During the Medieval period, there were thousands of executions used to punish criminals.
Often these executions were performed in public to deter people from committing crimes and
specific offences.
There were a huge number of crimes that someone during the Medieval period could be executed
for, from coin clipping to committing treason and plotting to execute the King or Queen.
Join us today as we look at, ’10 HORRIFYING Medieval Execution Methods.’
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Being Hanged, Drawn and Quartered was a horrific ordeal which was often linked to Treason in
England.
The condemned would be first brought to their place of execution, being drawn behind a horse
on a hurdle, being dragged through the streets to publicly shame.
They were then brought to a gallows where they were hanged by an executioner until almost
dead, and then cut down before they died.
Following this, they had their genitals cut off and also had their entrails pulled out
which were burned in front of them, before they were cut into four different pieces and
beheaded.
The body parts were then sent to different parts of the country at the monarchy’s request.
Often linked to the crime of heresy, being burned at the stake was the standard sentence
for religious crimes.
Joan of Arc is one famous person burned at the stake, and it was used heavily during
the Spanish Inquisition.
The accused would be tied and bound to a stake in front of a large crowd, and was burned
until they succumbed to their ordeal.
Some kind executioners would end the suffering early by placing a small bag of gunpowder
around the victims neck which would then explode when it caught fire.
It was also associated with witchcraft, but it was an ordeal which was known to have been
incredibly horrific.
Beheading was made famous by Henry VIII, where he took the heads off two of his Queens Anne
Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
It was the sentence for many different crimes, including treason and beheading was seen as
a public form of entertainment.
A condemned person would be brought to the site of public beheading where usually an
axeman was waiting for them.
They would be accompanied by a priest, and would be then handed over to the executioner
who would offer them a blindfold before their heads were placed on the block.
Good executioners could take one person’s head in one swing, but some botching executioners
took many different swings to kill someone.
Crushing or pressing was an execution method that was used in a number of different ways
during the Medieval period.
The most famous case in the UK of crushing saw Margaret Clitherow who shielded Catholic
priests in her home crushed brutally in front of a large crowd in York.
She was brought to a bridge, and then told to lie whilst a stone was jabbing into her
back.
Her door was Brought and placed on her before 700 pounds of weight was added, and it took
15 minutes for Clitherow to die a horrific slow death.
Crushing was a long process which could be excrutiating to have watched.
Used in a few cases, drowning was another method of execution used.
The most high profile execution using drowning saw George Plantagenet, the brother of Edward
IV being drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine inside the Tower of London.
Goerge was constantly dissenting against his brother the King, and Edward had enough ordering
his execution.
This would have been a long process, as often the guards would bring out a prisoner just
before they were dying to prolong their suffering.
Boiling someone to death would have been a very disturbing sight to have seen.
It would have been agonising for the victim, and was a popular way of punishing people
since the Roman Empire’s height.
Henry VIII boiled a cook Richard Roose alive who was accused of poisoning Bishop John Fisher,
and the person would be boiled in either water, wax, oil and in some cases even molten lead.
They were dunked in and out of the large container until dead.
Many people were placed in the vessel or cauldron even before it was boiling so they had to
endure their fate from a cool temperature.
It was a very slow process at times, and some even dunked their head under the water to
boil their brains quicker to end their ordeals.
It was used in France and Germany as a way to punish coin clippers.
In opposition to Hanged, Drawn and Quartered, women were hanged.
They were not drawn or quartered, and were instead brought to places such as Tyburn in
London where they would be hanged in front of huge crowds.
At times many people could be hanged at once on the same gallows, and as time progressed
hangings were public in the medieval period, but as the centuries rolled on they were made
private.
They often brought in huge crowds to witness to proceedings.
Gibbeting was the practice of locking criminals in human shaped cages, and suspending them
high above the public to serve as a warning to others.
The Gibbet was the structure which someone was placed in.
In some occasions, people were executed before being gibbeted and displayed, but in other
cases some were left alive and were left to die from exposure and starvation.
The victim would be slowly starved and the passing people who witness each day their
wasting away and them succumbing to their fate.
Gibbets can still be seen on display in the UK, and one it’s noted still contains part
of a skull, but the torturous contraption trapped someone with no way out.
Gibbeting wasn’t as frequent as it’s believed, and the smell would have been terrible with
someone rotting 30 feet in the air.
Birds and bugs would end up picking at the corpses over time.
Flaying was a brutal method of execution in which a person would be skinned alive.
Attempts would be made to remove part of a persons skin, and it was used for centuries
as a form of torture and execution.
Depending on how much of the skin was cut off, then it would become an execution method
with someone being flayed alive.
It was also used after death, and it is believed that what causes death in the method is the
shock and loss of blood from the brutal cuts that were made.
Vlad the Impaler who reigned over Wallachia, modern day Romania in the 1400s gained his
nickname for his bloodlust and method of execution forcing a greased stake through a victim,
killing them.
Impalement was brutal, and would result in a wooden sharp stake being driven through
the victims body, with it often exiting near their neck or shoulders.
Many stakes were blunted to prolong torture, and death would occur hours or days later.
It’s estimated that Vlad the Impaler killed 20,000 people in this disturbing way.
Thanks for watching.
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.