The Garotte
The very early garottes where just poles in the ground to which the victims were tied tightly by the neck. From there they evolved in two directions. The most renown of these was the hangman's noose which was used widely as a form of execution. The noose was put around the person's neck and they were then "dropped" by having whatever they were stood, or sat on, removed from under them. This was usually done on a construction known as The Gallows.
The other form, which most closely resembled the original, was the garotte. At first it was just a refinement of the upright post but now with a hole bored through. The victim would stand or sit on a seat in front of the post, and a rope was looped around his or her neck. The ends of the cords were fed through the hole in the post. The executioner would pull on both ends of the cord, slowly strangling the victim.
Later a static iron collar replaced the rope. Now, rather than the collar strangling the victim, a spike was screwed through the post hole and into the back of the neck, parting the vertebrae, crushing the spinal cord and eventually causing asphyxiation. Sometimes a knife was used instead of the spike.
The garotte was used in Europe initially as a merciful way of dispatching victims before they were burnt at the stake but its value as a slow form of execution in itself soon appealed to the executioners. It was adopted by the Spanish as the official instrument of capital punishment and remained in use until 1975
