Volume II
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The gibbet is of doubtful derivation. It is both an English word and a French word, implying the same meaning---"A post on which malefactors are exposed." We find this punishent recorded in Holy Writ, Joshua viii. 28, 29: "And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation Searching further back into ancient history we find from Martinius, the learned etymologist, that this mark of the grossest infamy which can be inflicted on a criminal was not unknown to the Greeks. It is most probable, however, that we had the mode of punishment of the gibbet from the French at so early a period as the thirteenth century, when it was used here, and known by that name. In the year 1242, says the historian, Matthew of Paris, William de Marisco, a knight, was judicially condemned and ignominiously put to death. He was brought from the Tower to that penal machine vulgarly called the gibbet, and after he had breathed his last was hung on one of the hooks (untorum), and being taken down after he was grown stiff, was bowelled: his bowels were burnt, and his body being divided into four parts, the quarters were sent to four cities. This evidently had the intention of exhibiting a terrible spectacle to the people, just as hanging a dead body in irons was meant to do. But it varies much from gibbeting ; the gibbet, in this case, serving only as a common gallows. The sarne author, Matthew of Paris, in speaking of the execution of two men, says: "Paratum ext horrible patibulum Londini quod vulgus gibitem appellat." One of these criminals, after he was dead, was hung upon a gibbet, and the other was gibbeted alive, to perish by pain and hunger. These cases come fully up to the point in hand, as the body of the first was put upon the gibbet when dead in order to be a permanent spectacle of terror ; and the other was not to die, as probably being the most guilty, by the mere simple act of suspension, but a more lingering kind of death. About the same period of which Paris gives a history the King of France ordered all clippers of the coin, patibulis laqueatos, vento priesentari -- that is, to be hanged and then exposed to the wind -- which, though irons be not mentioned, appears to be the very thing the English did, and to have had the same intention. The first gibbet used in England whereon to expose criminals after death by hanging was in the reign of King Henry III., A.D. 1236. In some parts of the globe individuals worked themselves into a frenzy of fanaticism, and inflicted upon themselves a painful gibbeting, as though their torture would expiate their supposed sins. There is an account of the voluntary sacrifice of a widow of Malabar burning herself to ashes upon her husband's funeral pile. This shocking spectacle was well authenticated by several officers in the service of the East India Company who witnessed this religious rite among the Gentoos. There were three voluntary victims. The first was attended by a numerous procession and preceded by music and dancers. According to the custom of Indian festivals they were adorned with flowers, clothed in their best apparel, and attended by their relations. The engine of torture used upon this occasion was a stout upright post, thirty feet in height. At the bottom was a stage, and about halfway towards the top another, on which two priests, or rather executioners, were mounted with drawn sabres, in place of books of religion, in their hands. Across the top of the post, or pole, was another, of about half the length and circumference, strongly lashed thereto with ropes. At each extremity were hooks of iron, somewhat resembling but larger than those used by butchers in England to hang up their meat in the shambles. The sufferer was hoisted up to the executing church-militants. They immediately proceeded to strip their prey of his robes, and then fixed the books into the fleshy part of his back, near the shoulder-blades. The ropes were affixed to these hooks and tied to the transverse beam. Behind him two smaller ropes depended from the beam, which received his great toes in separate loops. Over the penitent's head was suspended a kind of flat muslin canopy with a narrow flounce, just sufficient to shade his face from the sun, but not conceal him from the view. Thus prepared he was slung into the air by means of ropes tied at the opposite end of the pole and swung round to give a full view to the surrounding crowd. The air was now rent with shouts of applause, almost to adoration. The trumpets sounded, the drums beat and patereroes fired. The transverse beam, turning upon a pivot, was slowly moved round over the heads of the multitude. Notwithstanding the torture which the victims must feel, they supported it, generally, with patient firmness. The writer of the account now quoted says he was an eyewitness to three persons submitting to this punishment on one afternoon. "The first sufferer," continues the narrator, "was a young man about twenty-four years of age. He got upon the scaffold with affected indifference, but when launched into the air I could distinctly hear him send forth some agonising yells. Still he persevered, and described the circle three times; he held a fan in one hand and a bundle of cajans (leaves of the Palmira tree) in the other, which he continued waving with seeming composure until he made a signal and thereupon was let down. There was no difference in the mode of suspending the other two, excepting that one beat a small taum taum (great drum) the whole time, and that the second held a basket of flowers in one hand and scattered them with the other among the spectators, who eagerly caught them. Either from the various accompanying noises, or from the superior fortitude of the two latter, I could not distinguish any expression of pain. When let down, their backs were rubbed with turmeric, and they were received by their friends with the highest marks of veneration and joy. I was informed that these men were thenceforward esteemed the particular favourites of Swamee (the Deity), and entitled to particular privileges. I was also present at this ceremony at Madras, near the Black Town." |