Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with anoose orligature. Hanging has been a standard method ofcapital punishment since theMiddle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. As a form of execution, it is commonly practiced at a structure called agallows. The first known account of execution by hanging is inHomer'sOdyssey.[1] Hanging is also a commonmethod of suicide.
The short drop is a method of hanging in which the condemned prisoner stands on a raised support, such as a stool, ladder, cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The support is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope.[2][3] Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effectingstrangulation and death. Loss of consciousness is typically rapid and death ensues in a few minutes.[4]
Before 1850, the short drop was the standard method of hanging, and it is still common insuicides and extrajudicial hangings (such aslynchings andsummary executions) which lack the specialised equipment anddrop-length calculation tables used in the newer methods.
A short-drop variant is theAustro-Hungarian "pole" method, calledWürgegalgen (literally: strangling gallows), in which the following steps take place:
The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately 3 metres (9.8 ft) in height.
A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole.
The condemned is hoisted to the top of the pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the arms.
A narrow-diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole.
The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope, thus resulting in strangulation and death.
This method was later also adopted by the successor states, most notably byCzechoslovakia, where the "pole" method was used as the single type of execution from 1918 until 1954, when the prison hosting Czechoslovakia's executions,Pankrác Prison, constructed an indoor gallows that exclusively accommodated short-drop hangings to replace the pole method.[5] Nazi war criminalKarl Hermann Frank, executed in 1946 inPrague, was among approximately 1,000 condemned people executed by the pole hanging method in Czechoslovakia.[6]
The execution ofHenry Wirz in 1865; Wirz was given a standard drop, which did not break his neck
The standard drop involves a drop of between 4 and 6 feet (1.2–1.8 m) and came into use from 1866, when the scientific details were published by Irish doctorSamuel Haughton. Its use rapidly spread to English-speaking countries and those with judicial systems of English origin.
It was considered a humane improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough tobreak the person's neck, causing immediate unconsciousness and rapid brain death.[7][8]
This method was used to execute condemnedNazis under United States jurisdiction after theNuremberg Trials, includingJoachim von Ribbentrop andErnst Kaltenbrunner.[9][not specific enough to verify] In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that: "The hangman botched the execution and the rope throttled the former foreign minister for 20 minutes before he expired."[10] ALife magazine report on the execution merely says: "The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight."[11]
1901 postcard showingTom Ketchum's decapitated body following a botched execution by long-drop hanging. Caption reads "Body of Black Jack after the hanging showing head snapped off."Execution of an unidentified Nazi war criminal afterWorld War II
The long-drop process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 byWilliam Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop, and further refined by his successorJames Berry. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's height and weight[12] were used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken, but not so much that the person was decapitated. Careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose (so that the head was jerked back as the rope tightened) contributed to breaking the neck.
Prior to 1892, the drop was in the range of 4–10 ft (1.2–3.0 m), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver an energy of 1,260foot-pounds force (1,710 J), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5thcervical vertebrae. This force resulted in some decapitations, such as the infamous case ofBlack Jack Ketchum inNew Mexico Territory in 1901, owing to a significant weight gain while in custody not having been factored into the drop calculations. Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account, and the energy delivered was reduced to about 1,000 foot-pounds force (1,400 J). The record speed for a British long-drop hanging was seven seconds from the executioner entering the cell to the drop. Speed was considered to be important in the British system as it reduced the condemned's mental distress.[13]
Long-drop hanging is still practiced as the method of execution in a few countries, includingJapan and Singapore.[14][15]
A sixteenth-century fresco from Tarzhishte Monastery, Strupets, Bulgaria, showingJudas Iscariot hanging himself
