Medieval Torture- Burning at the stake + gunpowder

A form of execution generally reserved for, what was considered, the most abominable crimes, heresy and treason.
The typical method consisted of securing the victim to a stake that was either secured into the ground or built along with a scaffold.
Kindling (sticks bunched together and tied, blocks of wood or hay) would than be place to surround the victim, in which than the kindling would be put ablaze to kill the victim

If the fire was large (for instance, when a large number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused harm to the body. If the fire was small, however, the convict would burn for some time until death from heatstroke, shock, the loss of blood and/or simply the thermal decomposition of vital body parts.
Burning of two sodomites at the stake outside Zürich, 1482 (Spiezer Schilling)

When this method of execution was applied with skill, the condemned's body would burn progressively in the following sequence: calves, thighs and hands, torso and forearms, breasts, upper chest, face; and then finally death. On other occasions, people died from suffocation with only their calves on fire. Several records report that victims took over 2 hours to die. In many burnings a rope was attached to the convict's neck passing through a ring on the stake and they were simultaneously strangled and burnt. In later years in England some burnings only took place after the convict had already hanged for half an hour. In many areas in England the accused woman (men were hanged, drawn, and quartered) was seated astride a small seat called the saddle which was fixed half way up a permanently positioned iron stake. The stake was about 4 metres high and had chains hanging from it to hold the condemned woman still during her punishment. Having been taken to the place of execution in a cart with her hands firmly tied in front of her she was lifted over the executioner's shoulder and carried up a ladder against the stake to be sat astride the saddle. The chains were then fastened and sometimes she was painted with pitch (a black tar-like liquid) which was supposed to help the fire to burn her more quickly.
..........

In this scene Anne Askew, a protestant charged as a heretic, is being sent to be burned at the stake. Because she was previously tortured on the rack she had to be carried to her place of execution.
A friend and fellow secret protestant supporter, Anne Seymour, pays the executioner to hang sacks of gunpowder around Anne's neck so that she would quickly die from the explosion in order to relieve her suffering

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Medieval Torture
• Tudors
• history
• Middle Ages

[Revelation4teensix]

I'M SORRY HENRY VIII DID NOT LOOK LIKE ELVIS

[LadyAmaltheaUnicorn]

@Revelation4teensix

lol

[dsg82]

If you read up on her life, her execution was far worse. She did not have gunpowder tied around her neck to mercifully kill her. She was slowly burnt alive and it took her around 30 minutes to die. Awful.

[LadyAmaltheaUnicorn]

@dsg82

I wasn't aware of the details but that's horrible. I did read that if the wanted the victim to suffer longer they'd use less kindling and usually wet it, so they'd basically be slowly cooked

[1995Pdr]

Who is that?

[LadyAmaltheaUnicorn]

@1995Pdr

The woman getting burnt? Anne Askew

[guitardrumskate]

This just gave me a boner

[louthegiantcookie]

She had it coming. Dying for the sake of the magical carpenter, ho-ho-ho, very amusing.

[YoungmanGrand]

@strikerk Thank you. If you read the 'Catholic Encyclopedia' it's full of accounts of martyrs who remained serene and beatific while being drawn and quartered. I'm sorry, but no. It doesn't happen. These things get rewritten to serve some agenda and try and depict the condemned as somehow transcending physical pain because of their faith. It's bollocks.

[TheRealMrsBieber100]

omg how scary would that be if i found out i was gonna executed id run away

[Pengu561]

@666Shinedown "the tudors"

[rayaankabir]

@LadyAmaltheaUnicorn Probley in diffrent countrys this does not happen in canada and america

[johnburtonbalnis]

Awful. Hard to watch...

[bigderekkeene]

actually the tying of gunpowder to people in these circumstances done little more than inflict more burns on the body and did not kill the person any quicker.

[cbohar84]

10 people are sentenced to be burned at the stake!

[666Shinedown]

What's the series called?

[LadyAmaltheaUnicorn]

@DJHastenz

that isn't just 16th century, it's still going on now, particularly amongst extremist Muslims and Christians