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Women in Gibbet Cage
Convictedwoman
Guard
Convictedwoman
Guard
Good point! Can somebody find more information about her or write a short story?
lithos1
Assistant executioner
L
The story is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Josephte_Corriveau
In particular I want to point out the section <<In popular culture>> - La Corrivaux by the director Jean Salvy, with Anne Dorval in the title role, and broadcast on the Télévision Radio-Canada network in 1995, from which a famous whipping scene is taken, known as "unknown french movie"...
The story is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Josephte_Corriveau
In particular I want to point out the section <<In popular culture>> - La Corrivaux by the director Jean Salvy, with Anne Dorval in the title role, and broadcast on the Télévision Radio-Canada network in 1995, from which a famous whipping scene is taken, known as "unknown french movie"...
Convictedwoman
Guard
Unsolved puzzle：Why were there so few women being gibbetted?
Variations of gibbeting and hanging from chains were used to torture and execute criminals during medieval times and would continue all the way until their abolishment in 1832. In its hundreds of years of existence, oddly enough, very few female criminals were recorded to be gibbetted. In contrast, approximately 30,000 to 40,000 condemned women, in England alone, were put to death by the governing authority during the period.
Moreover, the 1752 law clearly declared that the bodies of convicted murderers had to be either publicly dissected or gibbeted. Although some believed since the age of enlightenment, stripping, torturing and displaying women was too much "for reasons of public decency"， both genders were equal in the eyes of the law, so the rule had been followed strictly. Invariably, women convicted of murder were punished with hanging and dissection or, in the event that the murder was categorized as petty treason (the killing of a male superior such as a master, father, or husband), up to the end of the 18th century by strangulation then by burning at the stake. The reason why female murderers were always sentenced to dissection and anatomization rather than gibbeting in the 18th and 19th centuries is less clear. We remain curious as to why anatomisation and dissection, involving as it did the exposure of the opened and at least semi-nude body to public view, were somehow considered a more appropriate treatment of the bodies of female murderers than their display fully clothed in the gibbet.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-witches
https://www.ancientworldreview.com/2018/01/hanged-drawn-and-quartered.html
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77908-9_6#Sec2
Variations of gibbeting and hanging from chains were used to torture and execute criminals during medieval times and would continue all the way until their abolishment in 1832. In its hundreds of years of existence, oddly enough, very few female criminals were recorded to be gibbetted. In contrast, approximately 30,000 to 40,000 condemned women, in England alone, were put to death by the governing authority during the period.
Moreover, the 1752 law clearly declared that the bodies of convicted murderers had to be either publicly dissected or gibbeted. Although some believed since the age of enlightenment, stripping, torturing and displaying women was too much "for reasons of public decency"， both genders were equal in the eyes of the law, so the rule had been followed strictly. Invariably, women convicted of murder were punished with hanging and dissection or, in the event that the murder was categorized as petty treason (the killing of a male superior such as a master, father, or husband), up to the end of the 18th century by strangulation then by burning at the stake. The reason why female murderers were always sentenced to dissection and anatomization rather than gibbeting in the 18th and 19th centuries is less clear. We remain curious as to why anatomisation and dissection, involving as it did the exposure of the opened and at least semi-nude body to public view, were somehow considered a more appropriate treatment of the bodies of female murderers than their display fully clothed in the gibbet.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-witches
https://www.ancientworldreview.com/2018/01/hanged-drawn-and-quartered.html
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77908-9_6#Sec2
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Convictedwoman
Guard
Mary McKinnon’s execution and dissection- a typical case
Following her capital conviction for murder in 1823 Mary McKinnon had beseeched the visitors she received in jail to see that her body was decently buried. The Caledonian Mercury reported that, when the part of the sentence ordering her body to be sent for dissection was read out, “she was in a state of insensibility.” It added that her attendants had “very humanely kept her ignorant of the circumstance.” This would suggest that a key part of the capacity of dissection to act as an effective punishment was the psychological torment that the prospect caused the condemned criminal.