InCanada, hanging is the most common method of suicide,[16] and in the U.S., hanging is the second most common method, after self-inflictedgunshot wounds.[17] In 2024, hanging was the most common method in theUnited Kingdom, accounting for 56% of the 3,504 suicides.[18]
Those who survive a suicide-via-hanging attempt, whether due to breakage of the cord orligature point, or being discovered and cut down, face a range of serious injuries, includingcerebral anoxia (which can lead to permanent brain damage), laryngeal fracture, cervical spine fracture (which may causeparalysis), tracheal fracture, pharyngeal laceration, and carotid artery injury.[19]
There aresome suggestions that theVikings practised hanging as human sacrifices toOdin, to honour Odin's ownsacrifice of hanging himself fromYggdrasil.[20] In Northern Europe, it is widely speculated that theIron Age bog bodies, many of which show signs of having been hanged, were examples of human sacrifice to the gods.[21]
The cause of death in hanging depends on the conditions related to the event. When the body is released from a relatively high position, the major cause of death is severe trauma to the upper cervical spine. The injuries produced are highly variable. One study showed that only a small minority of a series of judicial hangings produced fractures to the cervical spine (6 out of 34 cases studied), with half of these fractures (3 out of 34) being the classic "hangman's fracture" (bilateral fractures of the pars interarticularis of the C2 vertebra).[23]
The side, or subaural knot, has been shown to produce other, more complex injuries, with one thoroughly studied case producing only ligamentous injuries to the cervical spine and bilateral vertebral artery disruptions, but no major vertebral fractures or crush injuries to the spinal cord.[24]
John Ogilvie, who in 1615 was hanged and disembowelled after torture for his refusal to give up the Catholic faith and convert to Protestantism
In the absence of fracture and dislocation, occlusion of blood vessels becomes the major cause of death, rather thanasphyxiation. Obstruction of venous drainage of the brain via occlusion of the internal jugular veins leads tocerebral oedema and thencerebral ischemia. The face will typically become engorged andcyanotic (turned blue through lack of oxygen).Compromise of the cerebral blood flow may occur by obstruction of the carotid arteries, even though their obstruction requires far more force than the obstruction of jugular veins, since they are seated deeper and they contain blood in much higher pressure compared to the jugular veins.[25]
Hanging has been a method ofcapital punishment in many countries, and is still used by many countries to this day. Long-drop hanging is mainly used by former British colonies, while short-drop and suspension hanging is common elsewhere, in countries including Iran and Afghanistan.
Capital punishment was a part of thelegal system of Australia from the establishment ofNew South Wales as a British penal colony, until 1985, by which time all Australian states and territories had abolished the death penalty.[26] In practice, the last execution in Australia was the hanging ofRonald Ryan on 3 February 1967, inVictoria.[27]
During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence includedburglary, sheep theft,forgery,sexual assaults, murder andmanslaughter. During the 19th century, there were roughly eighty people hanged every year throughout the Australian colonies for these crimes.[citation needed]
The Bahamas employs hanging to execute the condemned, but no executions have been conducted in the country since 2000.[28] As of 2023, there have been some inmates on death row but their sentences have been commuted.[citation needed]
Death by hanging was the customary method of capital punishment in Brazil throughout its history. Some important national heroes likeTiradentes (1792) were killed by hanging. The last man executed in Brazil was the slaveFrancisco, in 1876.[29] The death penalty was abolished for all crimes, except for those committed under extraordinary circumstances such as war or military law, in 1890.[30]
Bulgaria's national hero,Vasil Levski, was executed by hanging by theOttoman court inSofia in 1873. Every year since Bulgaria's liberation, thousands come with flowers on the date of his death, 19 February, to his monument where the gallows stood. The last execution was in 1989, and the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in 1998.[30]
Historically, hanging was the only method of execution used in Canada and was in use as possible punishment for all murders until 1961, when murders were reclassified into capital and non-capital offences. The death penalty was restricted to apply only for certain offences to the National Defence Act in 1976 and was completely abolished in 1998.[31] The last hangings in Canada took place on 11 December 1962.[30]
In 1955, Egypt hanged three Israelis on charges of spying.[32] In 1982 Egypt hanged three civilians convicted of theassassination of Anwar Sadat.[33] In 2004, Egypt hanged five militants on charges of trying to kill the Prime Minister.[34][not specific enough to verify] To this day, hanging remains the standard method of capital punishment in Egypt, which executes more people each year than any other African country.
