Decapitation: Encyclopedia II - Decapitation - Decapitation throughout history

Decapitation - Decapitation throughout history

Decapitation has been used as a form of capital punishment for millennia. The terms capital offence, capital crime, and capital punishment derive from the punishment for serious offences being the removal of their head. Political prisoners (labelled traitors) and serious criminals often had their heads removed and placed on public display for a period of time. For instance, in medieval England, the heads were placed on spikes along the walls of the Tower of London. On the other hand, execution by beheading with a sword (or axe, a military weapon as well) was considered the "honourable" way to die for an aristocrat, who, presumably being a warrior, could generally expect to die by the sword in any event; in England for example, it was a privilege of noblemen to be beheaded. This would be distinguished from a "dishonourable" death on the gallows or through burning at the stake.

If the headsman's axe or sword was sharp and his aim was true, decapitation was a quick and relatively painless form of death. If the instrument was blunt or the execution clumsy, however, multiple strokes might be required to sever the head, which presumably was considerably more painful. The person to be executed was therefore advised to give a gold coin to the headsman so that he did his job with care.

• Decapitation by guillotine was a common, mechanized form of execution invented shortly before the French Revolution (although an earlier version of the guillotine, the gibbet, was used in Britain until the 17th century). The aim was that only one form of execution, involving no torture, should exist.The executioner, after chopping off the head, would hold it up to the crowd. It was believed that the head could still see for around ten seconds. They held the head up so it could see the crowd laughing at it before it fully died. It was used in France on an unprecedented 'industrial' scale during the French Revolution and remained the normal judicial method in peace time, in use until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981. Many German states had used guillotine-like device, Fallbeil, since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in Germany until abolition of the death penalty in 1949. In Nazi Germany, guillotine was reserved to criminal convicts; it is estimated some 40,000 persons were guillotined in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945.

• In Scandinavia, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out the capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a sword, commoners with an axe. The last decapitation in Sweden 1910 was carried out with a guillotine.

• It is of note that in the biblical Book of Revelation beheading is named as a method of execution of Christian martyrs during a great persecution (Rev. 20:4). There is no historical record of such an event, so certain commentators believe that this verse refers to the last great persecution of the church that some Christians believe will occur shortly before the Second Coming of Christ.

• In traditional China decapitation was considered a more severe form of punishment than strangulation although strangulation led to more prolonged suffering. This was because the Chinese believed that their bodies were gifts from their parents and that it was very disrespectful to their ancestors to return one's body to the grave dismembered.

• In Japan, decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). After the victim had sliced his own stomach open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a katana to hasten death and to ease the suffering. As skill was involved, only the most trusted was honoured to take the part. In the late Sengoku period, decapitation was performed as soon as the man to commit seppuku had made the slightest wound to his stomach. Decapitation was also the highest form of punishment. One of the most brutal forms of decapitation was that of a samurai, Ishida Mitsunari, who had betrayed Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was buried in the ground and his head was sawed off with a blunt wooden saw. This punishment was abolished in the early Meiji era.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Decapitation throughout history", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki