one blow.
Decapitation results in instant death, which means it saves you from frantic torment. The sentence was carried out quickly. The condemned man laid his head on a log, which was supposed to be no more than six inches thick. This greatly simplified the execution.
The aristocratic connotation of this type of punishment was also reflected in books dedicated to the Middle Ages, thereby perpetuating its selectivity. In the book “The History of a Master” (author Kirill Sinelnikov) there is a quote: “... a noble execution - cutting off the head. This is not a hanging, an execution of the mob. Beheading is for kings and nobles.”
Hanging
While nobles were sentenced to beheadings, commoner criminals ended up on the gallows.
Hanging is the most common execution in the world. This type of punishment has been considered shameful since ancient times. And there are several explanations for this. Firstly, it was believed that when hanging, the soul cannot leave the body, as if remaining hostage to it. Such dead people were called “hostages.”
Secondly, dying on the gallows was painful and painful. Death does not occur instantly; a person experiences physical suffering and remains conscious for several seconds, fully aware of the approaching end. All his torment and manifestations of agony are observed by hundreds of onlookers. In 90% of cases, at the moment of suffocation, all the muscles of the body relax, which leads to complete emptying of the intestines and bladder.
For many peoples, hanging was considered an unclean death. No one wanted his body dangling in plain sight after the execution. Violation by public display is a mandatory part of this type of punishment. Many believed that such a death was the worst thing that could happen, and it was reserved only for traitors. People remembered Judas, who hanged himself on an aspen tree.
A person sentenced to the gallows had to have three ropes: the first two, pinkie-thick (tortuza), were equipped with a loop and were intended for direct strangulation. The third was called a “token” or “throw” - it served to throw the condemned to the gallows. The execution was completed by the executioner, holding onto the crossbars of the gallows and kneeling the condemned man in the stomach.
Exceptions to the rules
Despite the clear distinction between belonging to one class or another, there were exceptions to the established rules. For example, if a noble nobleman raped a girl whom he was entrusted with guardianship, then he was deprived of his nobility and all the privileges associated with the title. If during detention he resisted, then the gallows awaited him.
Among the military, deserters and traitors were sentenced to hanging. For officers, such a death was so humiliating that they often committed suicide without waiting for the execution of the sentence imposed by the court.
The exception was cases of treason, in which the nobleman was deprived of all privileges and could be executed as a commoner.
Current page: 12 (book has 22 pages total) [available reading passage: 15 pages]
The executioner stood on the victim’s tied hands and on this improvised stirrup he jumped as hard as he could. This method of execution was nicknamed “brittle withers.”
Other executioners, such as those in Lyon and Marseille, preferred to place the slip knot over the back of the head. The rope had a second blind knot that prevented it from slipping under the chin. With this method of hanging, the executioner stood not on his hands, but on the head of the condemned man, pushing it forward so that the blind knot would fall on the larynx or trachea, which often led to their rupture.
Today, according to the "English method", the rope is placed under the left side of the lower jaw. The advantage of this method is the high likelihood of spinal fracture.
In the US, the loop knot is placed behind the right ear. This method of hanging leads to a strong stretching of the neck, and sometimes to the tearing off of the head.
Execution in Cairo in 1907.
Engraving by Clément Auguste Andrieu. XIX century Private count
Let us remember that hanging by the neck was not the only widespread method. Previously, hanging by the limbs was used quite often, but, as a rule, as an additional torture. They hung the victim by the hands over the fire, by the legs - giving the victim to be eaten by dogs, such an execution lasted for hours and was terrible.
Hanging by the armpits was fatal in itself and guaranteed prolonged agony. The pressure of the belt or rope was so strong that it stopped blood circulation and led to paralysis of the pectoral muscles and suffocation. Many convicts, suspended in this way for two or three hours, were removed from the gallows already dead, and even if alive, they did not live long after this terrible torture. Adult defendants were sentenced to a similar “slow hanging”, forcing them to confess to a crime or complicity. Children and teenagers were also often hanged for capital crimes. For example, in 1722, the younger brother of the robber Cartouche, who was not yet fifteen years old, was executed in this way.
Some countries sought to extend the execution procedure. So, in the 19th century in Turkey, the hands of hanged people were not tied so that they could grab the rope above their heads and hold on until their strength left them and after a long agony death came.
According to European custom, the bodies of hanged people were not removed until they began to decompose. Hence the gallows, nicknamed “bandit”, which should not be confused with ordinary gallows. On them hung not only the bodies of those hanged, but also the corpses of convicts killed by other means.
“Bandit gallows” personified royal justice and served as a reminder of the prerogatives of the nobility, and at the same time were used to intimidate criminals. For greater edification, they were placed along crowded roads, mainly on hillocks.
