Since the early thirteenth century, engineers have worked to
streamline the process of beheading. The earliest known beheading machine
was the Halifax Gibbet, found in the town of Halifax, Yorkshire, England.
The first record of its existence dates from the year 1210, though the
first public record of the Gibbet executing anyone comes from 1280. It
was a simple device: two long upright poles fitted with grooves would allow a
heavy wooden block to be raised on a rope and dropped by the operator.
Attached to the block was an axe which would chop off the head of the
criminal below. The Gibbet was used for the execution of petty criminals,
which was defined as anyone who stole (or who confessed to having stolen) money
or goods worth 13½ pence or more. The Gibbet was used to kill over 150
thieves between 1280 and 1650, when Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell abolished
capital punishment for theft. Certainly others were executed throughout
England for theft, but there was only one Gibbet. There were similar
machines elsewhere, though. In Ireland, the singular Mercod Ballagh
operated in a similar way, also for public executions, as did The Maiden, a
later device modeled on the Gibbet and used in Edinburgh, Scotland, for much
the same purpose.
The reconstructed Halifax Gibbet.
Of course, the most famous execution machine was to come later.
In 1789, shortly after the outbreak of the French Revolution, someone
started talking about a better way to execute people. Capital punishment
was already fairly common, but it was clear that a fast and efficient way to
kill people would soon be needed. But even those who believe in capital
punishment think of themselves as civilized and humane, so the prevailing
thought was that execution ought to be about ending someone’s life, and not
about making them suffer. The man who started talking about the better
way of ending lives was Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a physician who believed the
process should be done more humanely, even though he did not believe in the
death penalty himself. Guillotin proposed his idea to the National Assembly,
and the King liked the idea. With the revolution spreading, after all,
there would be a need for plenty of executions, once the people revolting against
the monarchy were put down.
It was Antoine Louis, a physician to King Louis XVI and Secretary
to the Academy of Surgery, who saw the idea to its realization. Working
with Laquiante, an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court, and Tobias
Schmidt, a German harpsichord maker, the first prototype of the machine was
built. It wasn’t that different from the Gibbet, except that it was more
efficient. The difference was that for this new machine, the condemned
person’s head was placed in a lunette, which is a two-part rig that surrounds
the neck and holds the head in place. Then a large blade would drop and
take the head off in one blow.
Some prominent early heads of the guillotine: Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, Antoine Louis, King Louis XVI
It was seen as progress for compassion. Previously,
executions were done by sword or axe, and the executor would often have to
strike at someone’s neck once or twice before they actually died. This
got the whole process out of the way, and with minimal pain and suffering.
This humane bit of progress was named the louisette, in honor of
King Louis. As the French Revolution raged on, King Louis fell out of
favor, and its new name came to honor Dr. Guillotin who first proposed the
idea: the guillotine.
The first execution by guillotine (or louisette, if you want,)
took place in Paris on April 25, 1792. The condemned was Nicolas Jacques
Pelletier, a highwayman who’d been caught. The execution took place in
front of the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, where all public executions were held,
previously by means of the gallows. This new method took off, serving also
as a popular form of public entertainment. Executions got to be quite
common soon after, since this was around the time the Reign of Terror began,
when literally thousands of loyalists to the monarchy were executed by the
guillotine across France. King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette would be
executed by guillotine the very next year—the very device their government
developed..
The guillotine remained France’s preferred method of execution
after the Revolution. The last public execution by guillotine took place in
1939, where six murderers were put to death in front of a live audience.
Other prisoners were killed after that, with the last execution taking
place in 1977. The guillotine became obsolete in 1981, when France
abolished capital punishment altogether.
The guillotine was used predominantly in France, but it was
introduced in other countries. It had some use in Sweden, Belgium and
South Vietnam, and was used 16,500 times in Nazi Germany. Its use
persisted in West Germany until 1949, and it was used for the last time in East
Germany in 1966. The guillotine was used in Louisiana a few times, which
is the only state that ever officially sanctioned it as a means of execution.
In 1996, Georgia State Representative Doug Teper tried unsuccessfully to
replace the electric chair with the guillotine in his state. In 2017, Governor Paul LePage of Maine idly proposed executing drug offenders
by guillotine while giving a radio interview. LePage has never made a
serious push for this policy, but it’s clearly still on many people’s minds. LePage is now out of office and his successor, Janet Mills, has not commented on guillotine use in her state.
An early demonstration of the guillotine. (Now hiring models for product demonstration!)
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