The Golden and Ghoulish Age of the Gibbet in Britain (Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife)
by:
Sarah Tarlow (author)
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence. This book is the first academic study of the post-mortem practice of gibbeting (‘hanging in chains’), since the nineteenth century. Gibbeting involved placing the executed body of a malefactor in an iron cage and suspending it from a tall post....
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This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence. This book is the first academic study of the post-mortem practice of gibbeting (‘hanging in chains’), since the nineteenth century. Gibbeting involved placing the executed body of a malefactor in an iron cage and suspending it from a tall post. A body might remain in the gibbet for many decades, while it gradually fell to pieces. Hanging in chains was a very different sort of post-mortem punishment from anatomical dissection, although the two were equal alternatives in the eyes of the law. Where dissection obliterated and de-individualised the body, hanging in chains made it monumental and rooted it in the landscape, adding to personal notoriety. Focusing particularly on the period 1752-1832, this book provides a summary of the historical evidence, the factual history of gibbetting which explores the locations of gibbets, the material technologies involved in hanging in chains, and the actual process from erection to eventual collapse. It also considers the meanings, effects and legacy of this gruesome practice.
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Format: Kindle Edition
ISBN:
9781137600899
ASIN: B077NG6VY2
Publish date: 2015-12-29
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Pages no: 155
Edition language: English
Pretty much everything you want to know about gibbet usage in Great Britain. (The gibbet is the iron cage in which the body is put to be displayed). Very accessible. Not boring. Pretty of good charts.