Death by boiling is a method ofexecution in which a person is killed by being immersed in aboiling liquid. While not as common as other methods of execution, boiling to death has been practiced in many parts ofEurope andAsia. Due to the lengthy process, death by boiling is an extremely painful method of execution. Executions of this type were often carried out using a large vessel such as acauldron or a sealedkettle filled with a liquid such as water, oil,tar, ortallow, and sometimes ahook and pulley system.[1] Instances of boiling alive as a legal punishment were quite rare and infrequent compared to other forms of execution, such asdrowning.[2]
In England, the use of boiling alive as a method of execution was rare.[2] The ninth statute passed in 1531 (the 22nd year of the reign ofKing Henry VIII) made boiling alive the prescriptive form of capital punishment for murder committed bypoisoning, which by the same Act was defined ashigh treason.[3] This arose from a February 1531 incident in which theBishop of Rochester's cook,Richard Roose, gave several people poisonedporridge, resulting in two deaths.[4] A partial confession having been extracted bytorture, the sentence was thus imposed byattainder and withoutbenefit of clergy. His execution took place on April 15, 1532, atSmithfield.[2] A contemporary chronicle reports the following:[5]
He roared mighty loud, and divers women who were big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw, and were carried away half dead; and other men and women did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would prefer to see the headsman at his work.
Boiling to death was employed again in 1542 for a woman, Margaret Davy,[6] who had also used poison.[7][8] During the reign ofEdward VI, in 1547, the 1531 act was repealed.[2]
Numerous people have been boiled to death inScotland. For example, with the consent ofJon Haraldsson, the "Bloody Earl" ofOrkney, thebishop of Caithness,Adam of Melrose, and a monk named Surlo are said to have been boiled to death by angryhusbandmen in 1222 over the bishop's aggressive means of collecting tithes.Alexander II is said to have executed upwards of eighty persons as a punishment for killing the bishop and monk, and the earl fled his lands.[9] But according to theMelrose Chronicle, Adam of Melrose was "burned alive", rather than boiled, and Alexander II executed up to 400 for the crime against the clergy.[10]
William de Soules, a nobleman involved in a conspiracy againstRobert the Bruce, was reputed to be a sorcerer consorting with evil spirits, and was boiled alive in 1321 atNinestane Rig.[11] Around 1420, Melville, the sheriff of theMearns and laird ofGlenbervie, who was resented for his strictness, was apprehended by some other nobles and thrown into the kettle. The nobles are said to have each taken a spoonful of the brew afterwards.[12]
Boiling as an execution method was also used forcounterfeiters,swindlers andcoin forgers during theMiddle Ages.[13] In theHoly Roman Empire, for example, being boiled to death in oil is recorded forcoin forgers and extremely grave murderers. In 1392, a man was boiled alive inNuremberg for having raped and murdered his own mother.[14] Coin forgers were boiled to death in 1452 inDanzig[15] and in 1471 inStralsund.[16] Even as late as 1687, a man inBremen was boiled to death in oil for having been of valuable help to some coin forgers who had escaped justice.[17]
In the Dutch town ofDeventer, the kettle that was used for boiling criminals to death can still be seen.[18]
In 16th-century Japan, the semi-legendary Japanese banditIshikawa Goemon and his son were boiled alive in the 1590s byToyotomi Hideyoshi.[19] In 1675, aSikhmartyr calledBhai Dayala was boiled to death inDelhi after he refused to convert toIslam. He was put into acauldron full of cold water which was then heated to boiling point. Sikh scriptures record that Dayala recited theJapji ofGuru Nanak and theSukhmani ofGuru Arjan as he died.[20]
Thomas Ewbank relates in his 1856 bookLife in Brazil that he was told of anenslaved Afro-Brazilian being publicly boiled to death by a plantation owner as punishment for acts of insubordination.[21]
The government ofUzbekistan underIslam Karimov (1991–2016) has been alleged to have boiled suspected terrorists.[22]
In aUnited States Department of State document from 2004, the following is written:
During the year, there were no developments or investigations in the following 2002 deaths in custody: Asilbek Sa’diyev and Shahzodjon Muzafarov, members ofgang band who were tortured to death inJaslyk Prison inKarakalpakstan resulting in extensive bruises and burns, the latter reportedly caused by immersion in boiling water.[23]
Former ISIS commander Abu Abboud al-Raqqawi referred to ISIS's brutal execution methods, among which was boiling prisoners alive in engine oil:
Some people were boiled alive in oil. Engine oil. They burned wood on a fire for an hour before throwing the victim into boiling oil. It's the Tunisians who were responsible for that.[24]
In the 2010 documentaryEl Sicario, Room 164, the masked sicario interviewee claims that the Mexican cartels boil in oil those found to be working for the police.
Early reports ofcannibals from places in the Pacific, such asFiji andPapua New Guinea, killing WesternChristian missionaries were assumed to involve some form of boiling alive.[25] This became a fertile ground for film makers and especially cartoonists, whose clichéd depiction of tourists or missionaries sitting restrained in a large cauldron above a wood fire and surrounded by bone-nosed tribesmen was a staple of popular magazines and films for decades. Examples include both the 1980 and 2024 television adaptations of the novelShōgun,[26] the1985 film adaptation ofKing Solomon's Mines[27] and the dream sequence in the filmBagdad Café.[28]
Fromental Halévy's 1835 operaLa Juiveends with Rachel (the title character) being boiled alive in a vat of oil after her relationship with the Christian prince Léopold is discovered by antisemitic state and church authorities.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Boiling to Death".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 153.{{cite journal}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)