For centuries, justice has been a spectacle. Quarterings, pyres, crucifixions... Frightful punishments with dissuasive properties.
The wheel is a means of torture used from Antiquity until the end of the 18ᵉ century. Throughout history, this torture has taken different forms. In antiquity, the condemned were tied to the spokes of a wheel to torture them or make them turn sometimes until death.
This article is from the magazine Sciences et Avenir Hors-série n°194 "Crimes et Châtiments" dated July-August 2018.
The history of punishments in the West has bequeathed to us a number of examples where arbitrariness, fanaticism and even sadism have inspired unprecedented practices. However, from the rotisserie to the guillotine, the torture was also justified by the criminal justice system which was gradually put in place. This sought to regulate private revenge, purify society, punish, edify, but also prevent recidivism, or even treat the offender. So many "virtues" that we attribute today to a single sentence:imprisonment.
In Antiquity, punishments depended above all on unwritten law. "In the early days of ancient Rome, suffering was not particularly sought after. Executions by hanging or beheading with an axe , explains Yann Rivière, director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. A simple theft of crops or the displacement of pillars is a crime, punishable by a cold death by anyone who witnesses the misdeed." A first legal text was born in the 5th century BC, at the time of the Republic. Written in order to protect the citizen from the arbitrary power of the consuls, the Laws of the Twelve Tables set penalties that apply to all. They do not forgive attacks on property, and even less premeditation:"Whoever destroys a house or a pile of wheat placed in front of the house, let them bind him, beat him with rods and let him be put to death by fire, if at least he committed this crime knowingly." They also fix the recourse to the penalty of retaliation, the famous "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth".
Nothing like a torture session to take away the desire to lie in slaves
With the advent of the Empire (31 BC), which institutionalized slavery, Rome began to give special treatment to these men deprived of their freedom. "Public death sentences are above all dissuasive, as when we crucify brigands at crossroads, the busiest places , explains Yann Rivière. But the treatment of slaves is mainly aimed at correcting them. And making them suffer is a way to change their behavior." Those who were convicted of theft or murder were killed without hesitation, and all the servants with it, guilty of not having prevented the murder. But the simple witnesses of a wrongdoing were themselves questioned, in a judicial context where confession took precedence over the search for proof. Nothing like a torture session to take away their desire to lie, we thought then. And Plautus (254-184 BC) enumerates:elm rods, goads, burning blades, crosses and double rings, irons, chains, dungeons, collars, shackles, shackles... So many unimaginable humiliating tortures for a free man.
As for women, when they were convicted of adultery or had simply drunk wine, they were punished out of sight of society.
This article is from the magazine Sciences et Avenir Hors-série n°194 "Crimes et Châtiments" dated July-August 2018.
The history of punishments in the West has bequeathed to us a number of examples where arbitrariness, fanaticism and even sadism have inspired unprecedented practices. However, from the rotisserie to the guillotine, the torture was also justified by the criminal justice system which was gradually put in place. This sought to regulate private revenge, purify society, punish, edify, but also prevent recidivism, or even treat the offender. So many "virtues" that we attribute today to a single sentence:imprisonment.
In Antiquity, punishments depended above all on unwritten law. "In the early days of ancient Rome, suffering was not particularly sought after. Executions by hanging or beheading with an axe , explains Yann Rivière, director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. A simple theft of crops or the displacement of pillars is a crime, punishable by a cold death by anyone who witnesses the misdeed." A first legal text is born from the 5 e century BC, at the time of the Republic. Written in order to protect the citizen from the arbitrary power of the consuls, the Laws of the Twelve Tables set penalties that apply to all. They do not forgive attacks on property, and even less premeditation:"Whoever destroys a house or a pile of wheat placed in front of the house, let them bind him, beat him with rods and let him be put to death by fire, if at least he committed this crime knowingly." They also fix the recourse to the penalty of retaliation, the famous "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth".
