Part 27 (1/2)
The executioner did not hold the same position in all countries. For whereas in France, Italy, and Spain, a certain amount of odium was attached to this terrible craft, in Germany, on the contrary, successfully carrying out a certain number of capital sentences was rewarded by t.i.tles and the privileges of n.o.bility (Fig. 343). At Reutlingen, in Suabia, the last of the councillors admitted into the tribunal had to carry out the sentence with his own hand. In Franconia, this painful duty fell upon the councillor who had last taken a wife.
In France, the executioner, otherwise called the _King's Sworn Tormentor,_ was the lowest of the officers of justice. His letters of appointment, which he received from the King, had, nevertheless, to be registered in Parliament; but, after having put the seal on them, it is said that the chancellor threw them under the table, in token of contempt. The executioner was generally forbidden to live within the precincts of the city, unless it was on the grounds where the pillory was situated; and, in some cases, so that he might not be mistaken amongst the people, he was forced to wear a particular coat, either of red or yellow. On the other hand, his duties ensured him certain privileges. In Paris, he possessed the right of _havage_, which consisted in taking all that he could hold in his hand from every load of grain which was brought into market; however, in order that the grain might be preserved from ignominious contact, he levied his tax with a wooden spoon. He enjoyed many similar rights over most articles of consumption, independently of benefiting by several taxes or fines, such as the toll on the Pet.i.t-Pont, the tax on foreign traders, on boats arriving with fish, on dealers in herrings, watercress, &c.; and the fine of five sous which was levied on stray pigs (see previous chapter), &c. And, lastly, besides the personal property of the condemned, he received the rents from the shops and stalls surrounding the pillory, in which the retail fish trade was carried on.
It appears that, in consequence of the receipts from these various duties forming a considerable source of revenue, the prestige of wealth by degrees dissipated the unfavourable impressions traditionally attached to the duties of executioner. At least, we have authority for supposing this, when, for instance, in 1418, we see the Paris executioner, who was then captain of the bourgeois militia, coming in that capacity to touch the hand of the Duke of Burgundy, on the occasion of his solemn entry into Paris with Queen Isabel of Bavaria. We may add that popular belief generally ascribed to the executioner a certain practical knowledge of medicine, which was supposed inherent in the profession itself; and the acquaintance with certain methods of cure unknown to doctors, was attributed to him; people went to buy from him the fat of culprits who had been hung, which was supposed to be a marvellous panacea. We may also remark that, in our day, the proficiency of the executioner in setting dislocated limbs is still proverbial in many countries.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 344.--Amende Honorable before the Tribunal.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in J. Damhoudere's ”Praxis Rerum Criminalium:” in 4to, Antwerp, 1556.]
More than once during the thirteenth century the duties of the executioner were performed by women, but only in those cases in which their own s.e.x was concerned; for it is expressly stated in an order of St. Louis, that persons convicted of blasphemy shall be beaten with birch rods, ”the men by men, and the women by women only, without the presence of men.” This, however, was not long tolerated, for we know that a period soon arrived when women were exempted from a duty so little adapted to their physical weakness and moral sensitiveness.
The learned writer on criminal cases, Josse Damhoudere, whom we have already mentioned, and whom we shall take as our special guide in the enumeration of the various tortures, specifies thirteen ways in which the executioner ”carries out his executions,” and places them in the following order:--”Fire”--”the sword”--”mechanical force”--”quartering”--”the wheel”--”the fork”--”the gibbet”--”drawing”--”spiking”--”cutting off the ears”--”dismembering”--”flogging or beating”--and the ”pillory.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 345.--The Punishment by Fire.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the ”Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
But before entering upon the details of this revolting subject, we must state that, whatever punishment was inflicted upon a culprit, it was very rare that its execution had not been preceded by the _amende honorable_, which, in certain cases, const.i.tuted a distinct punishment, but which generally was but the prelude to the torture itself. The _amende honorable_ which was called _simple_ or _short_, took place without the a.s.sistance of the executioner in the council chamber, where the condemned, bareheaded and kneeling, had to state that ”he had falsely said or done something against the authority of the King or the honour of some person”
(Fig. 344). For the _amende honorable in figuris_--that is to say, in public--the condemned, in his s.h.i.+rt, barefooted, the rope round his neck, followed by the executioner, and holding in his hand a wax taper, with a weight, which was definitely specified in the sentence which had been pa.s.sed upon him, but which was generally of two or four pounds, prostrated himself at the door of a church, where in a loud voice he had to confess his sin, and to beg the pardon of G.o.d and man.
When a criminal had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man. Care was taken to leave a free s.p.a.ce round the stake for the victim, and also a pa.s.sage by which to lead him to it.
Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a s.h.i.+rt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains.
After this, f.a.ggots and straw were thrown into the empty s.p.a.ce through which he had pa.s.sed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once (Fig. 345).
Sometimes, the sentence was that the culprit should only be delivered to the flames after having been previously strangled. In this case, the dead corpse was then immediately placed where the victim would otherwise have been placed alive, and the punishment lost much of its horror. It often happened that the executioner, in order to shorten the sufferings of the condemned, whilst he prepared the pile, placed a large and pointed iron bar amongst the f.a.ggots and opposite the stake breast high, so that, directly the fire was lighted, the bar was quickly pushed against the victim, giving a mortal blow to the unfortunate wretch, who would otherwise have been slowly devoured by the flames. If, according to the wording of the sentence, the ashes of the criminal were to be scattered to the winds, as soon as it was possible to approach the centre of the burning pile, a few ashes were taken in a shovel and sprinkled in the air.
