Execution by burning has a long history as a method of punishment for crimes such as treason and for other unpopular acts such as heresy and the putative practice of witchcraft (burning, however, was actually less common than hanging, pressing, or drowning as a punishment for witchcraft). For a number of reasons, this method of execution fell into disfavor among governments in the late 18th century; today, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment. The particular form of execution by burning in which the condemned is bound to a large stake is more commonly called burning at the stake.
Cause of death
If the fire was large (for instance, when a large number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from the carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused harm to the body. However, if the fire was small, the convict would burn for a few minutes in pain until death from heatstroke or loss of blood plasma. Typically, the executioner would arrange a pile of wood around the condemned's feet and calves, with supplementary small bundles of sticks and straw called faggots at strategic intervals up his/her body. Unless the authorities were particularly vindictive against a prisoner, family and friends could bring additional faggots to make the death more humane.
When applied with skillful cruelty, the prisoner's skin would burn progressively in the sequence: calves, thighs and hands, torso and forearms, breasts, upper chest, face; and then finally death. On other occasions, people died from suffocation with only their calves on fire. In many burnings a rope was attached to the convict's neck passing through a ring on the stake and they were simultaneously strangled and burnt. In later years in England, some burnings only took place after the convict had already hanged for a half-hour. In some Nordic and German burnings, convicts had containers of gunpowder tied to them or were tied to ladders and then swung into fully burning bonfires. A container of gunpowder tied at the neck might be used to bring about a quicker (and thus more merciful) death, since the victim would suffer only until the gunpowder was heated enough to explode. Some prisoners refused this.
Historical usage
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Burning was used as a means of execution in many ancient societies. According to ancient reports, Roman authorities executed many of the early Christian martyrs by burning and so did the Holy Inquisition against persons judged to be heretics like Giordano Bruno. These reports say that in some cases they failed to be burnt, and had to be beheaded instead.
Under the Byzantine Empire, burning was introduced as a punishment for disobedient Zoroastrians, due to the belief that they worshipped fire.
The punishment called 'Burning' (Serefa) in the Bible, is not burning at the stake. Rather lead was heated until it was molten and red hot, and then forced into the mouth of convict. Death was almost instantaneous as the veins and arteries in the neck were burned. This was one of the four perscribed forms of the death penalty, and like all of them was very rarely enforced. (The others are: Stoning, Decapitation (by sword), and Hanging.)
The Roman Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) ordered death by fire, intestacy, and confiscation of all possessions by the State to be the punishment for heresy against the Catholic faith in his Codex Iustiniani (CJ 1.5.), ratifying the decrees of his predecessors the Emperors Arcadius and Flavius Augustus Honorius.
In 1184, the Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy. This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders up through the 17th century. The Church considered the burial of the intact body as a requirement for final resurrection; burning prevented resurrection, and thus was considered appropriate for both physical and spiritual execution.
Among the best-known individuals to be executed by burning were Jacques de Molay (1314), Jan Hus (1415), St Joan of Arc (May 30, 1431), William Tyndale (1536), Michael Servetus (1553), Giordano Bruno (1600), and Avvakum (1682). Anglican martyrs Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley (both in 1555), and Thomas Cranmer (1556) were also burned at the stake.
In the United Kingdom, the traditional punishment for women found guilty of treason was to be burnt at the stake, while men were hanged, drawn and quartered. There were two types of treason, high treason for crimes against the Sovereign, and petty treason for the murder of one's lawful superior, including that of a husband by his wife. In 1790, Sir Benjamin Hammett introduced a bill into Parliament to end what is now widely considered a barbaric practice. He explained that the year before as Sheriff of London he had been responsible for the burning of Catherine Murphy, found guilty of counterfeiting, but that he had allowed her to be hanged first. He pointed out that as the law stood, he himself could have been found guilty of a crime in not carrying out the lawful punishment and, as no woman had been burnt alive in the kingdom for over fifty years, so could all those still alive who had held an official position at all of the previous burnings. The act was duly passed by Parliament and given royal assent by King George III (30 George III. C. 48).[1]
Modern burnings
Modern day burnings still occur, mostly in Africa. This is often done via a method called necklacing where rubber tires are placed around a live victim who is then doused with kerosene. The kerosene is then ignited and the victim burns to death. Necklacing is typically extra-judicial and performed by locals rather than authorities.
According to a former GRU officer writing under the alias Victor Suvorov, GRU burned at least one traitor alive in a crematorium.
Portrayal in film
The Last of the Mohicans features a British Redcoat being burned at the stake by a Huron tribe, while the more recent Silent Hill has a female police officer consumed by flames whilst tied to a ladder. The latter makes use of computer graphics, while the former does not. Elizabeth (1998) also used computer graphics to enhance the opening scene where three Protestants are burnt at the stake. The film The Seventh Seal shows a woman about to be burnt at the stake. Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc), though made in the late 1920s (and therefore without the assistance of computer graphics), includes a relatively graphic and realistic treatment of Jeanne's execution. Of course, nearly all other film versions of the story of Joan show her death at the stake - some more graphically than others.