Transcription
An Interesting Account of the Trial and Sentence of
MARY M'KINNON, who is to be Executed at
Edinburgh, on Wednesday the 16th of April next
for the Murder of William Hewat, by Stabbing him
in the Breast with a Table Knife, and her Body
given for Public Dissection.
Following her capital conviction for murder in 1823 Mary McKinnon had beseeched the visitors she received in jail to see that her body was decently buried. The Caledonian Mercury reported that, when the part of the sentence ordering her body to be sent for dissection was read out, “she was in a state of insensibility.” It added that her attendants had “very humanely kept her ignorant of the circumstance.” This would suggest that a key part of the capacity of dissection to act as an effective punishment was the psychological torment that the prospect caused the condemned criminal.
Transcription
An Interesting Account of the Trial and Sentence of
MARY M'KINNON, who is to be Executed at
Edinburgh, on Wednesday the 16th of April next
for the Murder of William Hewat, by Stabbing him
in the Breast with a Table Knife, and her Body
given for Public Dissection.
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bobinder
ARTISAN
This one was...
(Image hosted on DeviantArt - https://www.deviantart.com/bobnearled/art/b-archive-Pyracie-5-sepia-6-18-493945738 )
Convictedwoman
Guard
This one passed out at the end of the rope because of asphyxiation. She’s frustrated to learn that her suffering is far from over.
wildsouthman
Assistant executioner
A couple more gibbet pics, male and female. All are being used to torture live victims, as opposed to displaying dead bodies, enjoy.
cruxlover
Tribune
Also of course Anne Bonney and Mary Reade - who I have mentioned in the past.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Read
There was also Martha Farley, though she may not have been a real pirate, but just mixed up with her husband, the judge released her.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vidal
Then again Mary Critchett, though Wikipedia does not say what her fate was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Critchett
This reference too is of interest:
https://csphistorical.com/2016/05/1...pirates-and-maritime-women-page-two/#more-297
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Read
There was also Martha Farley, though she may not have been a real pirate, but just mixed up with her husband, the judge released her.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vidal
Then again Mary Critchett, though Wikipedia does not say what her fate was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Critchett
This reference too is of interest:
https://csphistorical.com/2016/05/1...pirates-and-maritime-women-page-two/#more-297
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This is simple yet effective...
The convict is considered dead once the cage is raised though it could be days before she dies...
The convict is considered dead once the cage is raised though it could be days before she dies...
wildsouthman
Assistant executioner
Another female secured for her death, I love the look of fear and helplessness
Quiet Paul
Tribune
I Agree...something in her eyes says she knows this is all going to take a very very long time......
There was a great demand for cadavers for dissection in medical schools,
hence the activities of grave-robbers like Edinburgh's notorious Burke and Hare -
and fresh women's bodies would have been in particular demand
because of their 'strangeness' for the male students - and in shorter supply.
View attachment 689092
this miniature illustrates the execution of Brunhilda of Austrasia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunhilda_of_Austrasia
in De Casibus Virorum Illustrorum
(or in her case, feminae illustrae)
This is a substitute for hanging the woman first. She is placed in the gibbet and given a quick caning.
Next a gag with a hole in the middle is placed in her mouth. A post is rammed into her vagina and a chain hoists the gibbet with the woman locked inside the cage.
She tries to yell as the gibbet is lowered into a vat of water.
With the thick glass front of the vat the witnesses watch the woman drown in the vat!!!
Next a gag with a hole in the middle is placed in her mouth. A post is rammed into her vagina and a chain hoists the gibbet with the woman locked inside the cage.
She tries to yell as the gibbet is lowered into a vat of water.
With the thick glass front of the vat the witnesses watch the woman drown in the vat!!!
V
Vlagtwedde
Guest
What a great way to die!
Convictedwoman
Guard
I think you are absolutely right! my research also leads me to the same conclusion.