Their design varied depending on the title of the lord holding court: a nobleman without a title - two beams, the owner of the castle - three, a baron - four, a count - six, a duke - eight, a king - as many as he considered necessary.
The royal “bandit gallows” of Paris, introduced by Philip the Fair, were the most famous in France: they usually “showed off” fifty to sixty hanged people. They rose in the north of the capital, approximately where Buttes-Chaumont is now located - at that time this place was called the “Montfaucon Hills”. Soon the gallows themselves began to be called that.
...
HANGING CHILDREN
When children were executed in European countries, they most often resorted to death by hanging. One of the main reasons was class: children of nobles rarely appeared in court.
France. If we were talking about children under 13–14 years old, they were hanged by the armpits; death from suffocation usually occurred within two to three hours.
England. The country where the largest number of children were sent to the gallows, they were hanged by the neck like adults. Hanging of children continued until 1833, the last such sentence being imposed on a nine-year-old boy accused of stealing ink.
When many countries in Europe had already abolished the death penalty, the English criminal code stated that children could be hanged from the age of seven if there was “clear evidence of mischief.”
In 1800, a ten-year-old child was hanged in London for fraud. He falsified the ledger of a haberdashery store. The following year, Andrew Branning was executed. He stole a spoon. In 1808, a seven-year-old child was hanged in Chelmsford on charges of arson. That same year, a 13-year-old boy was hanged on the same charge in Maidstone. This happened throughout the first half of the 19th century.
The writer Samuel Rogers writes in Table Talk that he saw a group of girls in colorful dresses being taken away to be hanged at Tyburn. Greville, who followed the trial of several very young boys condemned to hanging, who burst into tears after the verdict was announced, writes: “It became clear that they were completely unprepared for this. I’ve never seen boys cry like that.”
It may be assumed that teenagers are no longer legally executed, although in 1987 Iraqi authorities executed fourteen Kurdish teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 after a mock court-martial.
Montfaucon looked like a huge block of stone: 12.20 meters long and 9.15 meters wide. The rubble base served as a platform to which one climbed up a stone staircase; the entrance was blocked by a massive door.
Sixteen square stone pillars, ten meters high, rose on three sides of this platform. At the very top and in the middle, the supports were connected by wooden beams from which iron chains hung for corpses.
Long, strong ladders standing at the supports allowed the executioners to hang the living, as well as the corpses of those hanged, wheeled and beheaded in other parts of the city.
Hanging of two murderers in Tunisia in 1905.
Engraving. Private count
Hanging in Tunisia in 1909.
Photographic postcard. Private count
In the center there was a huge pit where the executioners dumped rotting remains when they needed to make room on the beams.
This terrible dump of corpses was a source of food for thousands of crows that lived on Montfaucon.
It is easy to imagine how ominous Montfaucon looked, especially when, due to a lack of space, they decided to expand it by building two other “bandit gallows” nearby in 1416 and 1457 - the gallows of the Church of Saint-Laurent and the gallows of Montigny.
Hanging on Montfaucon would cease during the reign of Louis XIII, and the structure itself would be completely destroyed in 1761. But hanging will disappear in France only at the end of the 18th century, in England in the second half of the 19th century, and until then it will be very popular.
As we have already said, gallows - ordinary and bandit - were used not only for executions, but also for putting those executed on public display. In every city and almost every village, not only in Europe, but also in newly colonized lands, they were stationary.
It would seem that in such conditions people had to live in constant fear. Nothing like this. They learned to ignore the decomposed bodies swinging from the gallows. In an effort to frighten the people, they were taught to be indifferent. In France, several centuries before the revolution that gave birth to the “guillotine for all,” hanging became “entertainment,” “fun.”
Some came to drink and eat under the gallows, others looked for mandrake root there or visited for a piece of “lucky” rope.
The terrible stench, rotten or withered bodies swaying in the wind did not prevent innkeepers and innkeepers from trading in the immediate vicinity of the gallows. People led a cheerful life.
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...HANGED PEOPLE AND SUPERSTITION
It has always been believed that whoever touches a hanged man will gain supernatural powers, good or evil. According to popular beliefs, nails, teeth, the body of a hanged man and the rope used for execution could relieve pain and treat some diseases, help women in labor, cast a spell, and bring good luck in games and the lottery.
Goya's famous painting depicts a Spanish woman pulling out a tooth from a corpse right on the gallows.
After public executions at night, people could often be seen at the gallows looking for mandrake - a magical plant that supposedly grows from the sperm of the hanged man.
In his Natural History, Buffon writes that French women and residents of other European countries who wanted to get rid of infertility had to walk under the body of a hanged criminal.
