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To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged (almost to the ...
Execution wheel (German: Richtrad) with underlays, 18th century; on display at the Märkisches Museum, Berlin The breaking wheel, also known as the execution wheel, the Wheel of Catherine or the (Saint) Catherine('s) Wheel, was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages up to the 19th century by breaking the bones of a criminal or ...
The methodical removal of portions of the body over an extended period of time, usually with a knife, eventually resulting in death. Sometimes known as "death by a thousand cuts". Pendulum. [8] A machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer to the victim's torso over time (of disputed historicity). Starvation/Dehydration ...
In medieval Europe the slow crushing of body parts in screw-operated ‘bone vises’ of iron was a common method of torture [citation needed], and a tremendous variety of cruel instruments was used to savagely crush the head, knee, hand and, most commonly, either the thumb or the naked foot. Such instruments were finely threaded and variously ...
In medieval Europe executioners also taxed lepers and prostitutes, and controlled gaming houses. They were also in charge of the latrines and cesspools, and disposing of animal carcasses. [2] The term is extended to administrators of severe physical punishment that is not prescribed to kill, but which may result in death.
Death by hanging is the primary means of capital punishment in Iran, which carries out one of the highest numbers of annual executions in the world. The method used is the short drop, which does not break the neck of the condemned, but rather causes a slower death due to strangulation.
The compound noun weregild means "remuneration for a man", from Proto-Germanic *wira-"man, human" and *geld-a-"retaliation, remuneration". [2] In the south Germanic area, this is the most common term used to mean "payment for killing a man" (Old High German werigelt, Langobardic wergelt, Old English wer(e)gild), whereas in the North Germanic area, the more common term is Old Norse mangæld ...
Skaldic verse, a common medium of Norse poets, was meant to be cryptic and allusive, and the idiomatic nature of Sighvatr's poem as a description of what has become known as the blood eagle is a matter of historical contention, particularly since in Norse imagery the eagle was strongly associated with blood and death.