Female victims of gibbeting were rare; since female corpses were in high demand from surgeons and anatomists, female criminals were always dissected rather than gibbeted. From 1750-1832, corpses were in high demand at medical schools and by surgeons conducting research. We do know that female bodies were highly sought-after by the surgeons and that this added value or demand may have swayed the decision to dissect rather than hang in chains.
Sources:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77908-9_6
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/body-donation-cadavers-anatomy-medical-education/
Convictedwoman
Guard
Barbara Malcolm~ I just found another dissected female criminal at this history period.
Barbara Malcolm was hung are dissection in Einburgh in 1808 for the murder of her 18-month old daughter Margret.
In terms of female criminals dissected within Scottish universities, it is to the dissection of Barbara Malcolm in 1808 that we now turn in order to demonstrate how her body was utilised by Monro tertius for the acquisition of knowledge of the female anatomy.
Monro tertius began taking his father’s anatomy lectures in 1808 and thus Barbara Malcolm would have been the first female criminal to arrive on his dissection table and, due to the rarity of the occasion, he would not have another until 1813. From a reading of the lecture notes from the time, it is evident that special preparations were made in anticipation of her dissection. She had been sentenced on 5 January but, as with all capitally convicted criminals in Scotland, waited over a month before her scheduled execution on 10 February. In the first week of February, prior to Barbara’s dissection, several lectures took place. Those on the first four days looked in-depth at the anatomy of the organs of urine and generation in the female. Interestingly, a lecture on the fifth day changed track to focus more upon the structure of the neck and throat. The dissection of Barbara’s body took place the day following her execution and Monro focused particularly upon the naval arch and abdomen, providing an examination of the crural hernia, a cellular substance larger in women than men. He then moved on to an examination of the kidneys, liver and stomach.75 Within the records the lecture was entitled ‘Dissection of a Criminal’ and Barbara was not named. Additionally, despite the court having sentenced her to dissection as a form of punishment, the fact that the anatomy course was almost certainly adapted so an examination of gender-specific parts happened at the same time supports the argument that, for the medical men at least, her dissected body was a valuable means to an end in the acquisition of knowledge.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-62018-3_6
Barbara Malcolm was hung are dissection in Einburgh in 1808 for the murder of her 18-month old daughter Margret.
In terms of female criminals dissected within Scottish universities, it is to the dissection of Barbara Malcolm in 1808 that we now turn in order to demonstrate how her body was utilised by Monro tertius for the acquisition of knowledge of the female anatomy.
Monro tertius began taking his father’s anatomy lectures in 1808 and thus Barbara Malcolm would have been the first female criminal to arrive on his dissection table and, due to the rarity of the occasion, he would not have another until 1813. From a reading of the lecture notes from the time, it is evident that special preparations were made in anticipation of her dissection. She had been sentenced on 5 January but, as with all capitally convicted criminals in Scotland, waited over a month before her scheduled execution on 10 February. In the first week of February, prior to Barbara’s dissection, several lectures took place. Those on the first four days looked in-depth at the anatomy of the organs of urine and generation in the female. Interestingly, a lecture on the fifth day changed track to focus more upon the structure of the neck and throat. The dissection of Barbara’s body took place the day following her execution and Monro focused particularly upon the naval arch and abdomen, providing an examination of the crural hernia, a cellular substance larger in women than men. He then moved on to an examination of the kidneys, liver and stomach.75 Within the records the lecture was entitled ‘Dissection of a Criminal’ and Barbara was not named. Additionally, despite the court having sentenced her to dissection as a form of punishment, the fact that the anatomy course was almost certainly adapted so an examination of gender-specific parts happened at the same time supports the argument that, for the medical men at least, her dissected body was a valuable means to an end in the acquisition of knowledge.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-62018-3_6
Quiet Paul
Tribune
Where were you in the Middle Ages, Tree? They needed this kind of creative thinking back then!