Nothing like a torture session to take away the desire to lie in slaves
With the advent of the Empire (31 BC), which institutionalized slavery, Rome began to give special treatment to these men deprived of their freedom. "Public death sentences are above all dissuasive, as when we crucify brigands at crossroads, the busiest places , explains Yann Rivière. But the treatment of slaves is mainly aimed at correcting them. And making them suffer is a way to change their behavior." Those who were convicted of theft or murder were killed without hesitation, and all the servants with it, guilty of not having prevented the murder. But the simple witnesses of a wrongdoing were themselves questioned, in a judicial context where confession took precedence over the search for proof. Nothing like a torture session to take away their desire to lie, we thought then. And Plautus (254-184 BC) enumerates:elm rods, goads, burning blades, crosses and double rings, irons, chains, dungeons, collars, shackles, shackles... So many unimaginable humiliating tortures for a free man.
As for women, when they were convicted of adultery or had simply drunk wine, they were punished out of sight of society. Their execution was a private affair which was regulated within the framework of the domus . Walling up and deprivation of food guaranteed discretion, but it was also seen, in a way, as preferential treatment, death by starvation being considered less cruel than others. More generally, a bloodless death was a female death.
But the offense of misdemeanors, the one which, for the consul Cicero (106-43 BC), is "of such a nature that this misdeed alone seems to include all crimes" ( Pro Roscio), it is parricide. Under the Republic, it was considered that one should neither touch nor have animals touch its author, a fatal, inhuman, monstrous character. No question of throwing it to the wild beasts. "It was locked in a leather bag (the culleus) with vipers, a monkey and a dog - also considered unclean -, and the whole thing was thrown into the Tiber , explains Guillaume Flamerie de Lachapelle, lecturer at Bordeaux-Montaigne University. This ordeal was abandoned and then brought up to date by Claude at the I st century of our era, because this emperor had a great curiosity for ancient punishments." The philosopher Seneca claims to have seen at that time in Rome more bags than crosses.
The cross, however, first reserved for slaves, is one of the emblematic instruments of torture of ancient Rome. The city was sometimes literally bristling with it, as during the repression of the revolt led by Spartacus, in the I st century BC. 6,000 slaves would have perished in this way, nailed along the via Appia. The old apotympanismos Athenian, a simple wooden post to which the victim was attached by iron bracelets, was perfected by the Romans, who added the patibulum (the crossbar) and used nails. A bad for a good ? The nails drew blood and the agony was shorter. The cross, which carried the "King of the Jews" like a common thief, was part of the Summa supplicia - list of capital punishments - with fire, sending ad bestias (to beasts) and the cuellus :slow agonies whose staggering spectacle provided media coverage of the crime and its consequences. The Christian Emperor Constantine (272-337) abolished the use of the cross. But he will establish other refinements, such as the introduction of molten lead into the mouths of nurses accomplices in a kidnapping.
Theft of amputation is punished:one hand then the other
At the fall of the Empire, the Germanic peoples - called barbarians - brought new rules, such as compensation, to coexist on their conquered lands with vestiges of Roman law such as retaliation. "In cases of conflict between individuals, for example, barbaric codes favor a pricing system to extinguish revenge" , says Valérie Toureille, lecturer at the University of Cergy-Pontoise. Thus, the law of the Visigoths sets up precise scales (one hundred cents for a broken nose). The educational aspect of public torture is losing ground in favor of the principle of reparation.
It is under the Carolingians (8 e -10 e century) that was born the ambition to establish the same public justice throughout the Empire with, for certain offences, the obligation to shed blood. "The capitularies of the time, documents that set out the decisions taken by the sovereign, are very strict with theft, illustrates the historian. Because it challenges the social order at a time when consumer goods are scarce. We punish with amputation, one hand, then another, to end with the death penalty by hanging on the third recidivism." From the 10 e century, the territory is fragmented into principalities and then into fiefs, whose lords can pronounce all the penalties, including death. Theft is still considered a major crime, in the same way as kidnapping (rape), murder or arson. But the judgments are rather perceived as a source of income, and the fines are numerous, contributing to enrich the lords. It was only from the end of the 12 e century, with the rediscovery of Roman law, that we seek to set sentences to punish the offender and, above all, to set an example. Corporal punishment proves, in this respect, to be much more of a deterrent than fines.
