medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I heard a paper last month at the Renaissance Society's biennual bash (in
Dublin this year); these miniture guillotines are surprisingly common come
the sixteenth century: the blade is hit down with a hammer, thereby ensuring
a clean cut (which swinging a sword could not). The paper went on to point
out how the guild members who were in charge of comforting (?) the condemned
would hold their miniture icons (depicting usually saints who were martyred,
such as perhaps A & S) in front of the prostrate criminal so that, while he
or she tried to look at the images of the saints, their head was kept in
position thus allowing the blade to cut properly. Not quite as clean as a
garotte, but pretty effective, and no doubt more bloodily satisfying.
A.
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