In England, at the dawn of the 19th century, mothers brought sick children to the scaffold to be touched by the hand of the executed, believing that it had a healing gift.
After the execution, pieces were broken off from the gallows to make a toothache remedy.
Superstitions associated with the hanged also extended to executioners: they were credited with healing abilities, which were allegedly passed on by inheritance, like their craft. In fact, their grim activities gave them some anatomical knowledge, and executioners often became skilled chiropractors.
But mainly the executioners were credited with the ability to prepare miraculous creams and ointments based on “human fat” and “bones of hanged men,” which were sold for their weight in gold.
Jacques Delarue, in his work on executioners, writes that superstitions associated with those sentenced to death still persisted in the middle of the 19th century: as early as 1865, one could find sick and disabled people gathering around the scaffold in the hope of picking up a few drops of blood that would will heal.
Let us remember that during the last public execution in France in 1939, many “spectators”, out of superstition, dipped their handkerchiefs into the blood splashes on the pavement.
Pulling out the teeth of a hanged man.
Engraving by Goya.
Francois Villon and his friends were one of these. Let's remember his poems:
And they went to Montfaucon,
Where a large crowd has already gathered,
It was full of girls and noisy,
And the body trade began.
The story told by Brantome shows that people were so accustomed to hanging that they did not feel any disgust at all. A certain young woman, whose husband was hanged, went to the gallows, guarded by soldiers. One of the guards decided to hit on her, and was so successful that “he twice had the pleasure of laying her on the coffin of his own husband, who served as their bed.”
Three hundred reasons to be hanged!
Another example of the lack of edification of public hangings dates back to 1820. According to the English report, of the two hundred and fifty condemned, one hundred and seventy had already been present at one or more hangings. A similar document, dated 1886, shows that of the one hundred and sixty-seven prisoners condemned to hang at Bristol Gaol, only three never attended an execution. It got to the point that hanging was used not only for an attempt on property, but also for the slightest offense. Commoners were hanged for any offense.
In 1535, under penalty of hanging, it was ordered to shave the beard, since this distinguished nobles and military men from people of other classes. Ordinary petty theft also led to the gallows. You pulled out a turnip or caught a carp - and there’s a rope waiting for you. Back in 1762, a maid named Antoinette Toutant was hanged on the Place de Greve for stealing an embroidered napkin.
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JUDGE LYNCH'S GALLOWS
Judge Lynch, from whom the word “lynching” comes, is most likely a fictional character. According to one hypothesis, in the 17th century there lived a certain judge named Lee Lynch, who, using the absolute power given to him by his fellow citizens, allegedly cleared the country of evildoers through drastic measures. According to another version, Lynch was a farmer from Virginia or the founder of the city of Lynchburg in this state.
At the dawn of American colonization in a vast country where numerous adventurers flocked, not so many representatives of justice were unable to apply existing laws, so in all states, in particular in California, Colorado, Oregon and Nevada, committees of vigilant citizens began to be formed, which hanged criminals caught in the act without any trial or investigation. Despite the gradual establishment of a legal system, lynchings occurred every year until the mid-20th century. The most common victims were blacks in segregationist states. It is believed that at least 4,900 people, mostly blacks, were lynched between 1900 and 1944. After hanging, many were doused with gasoline and set on fire.
Before the revolution, the French criminal code listed two hundred and fifteen crimes punishable by hanging. The criminal code of England, in the full sense of the word, the country of the gallows, was even more severe. They were sentenced to hanging without taking into account mitigating circumstances for any offense, regardless of severity. In 1823, in a document that would later be called the Bloody Code, there were more than three hundred and fifty crimes punishable by capital punishment.
In 1837, there were two hundred and twenty of them left in the code. Only in 1839 the number of crimes punishable by death was reduced to fifteen, and in 1861 to four. Thus, in England in the 19th century, as in the dark Middle Ages, people were hanged for stealing a vegetable or for cutting down a tree in someone else’s forest...
The death penalty was imposed for theft of a sum exceeding twelve pence. In some countries, almost the same thing is happening now. In Malaysia, for example, anyone found in possession of fifteen grams of heroin or more than two hundred grams of Indian hemp is hanged. From 1985 to 1993, more than a hundred people were hanged for such offenses.
Until complete decomposition
In the 18th century, hanging days were declared non-working days, and at the dawn of the 19th century gallows were still erected throughout England. There were so many of them that they often served as milestones.
The practice of leaving bodies on the gallows until they were completely decomposed persisted in England until 1832; the last person to suffer this fate is considered to be a certain James Cook.
Arthur Koestler, in Reflections on a Hanging, recalls that in the 19th century, execution was an elaborate ceremony and was considered a first-class spectacle by the gentry. People came from all over England to attend the “beautiful” hanging.