Public execution of Polish civilians by theNazi Germans in German occupiedKraków in 1942Alleged Soviet partisans hanged by the Nazis in January 1943
In the territories occupied byNazi Germany from 1939 to 1945, strangulation hanging was a preferred means of public execution, although more criminal executions were performed byguillotine than hanging. The most commonly sentenced werepartisans andblack marketeers, whose bodies were usually left hanging for long periods. There are also numerous reports of concentration camp inmates being hanged. Hanging was continued in post-war Germany in theBritish and US Occupation Zones under their jurisdiction, and for Nazi war criminals, until well after (western) Germany itself had abolished the death penalty by theBasic Law (constitution) as adopted in 1949. West Berlin was not subject to the Basic Law and abolished the death penalty in 1951. TheGerman Democratic Republic abolished the death penalty in 1987. The last execution ordered by a West German court was carried out by guillotine in Moabit prison in 1949. The last hanging in Germany was the one ordered of several war criminals inLandsberg am Lech on 7 June 1951. The last known execution in East Germany was in 1981 by a pistol shot to the neck.[26]
Even though Hong Kong is now part of China, it has no capital punishment; it is a special administrative region of China. When Hong Kong was still a part of the British Empire, it had hanging as the method of execution. The last person who was executed was a Chinese Vietnamese man who attacked a security guard and another person. This execution occurred in 1966.[35]
The prime minister of Hungary, during the1956 Revolution,Imre Nagy, was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the newSoviet-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publicly exonerated by Hungary.[36] Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1990.[26]
Hanging was introduced by the British. All executions in India since independence have been carried out by hanging, although the law provides for military executions to be carried out by firing squad. In 1949,Nathuram Godse, who had been sentenced to death for the assassination ofMahatma Gandhi, was the first person to be executed by hanging in independent India.[37]
Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed on 21 November 2012 inYerwada Central Jail, Pune. The Supreme Court of India had previously rejected his mercy plea, which was then rejected by the President of India. He was hanged one week later.
Yakub Memon was convicted over his involvement in the1993 Bombay bombings by the Special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities court on 27 July 2007. His appeals and petitions for clemency were all rejected and he was finally executed by hanging on 30 July 2015 in Nagpur jail.
On 20 March 2020, four prisoners named Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh and Akshay Thakur who were convicted in the2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case were executed by hanging in Tihar Jail.[39]
Hanging was used under the regime ofSaddam Hussein,[41][self-published source] but was suspended along with capital punishment on 10 June 2003, when a coalition led by the United Statesinvaded and overthrew the previous regime. The death penalty was reinstated on 8 August 2004.[42]
In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the restoration. Then on 9 March 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the firstinsurgents by hanging.[43]
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging forcrimes against humanity[44] on 5 November 2006, and was executed on 30 December 2006 at approximately 6:00 a.m. local time. During the drop, there was an audible crack indicating that his neck was broken, a successful example of a long-drop hanging.[45]
Barzan Ibrahim, the head of the Mukhabarat, Saddam's security agency, andAwad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge, were executed on 15 January 2007, also by the long-drop method, but Barzan was decapitated by the rope at the end of his fall.[46][47]
Former vice-presidentTaha Yassin Ramadan had been sentenced to life in prison on 5 November 2006, but the sentence was changed to death by hanging on 12 February 2007.[48] He was the fourth and final man to be executed for the 1982 crimes against humanity on 20 March 2007. The execution went smoothly.[49]
At the Anfal genocide trial, Saddam's cousinAli Hassan al-Majid (nicknamed Chemical Ali by Iraqis), former defence ministerSultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay, and former deputy Hussein Rashid Mohammed were sentenced to hang for their role in theAl-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds on 24 June 2007.[50] Al-Majid was sentenced to death three more times: once for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on 2 December 2008;[51] once for the 1999 crackdown in the assassination ofGrand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr on 2 March 2009;[52] and once on 17 January 2010 for the gassing of the Kurds in 1988;[53] he was hanged on 25 January.[54]
On 26 October 2010, Saddam's top ministerTariq Aziz was sentenced to hang for persecuting the members of rival Shi'a political parties.[55] His sentence was commuted to indefinite imprisonment after Iraqi presidentJalal Talabani did not sign his execution order and he died in prison in 2015.
On 14 July 2011, US forces transferred condemned prisonersSultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai and two of Saddam's half-brothers,Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti andWatban Ibrahim al-Tikriti, to Iraqi authorities for execution.[56] The Iraqi High Tribunal had sentenced Saddam's half-brothers to death on 11 March 2009 for their roles in the executions of 42 traders who were accused of manipulatingfood prices.[57] None of the three men were executed.[58][59][60]
It is alleged that Iraq's government keeps the execution rate secret, and hundreds may be carried out every year. In 2007, Amnesty International stated that 900 people were at "imminent risk" of execution in Iraq.
Israel has provisions in its criminal law to use the death penalty for extraordinary crimes. It has been used only twice for Israelis, and only one of those executions was by hanging. On 31 May 1962, Nazi leaderAdolf Eichmann was executed by hanging after having been captured in Argentina in May 1960, taken to Israel and tried and sentenced to death.[30][61]
Hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment inJordan. On 14 August 1993, Jordan hanged two Jordanians convicted of spying for Israel.[67]Sajida al-Rishawi, the "4th bomber" of the2005 Amman bombings, was executed by hanging alongsideZiad al-Karbouly on 4 February 2015, while she was in the process of appealing her sentence for terrorism offences, in retribution for theimmolation of Jordanian pilotMuath Al-Kasasbeh.
