Executioners

by Phil Clarke

  How many have sustained this awful woe!

  Humanity would shudder could we know

  How many have cried to God in anguish loud

  Accusing those whose haste a wrong had wrought,

  Beyond the worst that ever devil thought.

  percy russell, 1906

  Dead Ringers

  Many more live burials have occurred quite by accident than intentionally. In the days before the wonders of modern medicine, when victims of disease or injury could easily slip into an undiagnosed coma, it was relatively common for people to be buried too hastily by friends and relatives, concerned about the spread of deadly infection. It was not unusual to find deep scratch marks on the inside of exhumed coffins, evidence that the unsuspecting victim had struggled desperately in a bid to free themselves from their premature resting place.

  In order to reduce the frequency of such accidents, Victorian coffins were occasionally buried with a rope attached to a bell above ground. If the deceased miraculously ‘awoke’, he or she could then pull on the rope, thus ringing the bell and alerting the grave­diggers to their plight. The effectiveness of such a device is a matter for debate, since the idea that a gravedigger could hear a bell ringing, decipher the position of the ‘dead ringer’ and muster enough help to dig up the coffin and free the victim before they ran out of air, is a long shot to say the least. The unwitting victim had somewhere between five and fifteen minutes before air disappeared from the coffin and asphyxiation killed them. Permanent brain damage could occur after only two minutes. This is probably the reason why some societies refer to those who have ‘risen from the dead’ in this manner as ‘zombies’.

  Primal Fear

  For most of us the thought of being buried alive comes pretty high on our list of the most horrifying deaths we can imagine. The root of this horror comes not only from an obvious fear of death by asphyxi­ation, dehydration, starvation or (in cold climates) exposure, but also the innate fear we all have of being left alone in the dark and simply forgotten about by our fellow man.

  Most of us will have experienced at least one nightmare in which we try to scream, but the noise is stifled, or the noise comes out but we are ignored. Being buried alive, whether on purpose or by accident, must be the agonising real-life equivalent of this imagined scenario. As a form of punishment, it has to be among the very worst there is.

  Interment: A Punishment for Women

  In many societies, live burial was reserved for the punishment of women and children, particularly for crimes against religion. One theory behind this is that during such an execution, more sensitive spectators would not have to endure the gory reality of the victim’s demise. In most cases, the dying prisoner was either hidden entirely from view, or at the very worst, only their head was visible while the body was submerged in earth, sand or concrete. Perhaps this is another reason why interment can seem even more cruel a punishment than burning, hanging or drown­ing, since this method leaves enough territory unknown to allow the victim’s imagination to run riot.

  Live burial was, according to most experts, never popular in Britain, perhaps because, being a small island, land is generally perceived as precious – not something to be wasted for the disposal of criminals. As a result, there is only one official instance recorded in the ancient annals. It occured in 1222:

  A Prouinciall councell was holden at Oxforde by Stephen Langton, Archbyshoppe of Canterburie, and his bishops and others. There was a young man and two women brought before them, the young man would not come into any church, nor be partaker of the Sacrements, but had suffered himselfe to be crucified, in whom the scars of all ye wounds were to be seene, in his hands, head, side and feete, and he rioyed to be called Jesus by these women and others.

  One of the women, being olde, was accused of bewitching the young man unto such madness, and also, altering her owne name, procured herself to be called Mary the mother of Christ; They being convict of these crimes and others, were adiudged to be closed up between two walled of stone, where they ended their lives in misery. The other woman, being sister to the young man, was let go, because she revealed the wicked fact.

  In ancient Rome, vestal virgins who broke their vows of chastity could expect to suffer a similar fate. The Greek essayist and biographer Plutarch described the practice thus:

  A narrow room is constructed, to which a descent is made by stairs; here they prepare a bed and light a lamp and leave a small quantity of victuals, such as bread and water, a pail of milk and some oil; so that a body which had been consecrated and devoted to the most sacred service of religion might not be said to perish by such a death as famine. The culprit herself is put in a litter, which they cover over, and tie her down with cords on it, so that nothing she utters can be heard. Then they take her to the forum . . . When they come to the place of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high priest lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certain prayers to himself before the act; then he brings out the prisoner, being still covered, and placing her on the steps that lead down to the cell, turns away his face... the stairs are drawn up after she had gone down, and a quantity of earth is heaped up over the entrance to the cell . . . This is the punishment of those who break their vows of virginity.

  The Romans were not the only people to utilise this punishment for unchaste behaviour. It was quite common for nuns and monks to be bricked up alive within the walls of religious houses, as penance for sin. There is some actually strong archaeological evidence to suggest that punishment burials were carried out in Roman Britain. In some Roman cemetries, bodies have been found to have been buried ‘prone’, that is to say, dimembered, mutilated, bound, buried face down, decapitated, or with evidence of de-fleshing or exposure.