In 1807, more than forty thousand people gathered for the execution of Holloway and Haggerty. About a hundred people died in the stampede. In the 19th century, some European countries had already abolished the death penalty, and in England seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old children were hanged. Public hanging of children continued until 1833. The last death sentence of this kind was imposed on a nine-year-old boy who stole ink. But he was not executed: public opinion demanded and achieved a mitigation of the punishment.
In the 19th century, there were often cases when those hanged in a hurry did not die immediately. The number of convicts who hung on the gallows for more than half an hour and survived is truly impressive. In the same 19th century, an incident occurred with a certain Green: he came to life already in a coffin.
Long drop execution in London.
Engraving. XIX century Private count
During autopsies, which became a mandatory procedure since 1880, hanged people often came back to life right on the pathologist’s table.
Arthur Koestler told us the most incredible story. The available evidence eliminates the slightest doubt about its veracity, and besides, the source of information was a famous practitioner. In Germany, a hanged man woke up in an anatomical lab, got up and ran away, using the help of a forensic expert.
In 1927, two English convicts were taken from the gallows after fifteen minutes, but they began to breathe spasmodically, which meant that the condemned men had returned to life, and they were hastily brought back for another half hour.
Hanging was a "fine art" and England tried to achieve the highest degree of perfection in it. In the first half of the 20th century, commissions were repeatedly established in the country to solve problems related to the death penalty. The latest research was carried out by the English Royal Commission (1949–1953), which, having studied all types of execution, concluded that the fastest and most reliable method of instant death could be considered “long drop,” which involved a fracture of the cervical vertebrae as a result of a sharp fall.
The British claim that thanks to the “long drop,” hanging has become much more humane.
Photo. Private count D.R.
The so-called “long drop” was invented by the Irish in the 19th century, although many English executioners demanded credit for their authorship. This method combined all the scientific rules of hanging, which allowed the British to claim, until the abolition of the death penalty for criminal offenses in December 1964, that they had “successfully transformed the originally barbaric execution by hanging into a humane method.” This “English” hanging, which is currently the most common method in the world, takes place according to a strictly prescribed ritual. The convict's hands are tied behind his back, then he is placed on the hatch exactly at the line of the junction of two hinged doors, fixed horizontally with two iron rods at the level of the scaffold floor. When the lever is lowered or the locking cord is cut, the doors swing open. The prisoner standing on the hatch has his ankles tied and his head covered with a white, black or beige - depending on the country - hood. The loop is placed around the neck so that the knot is under the left side of the lower jaw. The rope is coiled over the gallows, and when the executioner opens the hatch, it unwinds after the falling body. The system for attaching the hemp rope to the gallows allows it to be shortened or lengthened as necessary.
Hanging of two convicts in Ethiopia in 1935.
Photo "Keystone".
...
MEANING OF ROPE
The material and quality of the rope, which are of great importance during hanging, were carefully determined by the executioner; this was part of his duties.
George Mauledon, nicknamed the "Prince of Executioners", served in this position for twenty years (from 1874 to 1894). He used ropes made to his order. He took hemp from Kentucky, wove it in St. Louis, and wove it in Fort Smith. Then the executioner soaked it in a mixture based on vegetable oil so that the knot would slide better and the rope itself would not stretch. George Moledon set a unique record that no one has even come close to: one of his ropes was used in twenty-seven hangings.
Another important element is the node. It is believed that for good sliding the knot is made in thirteen turns. In fact, there are never more than eight or nine of them, which is approximately a ten-centimeter roller.
When the noose is placed around the neck, it must be tightened without in any way cutting off the blood circulation.
The coils of the noose are located under the left jaw bone, exactly under the ear. Having correctly positioned the noose, the executioner must release a certain length of rope, which varies depending on the weight of the convict, age, build and his physiological characteristics. Thus, in 1905 in Chicago, murderer Robert Gardiner avoided hanging due to the ossification of the vertebrae and tissues, which excluded this type of execution. When hanging, one rule applies: the heavier the convicted person, the shorter the rope should be.
There are many weight/rope charts designed to eliminate unpleasant surprises: if the rope is too short, the prisoner will suffer from suffocation, and if it is too long, his head will be blown off.
Since the condemned man was unconscious, he was tied to a chair and hanged in a sitting position. England. 1932
Photo. Private count D.R.
Execution of murderer Raines Deacy in Kentucky. The sentence is carried out by a female executioner. 1936
Photo "Keystone".
This detail determines the “quality” of the execution. The length of the rope from the sliding loop to the attachment point is determined depending on the height and weight of the convicted person. In most countries, these parameters are reflected in the correspondence tables that are available to executioners. Before each hanging, a thorough check is carried out with a bag of sand whose weight is equal to the weight of the condemned person.