They were not satisfied with burning the living, they also delivered to the flames the bodies of those who had died a natural death before their execution could be carried out, as if an antic.i.p.ated death should not be allowed to save them from the punishment which they had deserved. It also happened in certain cases, where a person's guilt was only proved after his decease, that his body was disinterred, and carried to the stake to be burnt.
The punishment by fire was always inflicted in cases of heresy, or blasphemy. The Spanish Inquisition made such a constant and cruel use of it, that the expression _auto-da-fe_ (act of faith), strangely perverted from its original meaning, was the only one employed to denote the punishment itself. In France, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, fifty-nine Templars were burned at the same time for the crimes of heresy and witchcraft. And three years later, on the 18th March, 1314, Jacques Molay, and a few other dignitaries of the Order of the Templars, also perished in the flames at the extremity of the island of Notre Dame, on the very spot where the equestrian statue of Henry IV. now stands.
Every one is acquainted with the fact that judges were found iniquitous enough to condemn Joan of Arc to death by fire as a witch and a heretic.
Her execution, which took place in the market-place of Rouen, is remarkable from a circ.u.mstance which is little known, and which had never taken place on any other occasion. When it was supposed that the fire which surrounded the young heroine on all sides had reached her and no doubt suffocated her, although sufficient time had not elapsed for it to consume her body, a part of the blazing wood was withdrawn, ”in order to remove any doubts from the people,” and when the crowd had satisfied themselves by seeing her in the middle of the pile, ”chained to the post and quite dead, the executioner replaced the fire....” It should be stated in reference to this point, that Joan having been accused of witchcraft, there was a general belief among the people that the flames would be harmless to her, and that she would be seen emerging from her pile unscathed.
The sentence of punishment by fire did not absolutely imply death at the stake, for there was a punishment of this description which was specially reserved for base coiners, and which consisted in hurling the criminals into a cauldron of scalding water or oil.
We must include in the category of punishment by fire certain penalties, which were, so to speak, but the preliminaries of a more severe punishment, such as the sulphur-fire, in which the hands of parricides, or of criminals accused of high treason, were burned. We must also add various punishments which, if they did not involve death, were none the less cruel, such as the red-hot brazier, _ba.s.sin ardent_, which was pa.s.sed backwards and forwards before the eyes of the culprit, until they were destroyed by the scorching heat; and the process of branding various marks on the flesh, as an ineffaceable stigma, the use of which has been continued to the present day.
In certain countries decapitation was performed with an axe; but in France, it was carried out usually by means of a two-handed sword or glave of justice, which was furnished to the executioner for that purpose (Fig. 346). We find it recorded that in 1476, sixty sous parisis were paid to the executioner of Paris ”for having bought a large _espee a feuille_,”
used for beheading the condemned, and ”for having the old sword done up, which was damaged, and had become notched whilst carrying out the sentence of justice upon Messire Louis de Luxembourg.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 346.--Beheading.--Fac-simile of a Miniature on Wood in the ”Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
Originally, decapitation was indiscriminately inflicted on all criminals condemned to death; at a later period, however, it became the particular privilege of the n.o.bility, who submitted to it without any feeling of degradation. The victim--unless the sentence prescribed that he should be blindfolded as an ignominious aggravation of the penalty--was allowed to choose whether he would have his eyes covered or not. He knelt down on the scaffold, placed his head on the block, and gave himself up to the executioner (Fig. 347). The skill of the executioner was generally such that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke. It was no doubt the desire to avoid this mischance that led to the invention of the mechanical instrument, now known under the name of the _guillotine_, which is merely an improvement on a complicated machine which was much more ancient than is generally supposed. As early as the sixteenth century the modern guillotine already existed in Scotland under the name of the _Maiden_, and English historians relate that Lord Morton, regent of Scotland during the minority of James VI., had it constructed after a model of a similar machine, which had long been in use at Halifax, in Yorks.h.i.+re. They add, and popular tradition also has invented an a.n.a.logous tale in France, that this Lord Morton, who was the inventor or the first to introduce this kind of punishment, was himself the first to experience it. The guillotine is, besides, very accurately described in the ”Chronicles of Jean d'Auton,” in an account of an execution which took place at Genoa at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Two German engravings, executed about 1550 by Pencz and Aldegrever, also represent an instrument of death almost identical with the guillotine; and the same instrument is to be found on a bas-relief of that period, which is still existing in one of the halls of the Tribunal of Luneburg, in Hanover.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Decapitation of Guillaume de Pommiers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 347.--Public Executions.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Latin Work of J. Millaeus, ”Praxis Criminis Persequendi:” small folio, Parisis, Simon de Colines, 1541.]
And his Confessor, at Bordeaux in 1377, by order of the King of England's Lieutenant. _Froissart's Chronicles._ No. 2644, Bibl. nat'le de Paris.]
Possibly the invention of such a machine was prompted by the desire to curtail the physical sufferings of the victim, instead of prolonging them, as under the ancient system. It is, however, difficult to believe that the mediaeval judges were actuated by any humane feelings, when we find that, in order to reconcile a respect for _propriety_ with a due compliance with the ends of justice, the punishment of burying alive was resorted to for women, who could not with decency be hung up to the gibbets. In 1460, a woman named Perette, accused of theft and of receiving stolen goods, was condemned by the Provost of Paris to be ”buried alive before the gallows,”
and the sentence was literally carried out.