Kuwait has always used hanging for execution. During theGulf War, Iraqi government officials executed different people for different reasons. After the war, Kuwait hanged Iraqi collaborators.[68][full citation needed] Sometimes the executions are in public. The most recent executions were in 2022.[69]
Lebanon hanged two men in 1998 for murdering a man and his sister.[70] However, capital punishment ended up being altogether suspended in Lebanon, as a result of staunch opposition by activists and some political factions.[71]
Hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in Malaysia and has been used to execute people convicted of murder, drug trafficking and waging war against the government. TheBarlow and Chambers execution was carried out as a result of new tighter drug regulations.
Hanging was commonly practised in theRussian Empire during the rule of theRomanov dynasty as an alternative toimpalement, which was used in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Hanging was abolished in 1868 byAlexander II afterserfdom,[clarification needed] but was restored by the time of his death and his assassins were hanged. While those sentenced to death for murder were usually pardoned and sentences commuted to life imprisonment, those guilty of high treason were usually executed. This also included theGrand Duchy of Finland andKingdom of Poland under the Russian crown.Taavetti Lukkarinen became the last Finn to be executed this way. He was hanged for espionage and high treason in 1916.
The hanging was usually performed by short drop in public. The gallows were usually either a stout nearby tree branch, as in the case of Lukkarinen, or a makeshift gallows constructed for the purpose.
After theOctober Revolution in 1917, capital punishment was, on paper, abolished, but continued to be used unabated against people perceived to be enemies of the regime. Under the Bolsheviks, most executions were performed by shooting, either by firing squad or by a single firearm. In 1943, hanging was restored primarily for German servicemen and native collaborators for atrocities committed against Soviet POWs and civilians. The last to be hanged wereAndrey Vlasov and his companions in 1946.
InSingapore, long-drop hanging[14] is currently used as a mandatory punishment for crimes such asdrug trafficking,murder and some types ofkidnapping. It was introduced by the British, when they occupied Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia. It has also been used for punishing those convicted of unauthorised discharging of firearms.[74]
Hanging was abolished inSri Lanka in 1956, but in 1959 it was brought back and later halted in 1978. In 1975, the day before the execution ofMaru Sira, he had been overdosed by the prison guards to prevent him from escaping. On the day of his execution he was unconscious, so when he was brought to the gallows, he was slumped over on the trapdoor with a noose around his neck, and when the executioner pulled the lever, his execution was botched and he strangled.
Eli Cohen, publicly hanged by Syria on 18 May 1965
Syria has publicly hanged people, such as two individuals in 1952, Israeli spyEli Cohen in 1965, and a number of Jews accused of spying for Israel in 1969.[75][76][77]
According to a 19th-century report, members of theAlawite sect centred onLattakia in Syria had a particular aversion towards being hanged, and the family of the condemned was willing to pay "considerable sums" to ensure its relations wereimpaled, instead of being hanged. As far asBurckhardt could make out, this attitude was based upon the Alawites' idea that the soul ought to leave the body through the mouth, rather than leave it in any other fashion.[78]
As a form ofjudicial execution in England, hanging is thought to date from theAnglo-Saxon period.[79] Records of the names of Britishhangmen begin with Thomas de Warblynton in the 1360s;[citation needed] complete records extend from the 16th century to the last hangmen,Robert Leslie Stewart andHarry Allen, who conducted the last British executions in 1964.
Until 1868 hangings were performed in public. In London, the traditional site was atTyburn, a settlement west of theCity on the main road toOxford, which was used on eight hanging days a year, though before 1865, executions had been transferred to the street outsideNewgate Prison,Old Bailey, now the site of theCentral Criminal Court.
