![]() ![]() It was created “for better preventing the horrid crime of murder” and that “in no case whatsoever shall the body of any murderer be suffered to be buried” but instead be hanged in chains or publicly dissected. The Murder Act of 1752 reinforced the practice of gibbeting. ![]() Like placing a traitor’s head and other body parts on the point of a pike and displaying them for all to see, gibbeting was used to warn citizens to behave within the confines of the law. Those felons convicted of capital offenses-like murder-who didn’t survive their hangings, were additionally gibbeted or “hanged in chains” and placed on display after their deaths as carrion for birds and rodents. In a few cases, prisoners were accidentally decapitated during the process. ![]() Although there are several recorded cases of convicted criminals surviving their hangings, the majority clearly did not. In the early 18th century, the British government mandated that anyone who survived his execution would either be hanged again, sent to the colonies, or set free. But those who were fortunate to survive their hangings-be it through fate, good fortune, or divine intervention-were subjected to a different fate. Once the long drop was employed, the actual cause of death was dislocation of the vertebrae and the rupturing of the jugular vein. ![]() A 17th century hanging at Tyburn.Those unfortunate enough to find their necks in a noose prior to the late 19th century, when the long drop was introduced, would die from strangulation, as the height of the drop was not long enough to snap the neck. ![]()
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