  This has led some archaeologists to conclude that at least some of these people were buried alive with their limbs bound, or mortally wounded and simply thrown into a grave to die of blood loss or exposure. In London’s eastern cemetry, where fourteen bodies (three per cent of the total buried there) had been buried lying face-down, two had large blocks of stone on thier lower backs, and another appeared to have had her arms tied behind her back. A cemetry at Alington Avenue in Dorchester, Dorset, contained a prone male whose lower right arm had been hacked off around the time of death, and at Butt Road in Colchester, two prone men buried outside the cemetry gates appeared to have been bound at the wrists, and their ankle bones had been gnawed as if their corpses were left partially exposed.

  The question remains, if punishment burials were never a feature of ancient British law and order, why did these people go to such lengths to restrain, or weigh down corpses where they lay. It is true that the Romans believed resolutely in the existence of ghosts and may have adopted such measures in order to prevent the dead from walking once more among the living, but then why leave their ankles above ground to be nibbled by rats unless for purpose of torture? We will never know the truth.

  Buried Alive Head-First

  Many other civilizations besides the Romans have used live burial as a form of torture or execution. In seventeenth-century Japan, prisoners could be sus­pended by their ankles from a gallows erected over a large hole dug in the earth, with the length of the rope being adjusted so that the prisoner’s upper body was suspended below ground level, leaving one arm free to move. Shaped boards were then placed around his body to cover the hole and pegged to the ground so that very little light and air could penetrate. The victim was able to signal with his free arm when he wished to do as he was told. If he chose not to, he was simply left there to die before being cut down and buried in the hole. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that the Japanese employed similar tech­niques in the execution of enemy soldiers during World War II, burying soldiers alive, leaving only their feet exposed so that their fellow Americans could locate and identify them.

  Live Burial in India

  The two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh (the last guru of the Sikhs) were buried alive because they refu
sed to accept Islam. Nine-year-old Zorowar Singh and seven-year-old Fateh Singh were accompanying their mother, Mata Gujri, on a perilous journey to Sahedi in India in order to stay with the family of a servant. Unbeknown to them, members of this family accepted a bribe from the Mughals and turned them in to the enemy. The two boys were offered passage to freedom if they became Muslims, but they refused, and were bricked up alive. As a result of their bravery, these two young boys have become the most hallowed martyrs in Sikhism.

  More recently in 2007, a newborn baby girl was found partially buried in a field 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Hyderabad. Her maternal grandfather decided that the family were just too poor to cope with the burden of yet another girl child. The baby would have died of exposure but for the chance discovery by a farmer. He said he spotted her tiny hand sticking up from the ground.

  PART TWO: THE SPANISH INQUISITION

  The Papal Inquisition

  This infamous institution of the Medieval Age was responsible for the sentencing to death of many religious separatists who would burn at the stake for their non-conformist beliefs. The men who hunted down these heretics were known as inquisitors; appointed by the Pope himself, they created an in­hospitable climate for the unorthodox religions that were spreading throughout Europe. While they may not have swung an axe or lit the combustible faggots beneath their unfortunate victims themselves, these inquisitors, fuelled by their fervent religious zeal, were the driving force behind so many fiery deaths. As God’s representatives, they became holy executioners during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

  A Necessity

  With the forging of new trade routes with the East, European merchants brought back more than silks and spices. New thoughts and ideas made the trip from far-off lands and helped initiate new religious belief systems in these trading nations that would

  soon demonstrate a threat to Christianity. The

  Catholic Church were quick to identify these un­orthodox religions and excommunicate those found preaching in their favour. However, excommunication from the Church proved to be an unsatisfactory deterrent.

  The followers of these heretical faiths had no desire to be linked to the Church which had, owing to years of unobstructed rule, grown corrupt and excessively egocentric. They saw themselves as truer, purer faiths and believed Christianity had invited the Devil into its fold through abuses of power and wealth. The extreme punishment of these religious dissenters was seen as fair judgement at the time. A deep religious conviction was prevalent in the hearts of medieval people and, in an age where all criminals were vigorously dealt with, heresy was just another crime to be punished. Due to the prominence of religion at this time, the Church believed the creation of one uniform faith was of utmost importance for ensuring stability. Any obstacles to this proposed stabilising faith, such as heresy with its infectious disease-like existence, must therefore be removed.

  The Heretics

  The two main heretical sects seen as a very real danger to Christianity were the Cathars and the Waldensians. The Cathars were a dualist faith believing in two gods, one good and one evil, which was in direct contrast with the Church’s monotheism. The sect began in Bulgaria, taking their name from the Greek word katharoi, meaning ‘pure’, before spread­ing their polytheistic beliefs across Southern Europe. The Cathar perfecti or initiated priests acted as mission­aries who aggressively converted Christians caught up in the Crusades at the end of the eleventh century. A century later, the Cathars’ numbers had swelled and a high concentration had settled in Western Europe particularly in South-west France and the Languedoc region. These areas would soon come under attack from the Catholic Church as they unrelentingly pushed forward their plans to eradicate all non-conformist faiths.

