More widespread forms of execution

OK, how would the following relatively uncommon historical forms of execution become more widespread- at least in Western countries- before 1800 ?

Boiling alive
Breaking on the wheel
Crushing
Flaying
Impalement
Roasting alive
 
They shouldn't. Those cause to much suffering. The point of capital punishment isn't to inflict pain and suffering but to end life. Firing squad is the way to go; quick and efficient (though not perfect).
 
But it's also a deterrent to committing crimes, if you know something gruesome awaits you...I'd like it if all the various forms of execution were on a wheel, and the convicted had to spin their own "wheel of death" to decide the manner of their execution...First up, 'Lady Gaga' for crimes against humanity....

LOL, of course this is in jest, I'm not a psycho! though I do despise Lady gaga...
;)
 
They shouldn't. Those cause to much suffering. The point of capital punishment isn't to inflict pain and suffering but to end life. Firing squad is the way to go; quick and efficient (though not perfect).

That's a very modern attitude which has no bearing on a discussion of past history. Up until very recently, historically speaking, the prime reason you were being executed was to PUNISH you for your crimes. Not to remove you as a threat to society, not to deter you. To PUNISH you. And the infliction of pain was part and parcel of that.

The French Revolution is really the first time anyone argued in favor of the "death penalty being a means to end life, not to inflict suffering." Hence the adoption of the guillotine, which was seen as more humane. And even then, it was widely ignored as the ravings of a group of wild-eyed radicals in most places outside of France and America for some time.
 
OK, how would the following relatively uncommon historical forms of execution become more widespread- at least in Western countries- before 1800 ?

Boiling alive
Breaking on the wheel
Crushing
Flaying
Impalement
Roasting alive

Breaking on the wheel and crushing were already widespread and common in most of Europe up to the French Revolution. Really the main country which didn't use them to any great degree was England, and they had their own favorite forms of painful execution...hanging, drawing and quartering, etc.

I think the problem with boiling alive is it involves the use of an apparatus which could be dangerous to the executioner. A person put into a pot of boiling water or boiling oil might struggle so much that he or she upsets the pot and spills the hot water or oil on the executioner. This is obviously undesireable and would make it difficult to find people who would take the job of executioner.

As for roasting alive (I suppose you are not counting burning at the stake as "roasting"...that's more like flame broiling than roasting), most likely the reason for that is the lack of "entertainment/education" value for the masses coming to watch the execution. Putting somebody in an oven and locking them in, you can't see them writhing in pain, and you might not be able to hear the screams.

As for flaying, not sure why that went out of style. The Assyrians used it quite a bit.

As for impalement, also not sure what would make that more popular. My guess is the reason it wasn't popular is that its quite difficult to get right. If you don't insert the stake in just the right place, you'll kill the victim right away before any of the "fun and educational" stuff starts.;) So other forms which were easier to accomplish without great skill were likely favored by most.
 
Perhaps we could tie flaying in with the growth in popularity of dissections of cadavers and surgery-as-entertainment.
 

Thande

Donor
Obligatory own-TL-plugging example: the phlogisticateurs in the French Latin Republic. Essentially primitive gas chambers (with transparent glass sides for public executions) in which the executee is suffocated either from carbon dioxide being pumped in or from the air being pumped out.

The ideology behind their use is twofold: firstly as in OTL's Revolution it's intended as a means to remove enemies of the state quickly, easily and fairly painlessly, and secondly it's to do with the contemporary conception of the aerial economy and carbon dioxide being "impure" phlogisticated air, therefore being poetic justice as a means of execution for "impure elements in society".

Someone on my thread also suggested live vivisection for scientific purposes as a possible option for a highly pragmatic and rationalist totalitarian state, as it means you're still getting use out the bodies of enemies of the state.
 
That's a very modern attitude which has no bearing on a discussion of past history. Up until very recently, historically speaking, the prime reason you were being executed was to PUNISH you for your crimes. Not to remove you as a threat to society, not to deter you. To PUNISH you. And the infliction of pain was part and parcel of that.

The French Revolution is really the first time anyone argued in favor of the "death penalty being a means to end life, not to inflict suffering." Hence the adoption of the guillotine, which was seen as more humane. And even then, it was widely ignored as the ravings of a group of wild-eyed radicals in most places outside of France and America for some time.


Well, if I were a despot back then, I wouldn't want to torture my enemies, I'd just want them dead.
 
OK, how would the following relatively uncommon historical forms of execution become more widespread- at least in Western countries- before 1800 ?

Boiling alive
Breaking on the wheel
Crushing
Flaying
Impalement
Roasting alive

Boiling is probably time consuming. although there are Rumors that people have been boiled alive in present day Uzbekistan.

Breaking wheels are harder. they're time consuming, and probably exhasting work.

Crushing is a little easier. sense the orignal method was torture, a quicker version would probably consist of dropping something heavy enough to crush the head.

I don't think Flaying, impalement and Roasting are going to be easier to spread though.

But really, once a much easier and quicker way of exicuting people appears, these will more than likely all become obsolete.
 
Honestly, if I was a SMART despot I'd put my political enemies to work, and the most dangerous ones executed humanely and quickly.
 
I think you cpould see that hapen if executioners were professionalised earlier and more completely. This was a phenomenon in German imperial cities around the introduction of the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina. Since the law code required specific forms of execution for specific crimes, the executioner had to be adept at all of them, and thus Germany was a world leader in creative killing for a while. England, on the other hand, had amateur executioners, which meant that simple stuff like hanging was all that was feasible in most cases.

Another thing might be if the seventeenth and eighteenth century had less of a tendency to standardise and humanise capital punishment. OTL many courts tended to go with simple and efective punishments rather than the great show killings that enlightened thinkers came to (wrongly) call 'medieval'. If the legal profession developed a greater regard for the tradition of deterrence, that might help. It would still be expensive, but money is less of an argument if people believe it works.
 
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