Three British subjects were hanged afterWorld War II after having been convicted of having helpedNazi Germany in its war against Britain.John Amery, the son of prominent British politicianLeo Amery, became anexpatriate in the 1930s, moving to France. He became involved in pre-warfascist politics, remained in what becameVichy France following France's defeat by Germany in 1940 and eventually went to Germany and later the German puppet state in Italy headed byBenito Mussolini. Captured by Italianpartisans at the end of the war and handed over to British authorities, Amery was accused of having madepropaganda broadcasts for the Nazis and of having attempted to recruit Britishprisoners of war for aWaffen SS regiment later known as theBritish Free Corps. Amery pleaded guilty to treason charges on 28 November 1945[80] and was hanged atWandsworth Prison on 19 December 1945.William Joyce, an American-born Irishman who had lived in Britain and possessed a Britishpassport, had been involved in pre-war fascist politics in the UK, fled to Nazi Germany just before the war began to avoid arrest by British authorities and became a naturalised German citizen. He made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis, becoming infamous under the nicknameLord Haw-Haw. Captured by British forces in May 1945, he was tried for treason later that year. Although Joyce's defence argued that he was by birth American and thus not subject to being tried for treason, the prosecution successfully argued that Joyce's pre-war British passport meant that he was a subject of the British Crown and he was convicted. After his appeals failed, he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 3 January 1946.[81]Theodore Schurch, a British soldier captured by the Nazis who then began working for the Italian and German intelligence services by acting as a spy and informer who would be placed among other British prisoners, was arrested in Rome in March 1945 and tried under theTreachery Act 1940. After his conviction, he was hanged atHM Prison Pentonville on 4 January 1946.
TheHomicide Act 1957 created the new offence ofcapital murder, punishable by death, with all other murders being punishable by life imprisonment.
In 1965, Parliament passed theMurder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, temporarily abolishing capital punishment for murder for five years. The Act was renewed in 1969, making the abolition permanent. With the passage of theCrime and Disorder Act 1998 and theHuman Rights Act 1998, the death penalty was officially abolished for all crimes in both civilian and military cases. Following its complete abolition, the gallows were removed fromWandsworth Prison, where they remained in full working order until that year.
In the UK, some felons are traditionally said to have been executed by hanging with a silken rope:
Hereditary peers who committedcapital offences,[84] as anticipated by the fictionalDuke of Denver, brother ofLord Peter Wimsey. The Duke was accused of murder in the novelClouds of Witness, and this execution would have been his fate, after conviction by his peers in a trial in theHouse of Lords. It has been claimed that the execution ofEarl Ferrers in 1760 – the only time a peer was hanged after trial by theHouse of Lords – was carried out with the normal hempen rope instead of a silk one. The writ of execution does not specify a silk rope be used,[85] andThe Newgate Calendar makes no mention of the use of such an item[86] – an unusual omission given its highly sensationalist nature.
The execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, who were all convicted by amilitary tribunal for being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 7 July 1865
The United States is the only Western democracy[clarification needed] that still allows the government to execute people. However, the use of capital punishment in the U.S. varies widely from state to state; it is outlawed in nearly half of the states but used in several others along with the federal system. The death penalty under federal law is applicable in every state, and theDonald Trump administration since 2019 has been unswerving in its desire to carry out as many federal executions as possible and federalize capital crimes to cover even state-level offenses in states without a death penalty of their own (such as New York). However, no federal hangings have taken place yet. Hanging is only used at the state level inFlorida as of 2025. Previously, the last state to allow hanging as a method of execution, New Hampshire, abolished the death penalty in 2019.
In July 2025,Florida enacted legislation that further expands the state's already extensive capital punishment laws to allow "any execution method not explicitly deemed unconstitutional," which includes hanging. This makes the United States the only country in the Western world that currently allows executions via hanging.[90][91]
TheDakota War of 1862, also known as the Dakota uprising, led to the largest mass execution in the United States when 38 Sioux Indians, who were facing starvation and displacement, attacked white settlers, for which they were sentenced to death via hanging inMankato, Minnesota in December 1862.[93] Originally, 303 had been sentenced to hang, but the convictions were reviewed by PresidentAbraham Lincoln and the sentences of all but 38 were commuted.[94] In 2019, GovernorTim Walz issued an historic apology to the Dakota people for the mass hanging and the "trauma inflicted onNative people at the hands of state government".[93]
In California,Clinton Duffy, who served as warden ofSan Quentin State Prison between 1940 and 1952, presided over ninety executions.[99] He began to oppose the death penalty, and after his retirement, wrote a memoir entitledEighty-Eight Men and Two Women in support of the movement to abolish the death penalty. The book documents several hangings gone wrong and describes how they led his predecessor, WardenJames B. Holohan, to persuade the California Legislature to replace hanging with thegas chamber in 1937.[100][101]
Various methods of capital punishment have been replaced bylethal injection in most states and the federal government. Many states that offered hanging as an option have since eliminated the method. Condemned murdererVictor Feguer became the last inmate to be executed by hanging in the state ofIowa on 15 March 1963. Hanging was the preferred method of execution for capital murder cases in Iowa until 1965, when the death penalty was abolished and replaced withlife imprisonment withoutparole.Barton Kay Kirkham was the last person to be hanged in Utah, preferring it overexecution by firing squad. Laws inDelaware were changed in 1986 to specify lethal injection, except for those convicted before 1986 (who were still allowed to choose hanging). If a choice was not made, or the convict refused to choose injection, then hanging would become the default method. This was the case in the 1996 execution ofBilly Bailey, the most recent hanging in American history; since then, no Delaware prisoner fit the category, and the state's gallows were later dismantled.