The risks are very real. If the rope is not long enough and the vertebrae do not break, the condemned person will have to slowly die from suffocation, but if it is too long, then the executed person’s head will be torn off due to too long a fall. According to the rules, an eighty-kilogram person must fall from a height of 2.40 meters, the length of the rope must be reduced by 5 centimeters for every three additional kilograms.
However, the “correspondence tables” can be adjusted taking into account the characteristics of the convicts: age, obesity, physical data, especially muscle strength.
In 1880, newspapers reported the “resurrection” of a certain Hungarian Takács, who hung there for ten minutes and returned to life half an hour later. He died from his injuries only three days later. According to the doctors, this “anomaly” was due to the extremely strong structure of the throat, protruding lymph glands and the fact that it was removed “ahead of schedule.”
In preparation for the execution of Robert Goodale, executioner Berry, who had experience of more than two hundred hangings, calculated that, given the weight of the condemned man, the required fall height should be 2.3 meters. After examining him, he discovered that his neck muscles were very weak, and reduced the length of the rope to 1.72 meters, that is, by 48 centimeters. However, these measures were not enough; Goodale's neck was even weaker than it looked, and the victim's head was torn off with a rope.
Similar terrible cases were observed in France, Canada, the USA and Austria. Warden Clinton Duffy, director of St. Quentin Prison (California), who was present as a witness or supervisor at more than one hundred and fifty hanging and gas chamber executions, described one such execution in which the rope was too long.
“The face of the convict was shattered into pieces. A head half torn off from the body, eyes bulging out of their sockets, burst blood vessels, a swollen tongue.” He also noticed the terrible smell of urine and excrement. Duffy also spoke about another hanging, when the rope was too short: “The condemned man slowly suffocated for about a quarter of an hour, breathing heavily, wheezing like a dying pig. He was convulsing, his body was spinning like a top. I had to hang on to his legs so that the rope would not break from the powerful shocks. The condemned man turned purple and his tongue was swollen.”
Public hanging in Iran.
Photo. TF1 archives.
To avoid such failures, Pierrepoint, the last executioner of the British kingdom, usually, a few hours before the execution, carefully examined the condemned man through the peephole of the cell.
Pierrepoint claimed that from the moment he took the condemned man out of the cell until the hatch lever was lowered, no more than ten to twelve seconds passed. If in other prisons where he worked, the cell was further from the gallows, then, as he said, everything took about twenty-five seconds.
But is speed of execution an indisputable proof of effectiveness?
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...HANGING IN THE WORLD
Here is a list of seventy-seven countries that used hanging as a legal method of execution under civil or military law in the 1990s: Albania*, Angila, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bangladesh*, Barbados, Bermuda, Burma, Botswana , Brunei, Burundi, Great Britain, Hungary*, Virgin Islands, Gambia, Granada, Guyana, Hong Kong, Dominica, Egypt*, Zaire*, Zimbabwe, India*, Iraq*, Iran*, Ireland, Israel, Jordan*, Cayman Islands, Cameroon, Qatar*, Kenya, Kuwait*, Lesotho, Liberia*, Lebanon*, Libya*, Mauritius, Malawi, Malaysia, Montserrat, Namibia, Nepal*, Nigeria*, New Guinea, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland*, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Singapore, Syria*, Slovakia*, Sudan*, Swaziland, Syria*, CIS*, USA*, Sierra Leone*, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia*, Turkey, Uganda*, Fiji, Central African Republic, Czech Republic*, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea*, South Africa, South Korea*, Jamaica, Japan.
An asterisk indicates countries where hanging is not the only method of execution and, depending on the nature of the crime and the court that passed the sentence, the convicted are also shot or beheaded.
Hanged.
Drawing by Victor Hugo.
According to Benley Purchase, coroner for North London, findings from fifty-eight executions proved that the real cause of death by hanging was separation of the cervical vertebrae, accompanied by rupture or crushing of the spinal cord. All injuries of this kind lead to instant loss of consciousness and brain death. The heart can beat for another fifteen to thirty minutes, but, according to pathologists, “we are talking about purely reflex movements.”
In the United States, one forensic expert, who opened the chest of an executed man who had been hanging for half an hour, had to stop his heart with his hand, as is done with a “wall clock pendulum.”
The heart was still beating!
Taking all these cases into account, in 1942 the British issued a directive stating that a doctor would pronounce death after the body had been hanging in the noose for at least an hour. In Austria, until 1968, when the death penalty was abolished in the country, this time period was three hours.
