of the cathedral by their hair and street. They were beaten with sticks, weapons, and fists by any townsperson who wanted a chance. John somehow managed to survive the mob violence, so he was tossed into the local jail. He was tortured to death by having the bottoms of his feet and the tendons of his joints sliced.


Simon Hannabaert of Audomarois, 1302

In a world where driving a massive wooden post through someone’s chest was considered a humane shortcut to a full execution by live burial, it’s pretty clear that there was no such thing as a “cushy” medieval execution. Still, contemporary commenters and law codes seemed to settled on two particular modes as the worst: drawing and quartering, and breaking on the wheel. In the first, whose brutalitytheir limbs to simulate the spokes of a wheel. The executioner would start from the feet and gradually work their way up—bone-snapping hit by hit by excruciating hit. Sometimes there might be a finishing blow to the neck or head; other times, the wheel would be hoisted onto a pole and the person left to die. These two modes of execution were, all agreed, the worst handed down by law.

In 1302, Simon Hannabaert was broken on the wheel and then drawn and quartered.

Queen Brunhild, 613

For someone perhaps best known for her means of death, Brunhild thrived through an astonishing seventy years of reaping revenge for her sister’s murder, ruling through her husband as queen consort, seizing rule as regent for her sons, seizing rule again as regent for