The upright jerker is a method of hanging that originated in the United States in the late 19th century. The person to be hanged is jerked into the air by weights and pulleys. It proved to be ineffective at breaking the neck of the condemned, and death by asphyxiation often occurred instead. In the United States, use of the method ceased in the late 1930s.
To drag the Jew to the ordinary execution place between two angry or biting dogs. After dragging, to hang him from his feet by rope or chain at a designated gallows between the dogs, so that he is directed from life to death[103]
Guido Kisch [de] showed that originally, this type of inverted hanging between two dogs was not a punishment specifically for Jews. Esther Cohen writes:[104]
The inverted hanging with the accompaniment of two dogs, originally reserved for traitors, was identified from the fourteenth century as the "Jewish execution", being practised in the later Middle Ages in both northern and Mediterranean Europe. The Jewish execution in Germany has been thoroughly studied by G. Kisch, who has argued convincingly that neither the inverted hanging nor the stringing up of dogs or wolves beside the victim were particularly Jewish punishments during the High Middle Ages. They first appeared as Jewish punishments in Germany only towards the end of the thirteenth century, never being recognized as exclusively Jewish penalties.
In France the inverted, animal-associated hanging came to be connected with Jews by the later Middle Ages. The inverted hanging of Jews is specifically mentioned in the old customs of Burgundy in the context of animal hanging. The custom, dogs and all, was still in force in Paris shortly before the final expulsion of the Jews in 1394.
In Spain 1449, during a mob attack against theMarranos (Jews nominally converted to Christianity), the Jews resisted, but lost and several of them were hanged up by the feet.[105] The first attested German case for a Jew being hanged by the feet is from 1296, in present-daySoultzmatt.[106] Some other historical examples of this type of hanging within the German context are one Jew inHennegau 1326, two Jews hanged inFrankfurt in 1444,[107] one inHalle in 1462,[108] one inDortmund in 1486,[109] one inHanau in 1499,[107] one inBreslau in 1505,[110] one inWürttemberg in 1553,[111] one inBergen in 1588,[107] one inÖttingen in 1611,[112] one in Frankfurt in 1615 and again in 1661,[107] and one condemned to this punishment inPrussia in 1637.[113]
The details of the cases vary widely: In the 1444 Frankfurt cases and the 1499 Hanau case, the dogs were dead prior to being hanged, and in the late 1615 and 1661 cases in Frankfurt, the Jews (and dogs) were merely kept in this manner for half an hour, before beinggarroted from below. In the 1588 Bergen case, all three victims were left hanging till they were dead, ranging from 6 to 8 days after being hanged. In the Dortmund 1486 case, the dogs bit the Jew to death while hanging. In the 1611 Öttingen case, the Jew "Jacob the Tall" thought to blow up theDeutsche Ordenhaus with gunpowder after having burgled it. He was strung up between two dogs, and a large fire was made close by, and he expired after half an hour under this torture. In the 1553 Württemberg case, the Jew chose to convert to Christianity after hanging like this for 24 hours; he was then given the mercy to be hanged in the usual manner, from the neck, and without the dogs beside him. In the 1462 Halle case, the Jew Abraham also converted after 24 hours hanging upside down, and a priest ascended a ladder to baptise him. For two more days, Abraham was left hanging, while the priest argued with the city council that a true Christian should not be punished in this way. On the third day, Abraham was granted a reprieve, taken down, but died 20 days later in the local hospital having meanwhile suffered in extreme pain. In the 1637 case, where the Jew had murdered a Christian jeweller, the appeal to theempress was successful, and out of mercy, the Jew was condemned to be merely pinched with glowing pincers, have hot lead dripped into his wounds, and then bebroken alive on the wheel.
