The Horrible Execution Method Of Being Pressed To Death
Library of CongressCountless accused criminals during the Middle Ages were executed by being pressed or crushed to death.
While accused criminals were routinely executed by being pressed to death under enormous weight for thousands of years, the macabre punishment notably proliferated in Medieval Europe. The act itself was rather simple — and saw the victim getting crushed to death by an intense weight after being tied down.
Unlike the ancient approach undertaken in Southeast Asia more than 4,000 years ago, Europeans didn’t use elephants to crush their victims. The British used slabs of stone and often used the method as a mere form of torture. Ultimately, only those who refused to enter a guilty or not guilty plea were subjected to the act.
Officials strapped victims down before they added increasing weight to their chests, hoping they would cry out with a plea. Refusal to do so saw the victim suffocate. Their bones commonly broke inside their bodies, and bones tearing through the skin wasn’t rare.
The most famous case in American history emerged during the Salem Witch Trials. Farmer Giles Corey in Danvers, Massachusetts, had been accused by multiple women of bewitching them and visiting them in ghostly form. Tried in 1692, he refused to enter a plea — and was subsequently pressed to death.
“Giles was asked to strip naked and lay down, face-up, on the ground,” wrote the Massachusetts Historical Society. “A wooden board was then placed on top of him, and on top of the board, one by one. Sheriff George Corwin placed large rocks… On the third day 19 September 1692 (Corey) died from being pressed to death.”
Ultimately, England outlawed the practice in 1772. The Enlightenment Age had seen society reassess its medieval practices and set a course to more humane methods of punishing those who broke the law.
After learning about these nine medieval customs, read all about the medieval toilet. Then, learn about medieval plague doctors.
