Quartering

Quartering

Facts and interesting information about Medieval Torture and Punishment, specifically Exceution by Quartering, during the era

Torture and Punishment - Quartering
During the Medieval times inflicting pain and torture was an accepted form of punishment or interrogation. The cruel and pitiless torturers were induced to inflict the horrors of torture or punishment, including the Quartering, on the pitiful prisoners. Different types of torture or methods of punishment were inflicted, depending on the crime and the social status of the victim, using various methods and various types of devices or instruments.

The Law, Crime, Torture and Punishment - Quartering
There were no laws or rules to protect the treatment of prisoners who faced torture or punishment, such as Quartering. No matter what the type of torture or punishment was used it was seen as a totally legitimate means for justice to extract confessions, obtain the names of accomplices, obtain testimonies or confessions or to impose a penalty, sanctioned by law for a wrong committed. The following description provides facts and information about execution by Quartering.

French Quartering - the Punishment for an attempt to kill the king
The method of execution in Medieval France as a punishment for regicide (attempting to kill the King) was quartering as described below. Some of the men who faced this terrible form of execution included Jean Châtel, who attempted to assassinate King Henry IV and Robert-François Damiens who attempted the assassination of King Louis XV. 

Facts and Information about the Quartering
In Medieval France Execution by Quartering was practised and described as follows:

Quartering may in truth be considered the most horrible penalty ever invented. This punishment dates from the remotest ages. In almost all cases, the victim had previously to undergo various accessory tortures: sometimes his right hand was cut off, and the mutilated stump was burnt in a cauldron of sulphur; sometimes his arms, thighs, or breasts were lacerated with red-hot pincers, and hot oil, pitch, or molten lead was poured into the wounds. After these horrible preliminaries, a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow. These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed, as if for towing a barge. These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were all suddenly urged on with the whip in different directions, and thus all the limbs were strained at one moment. If the tendons and ligaments still resisted the combined efforts of the four horses, the executioner assisted, and made several cuts with a hatchet on each joint. When at last, for this horrible torture often lasted several hours - each horse had drawn out a limb, they were collected and placed near the hideous trunk, which often still showed signs of life, and the whole were burned together. Sometimes the sentence was, that the body should be hung to the gibbet, and that the limbs should be displayed on the gates of the town, or sent to four principal towns in the extremities of the kingdom. When this was done, "an inscription was placed on each of the limbs, which stated the reason of its being thus exposed."

Medieval Torture and Punishment - Quartering
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