In terms of sanctions, the Middle Ages actually applied a form of individualization. "The judge took into account the particular situation of the accused as much as the importance of the facts with which he was charged" , explains Valérie Toureille. In Paris, the Châtelet register, seat of the provostship in charge of justice and the criminal police, reveals, through testimonies, sentences and reports, a whole grammar of punishments in the 14 e century:"This precious document, where only the most exemplary cases are mentioned, describes Valérie Toureille, provides an almost astonishing inventory of the possibilities left to the judge:“beaten in the ass of the cart”, “boiled in the boiler”, “buried alive”, “hanged with hands tied in front”, etc. "
Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty was little practiced in medieval times, and especially reserved for perpetrators of crimes threatening the balance of the state. For the same reasons, and throughout the Ancien Régime, no quarter was given to the regicide, promised to torture as infamous as it was afflictive as a prelude to a relentless execution. In 1314, lèse-majesté was brought against the brothers d'Aulnay, lovers of two of the daughters-in-law of Philippe le Bel, because the scandal of their frolics in the tower of Nesle, in Paris, cast a shadow over royal descent the shadow of bastardy. Emasculation, lead in the wounds, bodies dragged through the streets... Only this long public torture enabled the royal family to recover its honor. In 1610, François Ravaillac, assassin of Henri IV, was methodically dismembered in Place de Grève… for an entire day! And for having attempted to assassinate Louis XV, Robert-François Damiens is also remembered. But little by little, these appalling high masses, staged with an extraordinary disproportion between the gravity of the crime and the punishment, are no longer successful.
More and more discreet executions, on the sly, in the early morning
From 1748, in De l’esprit des lois , Montesquieu argues for the proportionality of the penalty. In the second half of the 18 e century, court records show a decrease in the number of death sentences. But it was above all Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), an Italian jurist, who influenced the Enlightenment. His book Offences and Punishments (1764) castigates arbitrariness and physical suffering, "odious, revolting, contrary to all justice and to the very nature of the social contract" . A rant against the death penalty that will have a great impact on the European elites.
In 1788, Louis XVI abolished torture, the pillory disappeared the following year, while, under the Constituent Assembly (1789-1791), the deputy Guillotin, in his speech to the National Assembly, demanded the equality of criminals before the law:"Why this difference in treatment:for nobles, detachment; for commoners, hanging; for heretics, the stake? Is the crime of a noble less heinous than that of a bourgeois? , of a peasant?” "Everyone sentenced to death will have his head cut off" , declared, in 1791, article 3 of the first French penal code. The executions will be more and more discreet, until taking place on the sly, in the early morning. In 1939, the guillotine ceased to be a public spectacle. The last to fall under his ax was Hamida Djandoubi. It was forty years ago, on September 10, 1977 before sunrise, behind the walls of Les Baumettes, in Marseille.
Yann Rivière, Roman Criminal Law from Romulus to Justinian, Les Belles Lettres, to be published at the end of 2018
Eva Cantarella Death Penalties in Greece and Rome, Albin Michel, 2000
Guillaume Flamerie de Lachapelle, Antique torture , The Beautiful Letters, 2013
Valerie Toureille, Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages , Threshold, 2013
Michelle Perrot (dir.), The Impossible Prison. Research on a penitentiary system , Threshold, 1980
Death of shame!
Honor is the most precious possession of the man of the Middle Ages, who could suffer infinitely from being ridiculed. Thefts deemed "with mitigating circumstances" were, for example, punished with a punishment "derisory" (from Latin deridere , "to make fun of"):put in the pillory, post or column to which the condemned man was attached, the criminals were exposed to mockery. More severe treatment than amends - which involved confessing in court, the victim's home or in a public square - but less than banishment or, from the 17
e
century, the galleys. Adulterous couples, on the other hand, were condemned to the race , that is to say, to wander in the most frequented places. In Provence, they did it in the simplest device. The perpetrator of looting could also have to travel such a "path of shame" before being banished with, in some cases, seizure of his property and destruction of his home. Until the Revolution, the death penalty and infamous punishment were associated. The condemned man was sometimes dragged to the gallows on a plank or a sort of wicker trellis drawn by horses:the infamy rack. The longer the journey, the more the honor was undermined. Suicides could also be transported upside down, then hanged to be symbolically killed again. In Paris, the sinister forks of Montfaucon, an immense structure of stone and wood, supported a number of condemned to hang, who were not unhooked. Adding to the spectacle of their miserable end, that, unworthy, of a corpse devoured by crows. For them, shame. For passers-by, a warning...
By Henri Morel
This article is from the magazine Sciences et Avenir Hors-série n°194 "Crimes et Châtiments" dated July-August 2018.