Execution by burning

Execution by burning has a long history as a method of punishment for crimes such as treason, heresy and witchcraft (burning, however, was actually less common than hanging, pressing, or drowning as a punishment for witchcraft). This method of execution fell into disfavor among governments in the late 18th century; today, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment [In " [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=99&invol=130 Wilkerson v. Utah] " (1878, pertaining to methods of capital punishment), the United States Supreme Court commented that drawing and quartering, public dissecting, burning alive and disemboweling would constitute cruel and unusual punishment while determining that death by firing squad was as legitimate as the common method of that time, hanging] . The particular form of execution by burning in which the condemned is bound to a large stake is more commonly called burning at the stake.

Cause of death

If the fire was large (for instance, when a large number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from the carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused harm to the body. However, if the fire was small, the convict would burn for some time until death from heatstroke, loss of blood plasma, and shock would occur. The typical depictions of burnings show that the executioner would arrange a pile of wood around the condemned's feet and calves, with supplementary small bundles of sticks and straw called "faggots" at strategic intervals up their body.Fact|date=July 2008 is factually incorrect in that it shows her atop a pile of wood and straw, whereas in fact she was burnt in the manner described.Fact|date=August 2007

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. 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 a half-hour. Fact|date=October 2007 In some Nordic, English and German burnings, convicts had containers of gunpowder tied to them or were tied to ladders and then swung into fully burning bonfires. Fact|date=October 2007 A container of gunpowder tied at the neck might be used to bring about a quicker (and thus more merciful) death, since the condemned would suffer only until the gunpowder was heated enough to explode. Some prisoners refused it for personal reasons.Fact|date=July 2008

Historical usage

The story of Tamar and Judah in the Biblical book of Genesis suggests that before the Torah was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, the patriarch heading a tribe or clan could order a tribe member executed for sexual misconduct (though Tamar was not a member of Judah's tribe but rather his daughter-in-law).

Perillos of Athens invented the Brazen bull, a hollow brass container where the condemned would be locked as a fire was set underneath. This would cause the metal to become red hot while the condemned slowly roasted to death. The bull was first used on Perillos, the bull's inventor; though he was released by the Tyrant Phalaris, the device continued to be used through ancient Greece and Rome. Dubious|date=March 2008

Burning was used as a means of execution in many ancient societies. According to ancient reports, Roman authorities executed many of the early Christian martyrs by burning, sometimes by means of the "tunica molesta", a flammable tunic. Civil authorities burned persons judged to be heretics under the medieval Inquisition, including Giordano Bruno. Burning was also used by Protestants during the witch-hunts of Europe.

North American Indians often used burning as a form of execution, either against members of other tribes or against white settlers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Roasting over a slow fire was a customary method. [Scott, G (1940) "A History of Torture", p. 41]

The Aztecs were noted for practicing human sacrifice on a large scale; an offering to Huitzilopochtli would be made to restore the blood he lost, as the sun was engaged in a daily battle. The sacrifice involved burning or partially burning victims. [ [http://www.livescience.com/history/human_sacrifice_050123.html Evidence May Back Human Sacrifice Claims] , LiveScience]

Under the Byzantine Empire, burning was introduced as a punishment for disobedient Zoroastrians, because of the belief that they worshipped fire.Fact|date=June 2007

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) ordered death by fire, intestacy, and confiscation of all possessions by the State to be the punishment for heresy against the Christian faith in his Codex Iustiniani (CJ 1.5.), ratifying the decrees of his predecessors the Emperors Arcadius and Flavius Augustus Honorius.

In 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy, as Church policy was against the spilling of blood. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife.dubious This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.

Among the best-known individuals to be executed by burning were Jacques de Molay (1314), Jan Hus (1415), St Joan of Arc (May 30, 1431), Savonarola (1498) Patrick Hamilton (1528), William Tyndale (1536), Michael Servetus (1553), Giordano Bruno (1600), and Avvakum (1682). Anglican martyrs Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley (both in 1555), and Thomas Cranmer (1556) were also burned at the stake.

Edward Wightman, a Baptist from Burton on Trent, was the last person to be burnt at the stake for heresy in England in the market square of Lichfield, Staffordshire on April 11, 1612.

In the United Kingdom, the traditional punishment for women found guilty of treason was to be burnt at the stake, where they did not need to be publicly displayed naked, while men were hanged, drawn and quartered. There were two types of treason, high treason for crimes against the Sovereign, and petty treason for the murder of one's lawful superior, including that of a husband by his wife.

In England, only a few witches were burnt, the majority were hanged, possibly as a cost saving exercise and possibly because of the risk that the general public would not tolerate frequent use of such a barbaric punishment.

Sir Thomas Malory, in "Le Morte d'Arthur", depicts King Arthur as being reluctantly constrained to order the burning of Queen Guinevere, once her adultery with Lancelot was revealed - suggesting that this was an inflexible and unalterable law. This might be related to the above, as a Queen's adultery might be construed as treason against her royal husband.

