Hanging in Chains

by Albert Hartshorne

Charles V. (1380-1422) granted leave to certain districts to have gallows—fourches patibulaires—with two posts, and a curious question arose in consequence of the Count of Rhodez having placed his armorial bearings upon a gibbet of this kind against the prerogative of the king; it was an abuse of privilege, and implied the seizing of justice. Such gibbets, of which the number of pillars, or, if of wood, posts, varied from two to eight, according to the quality of the lord, were used both to hang criminals from, and for the suspension, exposure, or gibbeting of the bodies of men executed elsewhere upon temporary gallows. The sites of these fourches patibulaires are recognizable at the present day by the names, “La Justice,” “La grande Justice,” titles corresponding to our own more humble and prosaic terms, “Gibbet Hill,” or “Gibbet Field.” The English gibbets have never assumed, like those in France, any monumental character.

It is certain that there was already at the end of the twelfth century a great monumental gibbet on the eminence of Montfaucon, between the faubourgs of St. Martin and the Temple, in Paris. Sauval gives a remarkable description of it as at that period, and, although he does not give his authorities quite in the way English antiquaries might wish, there can be no doubt, from the documents of the thirteenth century, that the monument was as Sauval describes it. It underwent extensive repairs, if not partial re-building, in 1425, when forty-eight old beams were replaced by new ones. It is also recorded that in 1466 “at the Great Justice of Paris were attached and nailed fifty-two iron chains to hang and strangle the malefactors who have been and shall be sent here by order of Justice.” Eight great new ladders were subsequently added, and all these details are corroborated by a representation in an old tapestry at the Hotel de Ville.[36]

From these very curious records the genius of Viollet le Duc has produced an illustration which is here reproduced. It will speak for itself better than any description, and it will be only necessary to say that the fourth, or open side, allowed access to the interior by a broad flight of steps leading to a wide platform on what may be called the first floor, running round the three sides of the interior. Upon this platform the executioner, with his ladders and assistants, performed his office.

GIBBET OF MONTFAUCON.
(From Viollet le Duc, “Dictionnaire raisonné.”)

This arrangement enabled the designer of the building to form a vault in the centre, lighted by a small loop. It had an entrance, or “eye,” in the crown, at the crossing of the ribs, through which were swept from time to time the bones and fragments that fell from above, the ossuarium, or charnel-house, being cleared out, as necessity dictated, through a doorway level with the outside ground on the further or sinister side of the building. It must have been a thing quite unique in the world, somewhat recalling the Towers of Silence of the Parsees.

The mode of operation was as follows:—

The executioner, in his rayed and party-coloured habit of red and yellow, mounted the ladder, placed opposite a convenient space, backwards, holding in his hand the slack ends of three cords placed round the culprit’s neck; two of these cords, “les tortouses,” had slip-knots. The wretch under treatment was encouraged to follow “le maistre des haultes œuvres,” driven up after him—no doubt with blows and execrations, according to the Gallic fashion—and drawn forward by him by means of the third cord, “le jet.” Arrived at the proper height, the operator, the mediæval “Monsieur de Paris,” rapidly attached the “tortouses” to the gallows, or chain pendent from it, and, twisting the “jet” firmly round his arm, by means of this, and the action of his knee, threw the culprit off the ladder into mid-air; the knots of the “tortouses” ran home, and the man was strangled. The executioner then gripped the crossbeam, and, placing his feet in the loop formed by the bound hands of the patient, by dint of repeated vigorous shocks terminated his sufferings.[37]

It may not be questioned that death under the circumstances and complicated conditions above described cannot have been other than a very shocking spectacle, and particularly when it is noticed from the arrangement of the chains that many a malefactor may in his agony have broken loose from his bonds, and clutched and grappled in his last moments with a decaying carcass at his side.