  The Waldensians would suffer a similar fate to the Cathars. They were a Christian fundamentalist sect known as the Poor Men of Lyon, but which later took the name of their founder, Peter Waldo, a rich merchant who gave his assets to the poor after becoming a radical Christian in 1160. Taking their teachings from a French translation of the Gospels, the Waldensians advocated a simplified form of worship in comparison to the affluent, indulgent Catholic faith. These self-imposed indigents headed for Rome and were blessed by Pope Alexander III in 1179, although he allowed them to preach only after permission was granted by the local bishops. They disobeyed the papal instruction and began to openly preach a doctrine that would soon be mirrored by the papally recognised Mendicant Orders, who would play a major part in the Inquisition in years to come. The religious dissidents were not put off even with the excommunication of their leader, Waldo, by Pope Lucius III in 1184. With the deficient religious denunciations failing to make an impact on these rising beliefs, the Catholic authorities were called upon to find a repressive method that would ensure these menaces to Christian society would be forced to capitulate. Burning was seen as the ideal punishment for this flourish of heresy. Not only did it have ties with the fires of hell – the destination of all heretics – but it ensured the Church could severely punish without breaking their own code; that being never to spill blood.

  The Episcopal Inquisition

  The first attempt to set up an Inquisition to staunch the flow of these heretical faiths occurred in the same year as the excommunication of the Waldensian founder. In 1184, Pope Lucius III issued the papal bull entitled Ad Abolendam, which ordered his bishops to make inquisition of heresy throughout Christendom. Unfortunately, by passing the responsibility of ridding their dioceses of heretics to the bishops, this first example of the Inquisition was doomed. The majority of these chief clergymen did not reside in their relevant bishoprics but lived in Rome. They rarely attended to their flock and were rather more con­cerned with their own status at the Holy See. This lack of centralisation, along with an indifference to the cause, ensured it would be a highly flawed prototype of the later forms of Inquisition. The prolif­era­tion of followers belonging to the unorthodox faiths remained unchecked and developments at the core of Catholicism were essential before the Inquisition would be capable of systematicly eradicating non-conformist faiths. The heretical religions of Catharism and Waldenism forced the Catholic Church to focus on piety and to move away from extravagance.

  The Ideal Inquisitors

  Fortunately for Catholicism, the initial decades of the thirteenth century saw the creation of the Mendicant orders; a group of monastic fraternities that had taken a vow of poverty, preferring to dedicate their time and efforts to preaching the word of God. This fresh approach to Catholicism was welcomed with open arms by the Pope, who quickly saw the potential value of these orders in the fight against heresy. In 1210, Innocent III gave Francis of Assisi permission to officially create the Franciscans, or the Order of the Friars Minor, and six years later Dominic of Osma had his Order of Preachers formally recognised by Innocent’s successor, Honorius III in 1216. These über-pious friars practised orthodox values while improving the position and reaffirming the status of the Catholic Church. They were the perfect counter agents to the Cathars and the Waldensians. Now, unsettled Christians could look within their own Church for a more virtuous path and not feel forced to search beyond the boundaries of Catholicism.

  In these saviours of the orthodox church, the Pope had not just discovered a devout society capable of stealing the heretics’ religious thunder, he had also found the right men to lead a new version of the failed Episcopal Inquisition. He had found his inquisitors who would be his permanent judges responsible for crimes against the one true faith. Unlike the egocentric bishops that had inefficiently ran the prototype, these men were, on the whole, unselfish and driven by a true love of God and the Church. The members of the Dominican and Franciscan orders proved to possess the qualities needed to take on the heavy burden of such a role. They were well-educated and highly skilled in debate. These qualities were often considered by the religious writers of the time. The ideal inquisitor was called upon to not only have an unwavering zeal for the Catholic faith, but to enjoy
saving souls and exterminating heresy. Coupled with an inherent compassion, it appeared the Mendicant brotherhoods lacked none of the characteristics deemed necessary for the up­coming fight against their religious opponents.

  The papally controlled Inquisition was methodically brought into being through a series of bulls issued by Pope Gregory IX in the early years of his reign. Imperial decrees of 1220 and 1224 authorising the burning at the stake of all heretics were adopted into ecclesiastical criminal law in 1231, proving that, this time, the Church meant business. A steady stream of commissions were created throughout the 1230s and sent out to suppress the nonconformist traditions wherever they were at their worst. The priorship of the Dominicans at Friesbach received its orders on 27 November 1231, while the Convent of Strasburg got its call on 2 December 1232. That year, Dominicans had already been despatched into the Rhineland and on to Tarragona in Spain, and the following year, commissioned friars were posted to Auxerre, Bordeaux and Burgundy in France, all following the papal orders to destroy the heretical threat. By 1255, the Inquisition had its representatives working tirelessly for this one aim in almost every country in Central and Western Europe and as they reached the fourteenth century, the Inquisition was at its height, its grip tightening whenever a display of heresy reared its head.

  The Procedure