The Gibbet


Gibbeting was originally a post mortem humiliation, which, as a punishment, denied the criminal a decent burial and also served as a dire warning to others. It was used for such people as traitors, murderers, highwaymen and sheep-stealers.

After they had been hanged in the normal way, their body was taken down and put into an iron cage which they had been previously measured for and had been specially made for them.

This cage went over the head, torso and upper legs. The cage and body were then suspended again by a chain from the gibbet which was like a simple gallows but normally higher and set up at a prominent place, e.g. a crossroads or the top of a hill.

The body would be left until it had rotted away - perhaps a year or more - to serve as a reminder of what happened to these classes of criminal. So that the public display might be prolonged, bodies were sometimes coated in tar.
In cases of drawing and quartering, the body of the criminal was cut into five portions, each of which was often gibbeted in different places. This was the fate of William Wallace (1267 - 1305)

Fordun, who lived in the reign of King Robert Bruce, when the memory of the exploits of Wallace must have been quite fresh, says:

'The noble William Wallace was, by Sir John Menteith, at Glasgow, while suspecting no evil, fraudulently betrayed and seized, delivered to the King of England, dismembered at London, and his quarters hung up in the towns of the most public places in England and Scotland, in opprobium of the Scots.'

However, at some point in history gibbetting took the cruel twist of exhibiting live victims who, over time, would die from starvation, dehydration or exposure. Pirates would sometimes be gibbetted at the sea's edge at low tide so they would die slowly in the rising tide.

Crucifixion can also be considered a form of gibbeting.


The various designs of BDSM suspension cages are reminiscent of gibbet devices




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