In 1951, the archivist of the Royal Society of Surgeons stated that out of thirty-six cases of autopsy of hanged corpses, in ten cases the heart beat seven hours after execution, and in two others - after five hours.
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VOICE OF PRESIDENTS
In Argentina, President Carlos Menem announced in 1991 his intention to reintroduce the death penalty into the country's criminal code.
In Peru, President Alberto Fujimori spoke in 1992 in favor of reinstating the death penalty, abolished in 1979, for crimes committed in peacetime.
In Brazil, in 1991, Congress received a proposal to amend the constitution to restore the death penalty for certain crimes.
In Papua New Guinea, the presidential administration reinstated the death penalty for bloody crimes and premeditated murder in August 1991, which had been completely abolished in 1974.
The Philippines reintroduced the death penalty in December 1993 for murder, rape, infanticide, hostage-taking and grand corruption crimes. Once upon a time in this country they used the electric chair, but this time they chose the gas chamber.
A famous criminologist once said: “He who has not learned the art of hanging will carry out his work contrary to common sense and subject the unfortunate sinners to torture as long as it is useless.” Let us recall the terrible execution of Mrs. Thomson in 1923, after which the executioner attempted suicide.
But if even the “best” English executioners in the world faced such gloomy vicissitudes, what can we say about the executions that took place in other parts of the world.
In 1946, the executions of Nazi criminals in Germany and Austria, as well as the executions of those sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal, were accompanied by terrible incidents. Even using the modern “long drop” method, the performers more than once had to pull the hanged people by the legs, finishing them off.
In 1981, during a public hanging in Kuwait, the condemned man died from asphyxia for almost ten minutes. The executioner miscalculated the length of the rope, and the height of the fall was not enough to break a cervical vertebra.
In Africa, they often prefer hanging “English style” - with a scaffold and a hatch. However, this method requires some skill. Paris Match's account of the public hanging of four former ministers in Kinshasa in June 1966 reads more like a tale of torture. The convicts were stripped down to their underwear, hoods were put on their heads, and their hands were tied behind their backs. “The rope is pulled tight, the chest of the condemned person is at the level of the scaffold floor. Legs and hips are visible from below. Short spasm. Everything is over". Evariste Kinba died quickly. Emmanuel Bamba was a man of extremely strong build; his cervical vertebrae were not broken. He suffocated slowly, his body resisted to the last. The ribs protruded, all the veins on the body appeared, the diaphragm compressed and unclenched, the spasms stopped only in the seventh minute.
...
CONFORMITY TABLE
The heavier the convicted person, the shorter the rope should be. There are many weight/rope correspondence tables. The most commonly used table is the one compiled by executioner James Barry.
Convict Weight – Rope Length
54 kg minimum………… 2.46 m
56.6 kg……………………………2.40 m
58.8 kg……………………………2.35 m
61.2 kg……………………………2.23 m
63.4 kg……………………………2.16 m
65.7 kg……………………………2.05 m
67.9 kg……………………………2.01 m
70.2 kg ……………………………… 1.98 m
72.5 kg ……………………………… 1.93 m
74.7 kg ……………………………… 1.88 m
77.2 kg ……………………………… 1.83 m
79.3 kg ……………………………… 1.80 m
81.5 kg ……………………………… 1.75 m
83.8 kg ……………………………… 1.70 m
86.1 kg ……………………………… 1.68 m
88.3 kg ……………………………… 1.65 m
90.6 kg ……………………………… 1.62 m
92.8 kg ……………………………… 1.57 m
95.1 kg ……………………………… 1.55 m
99 kg and more………………… 1.52 m
Agony 14 minutes long
Alexander Makhomba died almost instantly, and the death of Jerome Anani became the longest, most painful and terrible. The agony lasted fourteen minutes. “He was also hanged very poorly: the rope either slipped at the last second, or was initially poorly secured; in any case, it ended up above the convict’s left ear. For fourteen minutes he spun in all directions, twitched convulsively, beat, his legs shook, bent and unbent, his muscles tensed so much that at some point it seemed that he was about to free himself. Then the amplitude of his jerks sharply decreased, and soon the body became quiet.”
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LAST MEAL
The recent publication both outraged US public opinion and provoked a scandal. The article listed the most exquisite and delicious dishes that the condemned ordered before execution. In the American prison "Cummins" one prisoner, who was being taken away for execution, said, pointing to dessert: "I'll finish it when I get back."
Lynching of two black murderers in the USA.
Photo. Private count
Public hanging in Syria in 1979 of people accused of spying for Israel.
Photo. D.R.
...
...HANGING
Classic hanging by the neck is the most common of all types of this method of killing, but there are many others, much more cruel.
