Difference between revisions of "Guillotine"

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'''Guillotine''' is the french word for a device used in executions.  Most guillotines have a heavy blade that is attached to a tall frame. The blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing a part of the victim's body (usually the head).  
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[[Image:guillotine.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Lithograph of a guillotine used in Denmark]]
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A '''guillotine''' is a device used in [[execution]]s, invented by Dr. Joseph Guillotine shortly before the [[French Revolution]].  Most guillotines have a heavy blade that is attached to a tall frame. The blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the victim's head. Dr. Guillotine also envisioned it as being used privately as a means to end the death penalty, although ironically, during the French Revolution, it quickly gained notoriety as being a public form of execution.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/19980210233233/http://inventors.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa103197.htm</ref>
  
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==History==
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Dr. Joseph Guillotine envisioned the device as a more humane method of execution.  (Previously, only nobles had been beheaded; commoners had been hung.)  The French government adopted it as the official execution method.
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The guillotine was used long before the [[French Revolution]], but when and where exactly is difficult to say precisely. Guillotine-like machines seem to have functioned in [[Germany]], [[Great Britain]], and [[Italy]] before 1300, but there is little clear evidence to prove this. The earlier machines replaced the ax, but the guillotine replaced the sword. According to ''Holinshed’s Chronicles'' published in 1577, a guillotine-like machine was used at the execution of [[Murcod Ballagh]] near to Merton in Ireland in 1307. In 1400, the Halifax Gibbet, a precursor to the guillotine, was used in Halifax, England, at executions on market-days. It may have been used as early as 1280. The last execution with the Halifax Gibbet took place in 1648. "The Maiden", a true guillotine, was constructed and used in Scotland in 1564. It was based on the Halifax Gibbet. In October of 1789, on the second day of the Assembly debate about the Penal Code, Dr. Guillotine submitted a proposition that included a recommendation that death, without the accompaniment of torture and by means of decapitation, should become the sole and standard form of [[capital punishment]] in France. The Assembly approved the text, providing that "Every person condemned to the death penalty shall have his head severed".  In 1792, Roederer and Tobias Schmidt manufacturing a guillotine equipped with a leather bag for the disposal of the severed head. The next month, on a Friday afternoon, the first real guillotine was set up in the Cour du Commerce, rue Saint-André-des-Arts. It was tested on sheep and calves. The blade was not the oblique one yet, though it was probably curved like a scimitar. The guillotine was subsequently tested on several human corpses. Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier was the first Frenchman to be executed on the place de Grève. In 1793 both [[Louis XVI]], King of France and [[Marie Antoinette]], Queen of France were executed by guillotine at Place de la Révolution. Between 1870 and 1872, Leon Berger, an assistant executioner and carpenter, improved and developed a new guillotine. Among the improvements are the spring system, which stops the mouton at the bottom of the groves, and the lock/blocking device on the lunette. The new release mechanism for the blade, was also developed by Berger. All guillotines built after 1870 are made according to Berger's design. The last public execution by guillotine in France was in 1939, after which they are held only in a prison.  In 1977 the guillotine was used for the last time at the execution of [[Hamida Djandoubi]].
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However, during the [[Jacobin]] Reign of Terror amid the [[French Revolution]], the guillotine became a symbol of arbitrary execution as anyone who disagreed with [[Robespierre]]'s [[leftist]] ideology, or even those who were merely accused of subversion, was executed by it. The guillotine remained a tool of [[capital punishment]] in France until its last usage in 1977, with the execution of murderer Hamida Dandjoubi.
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The guillotine's use wasn't limited to France. It saw somewhat of a revival during the rule of German [[Nazi|National]] [[Socialism]], being the execution method for dissenters after a mock trial. The [[White Rose]] resistance leaders were executed through it.
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Among famous victims of the guillotine figure [[Louis XVI]], [[Marie Antoiniette]], [[Sophie Scholl]] and [[Hans Scholl]].
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==Halifax Gibbet==
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A guillotine in all but name was used in the town of [[Halifax (Yorkshire)|Halifax]] in West Yorkshire from the late Middle Ages to 1650.
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== See also ==
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*[[Antoine Lavoisier]]
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== Notes and references ==
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<references />
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[[Category:France]]
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[[Category:French Revolution]]

Latest revision as of 14:37, April 9, 2019

Lithograph of a guillotine used in Denmark

A guillotine is a device used in executions, invented by Dr. Joseph Guillotine shortly before the French Revolution. Most guillotines have a heavy blade that is attached to a tall frame. The blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the victim's head. Dr. Guillotine also envisioned it as being used privately as a means to end the death penalty, although ironically, during the French Revolution, it quickly gained notoriety as being a public form of execution.[1]

Dr. Joseph Guillotine envisioned the device as a more humane method of execution. (Previously, only nobles had been beheaded; commoners had been hung.) The French government adopted it as the official execution method.

However, during the Jacobin Reign of Terror amid the French Revolution, the guillotine became a symbol of arbitrary execution as anyone who disagreed with Robespierre's leftist ideology, or even those who were merely accused of subversion, was executed by it. The guillotine remained a tool of capital punishment in France until its last usage in 1977, with the execution of murderer Hamida Dandjoubi. The guillotine's use wasn't limited to France. It saw somewhat of a revival during the rule of German National Socialism, being the execution method for dissenters after a mock trial. The White Rose resistance leaders were executed through it.

Among famous victims of the guillotine figure Louis XVI, Marie Antoiniette, Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl.


Halifax Gibbet

A guillotine in all but name was used in the town of Halifax in West Yorkshire from the late Middle Ages to 1650.


See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19980210233233/http://inventors.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa103197.htm
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