DECAPITATION.
(Facsimile of an original woodcut in “La Cosmographie universelle de Münster,” 1552.)
IMPALEMENT.
(Facsimile of an original woodcut in “La Cosmographie universelle de Münster,” 1552.)
BURNING AT THE STAKE.
(Facsimile of an original woodcut in “La Cosmographie universelle de Münster,” 1552.)
The last instance of burning at the stake in Germany occurred at Berlin, Aug. 18, 1786. It was then seventy years since a similar punishment had been carried out in the Prussian capital. The criminal, stripped to his shirt, was enclosed in a cage-like frame which fastened with a door, and was surrounded with wood and straw.
The last example of breaking on the wheel was carried out at Vienna in the above-mentioned year. The victim was tortured with red-hot pincers—tenaillé—as he walked to the place of execution.
Weever, writing in 1631, says:—
“Hee that commits treason, is adjudged by our Lawes, to be hanged, drawne, and quartered, and his diuided limbes to be set vpon poles in some eminent place, within some great Market-towne, or Citie.