In 1790, Sir Benjamin Hammett introduced a bill into Parliament to end the practice. He explained that the year before, as Sheriff of London, he had been responsible for the burning of Catherine Murphy, found guilty of counterfeiting, but that he had allowed her to be hanged first.

He pointed out that as the law stood, he himself could have been found guilty of a crime in not carrying out the lawful punishment and, as no woman had been burnt alive in the kingdom for over fifty years, so could all those still alive who had held an official position at all of the previous burnings. The act was duly passed by Parliament and given royal assent by King George III (30 George III. C. 48). [ [http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/burning.html Burning at the stake] ]

Modern burnings

One of the most notorious extra-judicial burnings of modern times occurred in Waco, Texas in the USA on May 15th, 1916. Jesse Washington, a mentally-retarded African-American farmhand, after having been convicted of the murder of a white woman, was taken by a mob to a bonfire, castrated, doused in coal oil, and hung by the neck from a chain over the bonfire, slowly burning to death. A postcard from the event still exists, showing a crowd standing next to Washington's charred corpse with the words on the back "This is the barbecue we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe". This event attracted international condemnation, and is remembered as the Waco Horror.

Modern day burnings still occur. During periods of unrest in South Africa and Haiti for example, extrajudicial execution by burning was done via a method called necklacing where kerosene or petrol filled rubber tires were placed around the neck of a live individual. The fuel was then ignited, the rubber melted and the condemned burned to death. [http://www.etsu.edu/cas/history/docs/southafrica.htm U.S. Sanctions against South Africa, 1986] , College of Arts and Sciences, "East Tennessee State University". Retrieved 14 October 2007.] Hilton, Ronald. " [http://wais.stanford.edu/LatinAmerica/latinamerica_latinamerica03102004.htm Latin America] ," World Association of International Studies, "Stanford University". Retrieved 14 October 2007.] In Rio de Janeiro, burning people standing inside a pile of tires is a common form of execution used by drug dealers to punish those who have supposedly collaborated with the police. This form of execution is called "microondas", "the microwave". The movie Tropa de Elite (Elite squad) has a scene depicting this practicecite web | author= Ronaldo França
title=Como na Chicago de Capone
work=Veja on-line (January 30, 2002)
url=http://veja.abril.com.br/300102/p_094.html |accessdate=2007-10-08]

According to a former Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate officer writing under the alias Victor Suvorov, at least one Soviet traitor was burned alive in a crematorium. [Suworow, Viktor. "GRU – Die Speerspitze: Was der KGB für die Polit-Führung, ist die GRU für die Rote Armee." 3., korr. Aufl. Solingen: Barett, 1995. ISBN 3-924753-18-0. de_icon] During the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot, a number of inmates were burned to death by fellow inmates, who used blow torches.

At the end of the 1990s, a number of North Korean army generals were executed by being burned alive inside the Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea.cite news|title=Train blast was 'a plot to kill North Korea's leader'|first=Sergey|last=Soukhorukov|work=The Daily Telegraph|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/13/wkor13.xml|date=2004-06-13]

In Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, there were 400 cases of the burning of women in 2006. In Iraqi Kurdistan, at least 255 women had been killed in just the first six months of 2007, three-quarters of them by burning. [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/13/gender.iraq Mark Lattimer on the brutal treatment of women in Iraq] , The Guardian, December 13, 2007]

It was reported on May 21, 2008 that in Kenya a mob had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft. [ [http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL21301127 Mob burns to death 11 Kenyan "witches"] ]

Portrayal in film

"The Last of the Mohicans" features a British Redcoat being burned at the stake by a Huron tribe, while the more recent "Silent Hill" has a female police officer consumed by flames while tied to a ladder. The latter makes use of computer graphics, while the former does not. "Elizabeth" also used computer graphics to enhance the opening scene where three Protestants are burnt at the stake. In the film adaptation of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose", the innocent simpleton Salvatore (Ron Perlman) is seen to die horribly, burnt at the stake. The fate is also suffered by Oliver Reed's less innocent character in Ken Russell's "The Devils". The film "The Seventh Seal" shows a woman about to be burnt at the stake. In "", several people are burned at the stake. Carl Theodor Dreyer's "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" ("The Passion of Joan of Arc"), though made in the late 1920s (and therefore without the assistance of computer graphics), includes a relatively graphic and realistic treatment of Jeanne's execution; his "Day of Wrath" also featured a woman burned at the stake. Of course, nearly all other film versions of the story of Joan show her death at the stake — some more graphically than others. Execution by burning also features in the 1973 film "The Wicker Man", and its 2006 remake. "Tropa de Elite" depicts an execution by burning in Rio de Janeiro. Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" involves a robot being burned at the stake.

References

ee also

* List of people burned as heretics
* Witchcraft
* Witchcraft Act
* Witch-hunt
* Moral panic
* Auto de fe
* Sati (practice) (widow-burning)
* [http://nndb.com/event/713/000121350/ Burned at the Stake]