This has to be one of the most inhuman forms of punishment ever invented and was the most extreme penalty available in English law for those guilty of high treason, which was considered the most serious attack on the monarch’s authority. Those who were being punished in this way were seen as sub-human and the dishonour, pain and cruelty that they suffered was meant to create a division between themselves and the audience. The message being that a ‘normal’ man would not be made to suffer three deaths. And it was only men that could be put to death in this fashion. It was thought to be too indecent to expose a woman’s body in such a way. Therefore, a woman convicted of treason would either be burned at the stake or beheaded. Which on reflection wasn’t really that much better.

Probably the most common form of execution and the first one that people think about in regard to Medieval executions, hanging was the usual method of capital punishment for the Anglo Saxons. Other means of execution have been implemented but none of them has been so common and used for so many centuries in Europe, as death by hangman. 

In most European countries today, we use the premise that a person is presumed innocent unless they have been proven guilty. At trial, evidence has to be produced so that a jury or a judge can decide on the culpability of the accused. But during the Middle Ages when someone was suspected of a crime, and they were actually innocent it was believed that God would intervene on their behalf. So, they were made to go through a physical trial and the ‘Judgement of God’ would enable them to prove it. It seems illogical to us now, but religion played such an important part in the lives of the Medievals that it is easy to see why they would want to model their justice system on the trials that God had set out in the Bible. It was easier to give judgement over to an omnipotent God rather than rely on fallible human beings.

What exactly was it that the monks saw that night in the sky in 1178?  Could it have been the impact of an asteroid hitting the Moon’s surface? Or a meteorite entering the earth’s atmosphere just at the right moment? Did the Moon really split in half or was it just a shared delusion? In this video we shall talk more about this strange Medieval mystery that has baffled historians and scientists alike for almost 850 years. It should be said that the monks in question were more than willing to take an oath to substantiate what they had seen. Gervase further reported,  “They are prepared to stake their honour on an oath that they have made no addition or falsification in the above narrative”.

Most of us have burned ourselves at one time or another, perhaps on a stove or on a candle, so we know how painful it can be, and can only imagine how it would feel to be completely engulfed in flames. Being scalded with boiling water is no joke either so just imagine being submerged into a whole pot of it. These are just another two of the worst forms of execution in our Medieval punishment videos.

It was August1453. King Henry VI of England left his pregnant wife Margaret of Anjou at home and travelled from court to the West Country on a judicial visit. Stopping off at Clarendon Palace in Wiltshire the 31-year-old king was, “suddenly…taken and smitten with a frenzy and his wit and reason withdrawn”. What was the terrible and mysterious illness that struck down Henry VI who was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses?  

Death by pressing or crushing has been around for centuries, although the method used has varied greatly from place to place. In general, it meant that some form of heavy weight would be placed on top of a person with the intention of causing their death. Ow. 

"…as a thief therefore you shall be hanged; as a traitor…you shall be drawn and quartered, and your quarters dispersed throughout the kingdom; and as you were outlawed, by our Lord the King and by general consent, and have come back to the court…you shall be beheaded; and because at all times you have been disloyal and a formenter of strife between our Lord the King and our most noble Lady the Queen…you shall be disembowelled, and after that you bowels shall be burned. Confess yourself a traitor and a renegade! And so go to meet your doom. Traitor! Evildoer!! and Convicted!!!"

This was the sentence handed down to Hugh Despenser the Younger in 1326 after a hasty trial. A man responsible for a civil war and the downfall of a king. Today we found out where he went wrong!

The Middle Ages were turbulent times. Constant warfare and disease meant that millions of people died all across the world. Some of the ways that death came upon them can still be recognised today, some are a little more imaginative. These eight ways to die give us an insight into the daily lives of the Medievals, their attitudes and the conditions in which they lived and subsequently died.

The first few months of 793 was a worrying time for the north of England. Great portents of impending disaster were seen across the heavens. On Lindisfarne the monks had to suspend their evening prayers when an astonishing sight was observed in the night sky. Fiery dragons were seen flying through the air, followed by sheets of lightning that rippled out in huge arcs before piercing the ground with giant forks. Just a few weeks later the dragons returned but now they were on the front of Viking longboats. This was the first recorded Viking Raid.