The Romans and many Eastern peoples hung prisoners by their hair and genitals. Hanging by the genitals existed in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. But the most terrible were the hangings, when the executed person was lifted up on an iron hook, which was driven into the body, clinging to one of the bones. Usually a rib was chosen, from behind or in front, sometimes they were hooked onto the pectoral muscles, strong enough to support the weight of the convict. Suspension from a hook by the rib until death was provided for by the medieval Japanese code. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Turks hooked the condemned man by the leg and arm on one side. The English did the same thing in the 18th century when executing rebellious natives in their African colonies by placing a hook around the chest or just below the shoulder. Those executed were left to die in terrible agony, which lasted for several days. They may have borrowed this practice from Arab slave traders. In Algeria, the dei hung the condemned in this way on hooks driven into the walls of the palaces.
Hanged for the place where they sinned.
Engraving by D.R.
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Hanging from hooks in Turkey.
18th century engraving. Private count
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Hanging from hooks in Turkey.
Engraving. Private count
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Slow execution for parricide. Dahomey, 1903
Engraving. Private count
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A black man hanged alive by the ribs in 1796.
Engraving by William Blake. D.R.
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Hanging by the feet in Persia, 1910
The most popular types of execution in the Middle Ages were beheading and hanging. Moreover, they were applied to people of different classes. Beheading was used as a punishment for noble people, and the gallows was the lot of the rootless poor. So why did the aristocracy beheaded and the common people hanged?
Beheading is for kings and nobles
This type of death penalty has been used everywhere for many millennia. In medieval Europe, such punishment was considered “noble” or “honorable.” Mostly aristocrats were beheaded. When a representative of a noble family laid his head on the block, he showed humility.
Beheading with a sword, ax or ax was considered the least painful death. A quick death made it possible to avoid public agony, which was important for representatives of noble families. The crowd, hungry for spectacle, should not have seen the low dying manifestations.
It was also believed that aristocrats, being brave and selfless warriors, were prepared specifically for death from knives.
Much in this matter depended on the skills of the executioner. Therefore, often the convict himself or his relatives paid a lot of money so that he could do his job in one blow.
Decapitation results in instant death, which means it saves you from frantic torment. The sentence was carried out quickly. The condemned man laid his head on a log, which was supposed to be no more than six inches thick. This greatly simplified the execution.
The aristocratic connotation of this type of punishment was also reflected in books dedicated to the Middle Ages, thereby perpetuating its selectivity. In the book “The History of a Master” (author Kirill Sinelnikov) there is a quote: “... a noble execution - cutting off the head. This is not a hanging, an execution of the mob. Beheading is for kings and nobles."
Hanging
While nobles were sentenced to beheadings, commoner criminals ended up on the gallows.
Hanging is the most common execution in the world. This type of punishment has been considered shameful since ancient times. And there are several explanations for this. Firstly, it was believed that when hanging, the soul cannot leave the body, as if remaining hostage to it. Such dead people were called “hostages.”
Secondly, dying on the gallows was painful and painful. Death does not occur instantly; a person experiences physical suffering and remains conscious for several seconds, fully aware of the approaching end. All his torment and manifestations of agony are observed by hundreds of onlookers. In 90% of cases, at the moment of suffocation, all the muscles of the body relax, which leads to complete emptying of the intestines and bladder.
For many peoples, hanging was considered an unclean death. No one wanted his body dangling in plain sight after the execution. Violation by public display is a mandatory part of this type of punishment. Many believed that such a death was the worst thing that could happen, and it was reserved only for traitors. People remembered Judas, who hanged himself on an aspen tree.
A person sentenced to the gallows had to have three ropes: the first two, pinkie-thick (tortuza), were equipped with a loop and were intended for direct strangulation. The third was called a “token” or “throw” - it served to throw a person sentenced to the gallows. The execution was completed by the executioner, holding onto the crossbars of the gallows and kneeling the condemned man in the stomach.
Exceptions to the rules
Despite the clear distinction between belonging to one class or another, there were exceptions to the established rules. For example, if a noble nobleman raped a girl whom he was entrusted with guardianship, then he was deprived of his nobility and all the privileges associated with the title. If during detention he resisted, then the gallows awaited him.
Among the military, deserters and traitors were sentenced to hanging. For officers, such a death was so humiliating that they often committed suicide without waiting for the execution of the sentence imposed by the court.
The exception was cases of treason, in which the nobleman was deprived of all privileges and could be executed as a commoner.
Hello dears!
I read another book here and decided - shouldn’t we talk about such an important topic as “the highest measure of social protection,” as entertainers with communist convictions once called it? The topic is complex, difficult, but interesting. I propose to skip the moral aspects (possible/impossible, who are the judges, etc., etc.) and talk exclusively about the mechanism of the state depriving the life of its citizens as the highest possible punishment.