Some of the reported cases may be myths, or wandering stories. The 1326 Hennegau case, for example, deviates from the others in that the Jew was not a thief, but was suspected (though he was a convert to Christianity) of having struck afresco of theVirgin Mary, so thatblood seeped down the wall from the painting. Even under all degrees of judicial torture, the Jew denied performing this sacrilegious act, and was therefore exonerated. Then a brawny smith demanded from him atrial by combat, claiming he dreamt the Virgin herself had urged him to do so. The court accepted the smith's challenge, and he easily won the combat against the Jew, who was duly hanged up by the feet between two dogs. To add to the injury, one let him be slowly roasted as well as hanged.[114] This is a very similar story to one told in France, in which a young Jew threw a lance at the head of a statue of the Virgin, so that blood spurted out of it. There was inadequate evidence for a normal trial, but a frail old man asked for trial by combat, and bested the young Jew. The Jew confessed his crime, and was hanged by his feet between two mastiffs.[115]
The features of the earliest attested case, that of a Jewish thief hanged by the feet in Soultzmatt in 1296 are also rather divergent from the rest. The Jew managed somehow, after he had been left to die, to twitch his body in such a manner that he could hoist himself up on the gallows and free himself. At that time, his feet were so damaged that he was unable to escape, and when he was discovered 8 days after he had been hanged, he was strangled to death by the townspeople.[116]
As late as in 1699 inCelle, the courts were sufficiently horrified at how the Jewish leader of a robber gang (condemned to be hanged in the normal manner) declaredblasphemies against Christianity, that they made a ruling on thepost mortem treatment of Jonas Meyer. After three days, his corpse was cut down, his tongue cut out, and his body was hanged up again, but this time from its feet.[117]
Guido Kisch writes that the first instance he knows where a person in Germany was hanged up by his feet between two dogs until he died occurred about 1048, some 250 years earlier than the first attested Jewish case. This was a knight called Arnold, who had murdered his lord; the story is contained inAdam of Bremen'sHistory of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen.[118] Another example of a non-Jew who suffered this punishment as a torture, in 1196Richard, Count of Acerra, was one of those executed byHenry VI in the suppression of the rebelling Sicilians:[119]
He [Henry VI] held a general court in Capua, at which he ordered that the count first be drawn behind a horse through the squares of Capua, and then hanged alive head downwards. The latter was still alive after two days when a certain German jester called Leather-Bag [Follis], hoping to please the emperor, tied a large stone to his neck and shamefully put him to death
A couple of centuries earlier, in France in 991, a certain viscount Walter nominally owing his allegiance to the French KingHugh Capet chose, on instigation of his wife, to join the rebellion underOdo I, Count of Blois. When Odo found out he had to abandonMelun after all, Walter was duly hanged before the gates, whereas his wife, the fomentor of treason, was hanged by her feet, causing much merriment and jeers from Hugh's soldiers as her clothes fell downwards revealing her naked body, although it is not wholly clear if she died in that manner.[120]
During QueenElizabeth I's reign, the following was written concerning those who stole a ship from theRoyal Navy:[121]
If anye one practysed to steale awaye anye of her Majesty's shippes, the captaine was to cause him to be hanged by the heels untill his braines were beaten out against the shippe's sides, and then to be cutt down and lett fall intoe the sea.
Translation into modern English:If anyone practised to steal away any of Her Majesty's ships, the captain was to cause him [the thief] to be hanged by the heels until his brains were beaten out against the ship's sides, and then to be cut down and let fall into the sea.
A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows byWilliam Blake. Originally published in Stedman'sNarrative.
In 1713,Juraj Jánošík, a semi-legendary Slovak outlaw andfolk hero, was sentenced to be hanged from his left rib. He was left to slowly die.[122]
The German physician Gottlob Schober (1670–1739),[123] who worked in Russia from 1712, noted that a person could hang from the ribs for about three days prior to dying, with his primary pain being that of extreme thirst. He thought this degree of insensitivity was something peculiar to the Russian mentality.[124]
The Dutch inSuriname were also in the habit of hanging a slave from the ribs, a custom amongst the African tribes from whom they were originally purchased.John Gabriel Stedman stayed in South America from 1772 to 1777 and described the method as told by a witness:[125]
"Not long ago," (continued he) "I saw a black man suspended alive from a gallows by the ribs, between which, with a knife, was first made an incision, and then clinched an iron hook with a chain: in this manner he kept alive three days, hanging with his head and feet downwards, and catching with his tongue the drops of water (it being in the rainy season) that were flowing down his bloated breast. Notwithstanding all this, he never complained, and even upbraided a negro for crying while he was flogged below the gallows, by calling out to him: 'You man?—Da boy fasy? Are you a man? you behave like a boy.' Shortly after which he was knocked on the head by the commiserating sentry, who stood over him, with the butt end of his musket."
