The Garotte

Typically, when a person was burned at the stake, they were first mercifully dispatched with the garotte. Either the executioner would use a rope, or a metal instrument like the one shown here. At first the garotte was simply hanging by another name. However, during Medieval Times, executioners began to refine the use of rope until it became as feared and as vile as any punishment of that dark era.

At first, garottes were nothing more than an upright post with a hole bored through. The victim would stand or sit on a seat in front of the post and a rope was looped around his or her neck. The ends of the cord were fed through the hole in the post. The executioner would pull on both ends of the cord, slowly strangling the victim. The modified version (as in the illustration above) drove a spike into the back of the victim's neck, parting the vertebrae as it strangled.

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