The Worst Punishments in History???

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Gaius - this is not what we Brits know as 'drawing and quartering'. Hanging, drawing and quartering (a barbaric thing that one of my own ancestors suffered - gods rest him) was being half-hanged by slow strangulation, then cut down while still alive, disembowelled, castrated and finally beheaded. The torso was then cut into four. However, 'drawing and quartering' seems to make sense for the above punishment too, so I am not sure what the precise etymology is here. Perhaps 'drawing and quartering' was originally what you say, and later on became what went on after a hanging. Incidentally, there was a provision among the condemned - they could pay the executioner a certain amount on the gallows, and he should have then made sure they were actually dead before beginning the disembowelling. Whether or not the executioners stuck to the bargain or not we'll never know, I suppose.

 

Wasn't William Wallace(aka Braveheart) hung, drawn and quartered? Like you said, half hanged, disembowelled, beheaded then cut into four and then I believe his head was put on a pike on London Bridge and his limbs were displayed separately across North England and Scotland.

[Pertinax]

What a ghastly thread. However as regards drawing/quartering etc ...I have to add that the Medieval practice was to burn the entrails of the condemned (if treason had been the cause) ,before continuing with the remaining ceremonial.

[Rameses the Great]

I found out the worst way to die, being buried alive.

[Nephele]

Heheh, you can tell who all the delightful ghouls are around here, from reading this topic.

 

How about tarring and feathering someone. You didn't die from it but i can't imagine anything more humilating, especially when it was done in front of a large group of people.

 

I think you could die from being tarred, if not feathered. Although a lot of the familiar accounts of tarring and feathering involve the victim being tarred over his protective clothing, the tar would be hot enough to cause severe burns if applied directly to bare skin. If the victim was stripped first and then the boiled, liquefied tar applied to the bare skin of his entire body, head and face included...

 

There's an episode in Deadwood in which a character is nearly tarred and feathered. The thugs who commit the assault don't get any farther than tarring the poor guy's bare shoulder before Sheriff Bullock stops them. But, later on, we see Calamity Jane administering to the victim, literally ripping off his skin along with the solidified chunks of tar that have adhered to it. Imagine, even with the aid of a solvent, having to remove that from one's entire, burned body?

 

-- Nephele

[Gaius Octavius]

"Heheh, ...."

 

If the victim was stripped first and then the boiled, liquefied tar applied to the bare skin of his entire body, head and face included...

-- Nephele

 

Message received and understood.

 

Would take care of GPM's problem.

 

Edited March 8, 2007 by Gaius Octavius

[Gaius Octavius]

I found out the worst way to die, being buried alive.

 

:mummy:

 

Is that how you passed?

 

[Pertinax]

Skin suffocation would be the difficulty, block a large percentum of pores and you have problems... , remember Goldfinger?

[Divi Filius]

Wasnt that a myth?

[Nephele]

Wasnt that a myth?

 

Not quite. Pertinax is right in that you could have problems from blocking all your pores that way. You wouldn't die of "skin suffocation", though. You could eventually die of overheating.

 

Snopes.com debunked the Goldfinger asphyxiation tale.

 

-- Nephele

Edited March 9, 2007 by Nephele Carnalis

[Rameses the Great]

:mummy: Is that how you passed?

 

LOL, you're killing me here Gaius.

[Gaius Octavius]

Here is where Gaius, Cos., gets into trouble - again! How about being forced to listen to the Village Idiot for hours as I was forced to in Wild Moldavia?

 

[Lost_Warrior]

This isn't really an execution, but I can't imagine you wouldn't die from it:

 

The Roman trick of forcing a condemned criminal to hold his hand in a brazier until it is burned away in the coliseum. (I can't imagine anyone could actually do that without some "help" in the form of someone holding his arm, or some drug.)

 

As for the giraffe raping thing: I can't imagine this is anything but a myth, because, how on earth would you get a giraffe to rape someone? o.O although, if there was a way, the Romans would have figured it out!!

 

Son of Poseidon, you forgot the infamous "flogging through the fleet": practiced in the British Royal Navy (I believe as punishment for mutiny, but I'm not sure), a condemned criminal was tied to a mast or stake and rowed in a small boat to every ship in the fleet, where he was given a prescribed number of lashes. The British fleets were at times quite large, and even if it only entailed ten lashes per ship, the numbers quickly added up. Men were reported to have been whipped so badly that their flesh hung off in strips, giving the appearance of blackened steak, and their ribs were showing. And, if by some miracle they survived that, they then had seawater thrown over them.

 

Men on board the Royal Navy ships were flogged by the bo'sun (boat swain) and some captains boasted a left handed bo'sun who would "cross" the lashes of the previous ship's bo'sun.

Edited March 9, 2007 by Lost_Warrior

[spittle]

Burning off ones own hand.

 

Archbishop Cranmer (an early English protestant) was sentenced to be burned at the stake, by Bloody Mary in the counter-reformation, so he recanted (which usually got the sentence dropped or, at least, commuted but he was still executed in this manner). So when the fire was lit he beld the hand that has signed the document in the flames, before it reached the rest of him, to demonstrate the insincerity of his renatment.

 

So maybe, on rare occasions, people could burn off their hands on determination alone?

[Lost_Warrior]

It would seem that, although possible, this would be a very rare occasion indeed. The body's reflexes are designed to keep us from getting hurt, such as in the case of pulling one's hand *out* of a fire involuntarily.

[Mosquito]

I havent heard about girrafes but women were often raped by bulls on the arena. I even know how they made bulls raping women but I dont think my english is good enough to tell it here in the cultural manner