William Blake was specially commissioned to make illustrations to Stedman's narrative.[126]
The standard past tense and past participle form of the verb "hang", in the sense of this article, is "hanged",[127][128][129] although some dictionaries give "hung" as an alternative.[130][131]
^abcMahmoud Rayes; Monika Mittal; Setti S. Rengachary; Sandeep Mittal (February 2011)."Hangman's fracture: a historical and biomechanical perspective"(PDF).Journal of Neurosurgery.Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved27 August 2016.It was not until the introduction of the standard drop by Dr. Samuel Haughton in 1866, and the so-called long drop by William Marwood in 1872 that hanging became a standard, humane means to achieve instantaneous death.
^Hughes, Robert (11 January 2012).The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding. Knopf Doubleday. pp. 33ff.ISBN978-0-307-81560-6.Archived from the original on 6 May 2016. Retrieved29 September 2014.Before the invention of the hinged trapdoor through which the victim was dropped, he or she was 'turned off' or 'twisted' by the hangman who pulled the ladder away.
^Potter, John Deane (1965).The Art of Hanging. A. S. Barnes. p. 23.ISBN978-0-498-07387-8.Archived from the original on 26 April 2016. Retrieved29 September 2014.... condemned persons still mounted a ladder which was turned round, leaving them dangling. This led to the phrase 'turned off'—they were literally turned off the ladder.
^Sauvageau, Anny; Racette, Stéphanie (2007). "Agonal Sequences in a Filmed Suicidal Hanging: Analysis of Respiratory and Movement Responses to Asphyxia by Hanging".Journal of Forensic Sciences.52 (4):957–959.doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00459.x.PMID17524058.S2CID32188375.
^James R, Nasmyth-Jones R., "The occurrence of cervical fractures in victims of judicial hanging",Forensic Science International, April 1992; 54(1):81–91.
^Wallace SK, Cohen WA, Stern EJ, Reay DT, "Judicial hanging: postmortem radiographic, CT, and MR imaging features with autopsy confirmation",Radiology, October 1994; 193(1):263–7.
^Tiersma, Peter."Writ of Execution".Language and Law.Archived from the original on 23 August 2016. Retrieved8 October 2017.
^"Laurence, Earl Ferrers".The Newgate Calendar.Archived from the original on 18 November 2016. Retrieved8 October 2017 – via The Ex-Classics Web Site.
^"History". City of London. 30 April 2004. Archived fromthe original on 12 June 2011. Retrieved12 April 2010.
^Merrill, Louis Taylor (1945). "The Puritan Policeman".American Sociological Review.10 (6). American Sociological Association:766–776.doi:10.2307/2085847.JSTOR2085847.
^McCaslin, Richard B. (15 June 2010)."Great Hanging at Gainesville".Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association.Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved30 May 2014.
^Original German text:Den Juden zwischen zweyen wütenden oder beissenden hunde zu der gewonlichen gerichtstatt zu ziehen. vel schlieffen, mit dem strang oder ketten bey seinen füssen an eynen besondern galgen zwischen die hund nach verkerter mass hencken damit er also von leben zom tod gericht wird
^Müller, Jörg R. (2008).Beziehungsnetze aschkenasischer Juden während des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit [Relationship networks of Ashkenazi Jews during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period] (in German). Hahnsche Buchhandlung. pp. 81, footnote 31.ISBN978-3-7752-5629-2.
^The author regards this as probably the last case in which a Jew (although in this case dead) was hanged up by the feet in Germany.Schnitzler, Norbert (2002)."Juden vor Gericht: Soziale Ausgrenzung durch Sanktionen". In Schlosser, Hans; Sprandel, Rolf; Willoweit, Daniel (eds.).Herrschaftliches Strafen seit dem Hochmittelalter: Formen und Entwicklungsstufen (in German). Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau. p. 292.ISBN978-3-412-08601-5.
^On Kisch's assessment, see for example:Kisch, Guido (1943).Historia Judaica: A Journal of Studies in Jewish History, Especially in Legal and Economic History of the Jews. Vol. 5–6. Historia Judaica. p. 119. On locus in Adam of Bremen's text, seeAdam of Bremen (2013).History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen. Translated by Tschan, Francis J.; Reuter, Timothy. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 120.ISBN978-0-231-50085-2.Archived from the original on 13 May 2016. Retrieved14 March 2016.
Death Penalty WorldwideArchived 13 November 2013 at theWayback Machine Academic research database on the laws, practice, and statistics of capital punishment for every death penalty country in the world.
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