At the moment, more than 80 countries of the world have either completely abolished the death penalty or joined the moratorium (including the Russian Federation). But the phenomenon itself remained as it was. And most likely, this will always be the case. For....
If we recall a little history, then according to the same Code of 1649, all death penalties were divided into ordinary (simple) and qualified. If you look even further, into the 15th century, then the number of these punishments could be found at about 2 dozen, some of them very, very cruel...
But be that as it may, the world moves forward, and, paradoxically, it becomes kinder and more tolerant. It is clear that perhaps this is not so visible now, but, I repeat, when compared with previous centuries, the difference is obvious.
This is evident, including in terms of capital punishment. There are fewer death penalties and they are more humane, or something...
Therefore, I propose to talk about some of them. Let's start with those that currently exist, and if there is interest, we will remember those that existed earlier.
So....Classics of the genre.
Let's start with the most common execution in the world - hanging.
For some reason, this type of execution is considered the most shameful. Apparently, this is connected with the legend that after his betrayal, Judas hanged himself on an aspen tree. If a military man is executed on the gallows, he considers it a great insult. The same Hermann Goering decided not to wait for the rope and was able to kill himself.
The modern technology of this punishment is as follows: " the condemned man is hanged with a rope around his neck; death occurs as a result of the pressure of the rope on the body under the influence of gravity. Loss of consciousness and death occur as a result of damage to the spinal cord or (if this is not enough to cause death) due to asphyxia from compression of the trachea".
G. Goering at the Nuremberg trials.And despite its apparent simplicity, it’s not all that simple.
It is clear that a more humane death, indicating the qualifications of the executioner, was death from damage to the spinal cord and vertebrae. After a noose is placed around the convict's neck, a hatch opens under his feet. In this case, the length of the rope (and, accordingly, the distance of the fall) is selected taking into account the height and weight of the convict - in order to achieve a rupture of the spinal cord. Otherwise, there will be a long and painful agony from suffocation, or the head will be completely torn off.
Well, the worst option is when the rope does not support the weight of the body and breaks. It turns out that people are executed twice... The most famous example of such an incident was the execution of the Decembrists in 1826. Let's give the floor to an eyewitness of those events: “ When everything was ready, with the spring in the scaffold squeezing, the platform on which they stood on the benches fell, and at the same instant three fell - Ryleev, Pestel and Kakhovsky fell down. Ryleev’s cap fell off, and a bloody eyebrow and blood behind his right ear were visible, probably from a bruise. He sat crouched because he had fallen inside the scaffold. I approached him, he said: “What a misfortune!” The Governor-General, seeing that three had fallen, sent adjutant Bashutsky to take other ropes and hang them, which was immediately done. I was so busy with Ryleev that I didn’t pay attention to the others who fell from the gallows and didn’t hear if they said anything. When the board was raised again, Pestel’s rope was so long that he reached the platform with his toes, which was supposed to prolong his torment, and it was noticeable for some time that he was still alive».
Decembrists before executionTherefore, I repeat, there can be no trifles here. The material of the rope and its correct fastening and, of course, the length are also important. There are special length tolerance tables depending on height and weight, and the loop itself is made using a special knot called a hanging or Lynch knot. An ideal knot is considered to be one that is wound 13 turns. The shape of the gallows, T-shaped or in the form of the Russian letter G, came from Ancient Rome. Why this is so, now I find it difficult to say - I will still investigate. But tradition is tradition... However, each country had its own characteristics. In Europe, for example, robbers were hanged from trees along roads. And in Russia, for some reason, it was a custom to build gallows on rafts for rebels and rebels and to send such rafts with those carried downstream.
Vintage versionRope (which in Russia used to be often called a “Stolypin tie”) is used by most executors today, although earlier in Asia there could have been variations such as piano strings or barbed wire.
The executioner must provide all the nuances before the execution. And it depends only on him whether the victim will suffer or die relatively easily.
American Army Sergeant John Wood, who acted as the executioner for criminals convicted at the Nuremberg Tribunal, knew his job well and they all died quickly. But the Japanese who hanged Richard Sorge were amateurs. Even after he was taken down from the gallows, his heart beat for 8 minutes.
Nuremberg executioner John WoodAmong the most famous people executed in this way relatively recently are the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (father of Benazir Bhutto), Saddam Hussein and his younger brother Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, who was beheaded with a rope.
BEHIND. BhuttoCurrently, 18 countries use the death penalty by hanging (North Korea, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia, Nigeria, North Sudan, South Sudan and Botswana )
And also 2 American states - Washington and New Hampshire. Let me remind you that in the United States the death penalty is legalized in 32 states.
To be continued...