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IV.—“Furca et Fossa:” A Review of certain modes of Capital Punishment in the Middle Ages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Extract
In an age when the voice of philanthropy is raised against the extreme penalty of the law, an inquiry into the origin and practice of certain modes of capital punishment, now obsolete, but long known to our ancestors, may not be deemed unworthy the attention of this Society.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1860
References
page 54 note a May it be referred to the growing power of the Turks in Europe, and the desire to abolish in Christendom a mode of execution practised even to this day by that people?
page 54 note b Cal. Kot. Pat. p. 34 b.
page 54 note c Gloss, v. Fossa.
page 55 note a Histoire de Charles VII. Eoi de France, par Jean Chartier, &c. Paris, fol. 1661, sub anno 1449.
page 55 note b Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt; ignavos, et imbelles, et corpore infames coeno ac palude, injecta insuper crate, mergunt.—De Morib. German, c. xii.
page 55 note c Si qua mulier maritum suum, cui legitimé juncta est, dimiserit, necetur in luto.—Lex Burgund. Tit. xxxiv. 1.
page 55 note d Deutsche Kechts Alterthumer, p. 696. Gottenb. 1828. This mode of punishment appears to have been derived from the Lex Cornelia.
page 55 note e Si libera mulier sit precipitetur de clivo, vel submergatur.—Leg. Æthelbert. Ancient Laws and Institutes, ed. Thorpe.
page 55 note f Đa nam man ðæt wîf and ādrencte hî set Lundenebrigce, and hire sune ætberst and werð ûtlâh. Coā. Dipl. Ævi Saxon. No. DXCI.—MS. Soc. Ant. Lond. LX. fo. 54 b.
page 56 note a Spelman, Glossarium Archsaologicum, v. Furca et Fossa.
page 56 note b Edit. 1633, p. 11.
page 56 note c Qui hominem in navi interfecerit, cum mortuo ligatus projiciatur in mare. Si autem eum ad terrain interfecerit, cum mortuo ligatus in terrâ. infodiatur.—Hoveden, sub anno.
page 56 note d Barante, Hist, des Dues de Bourgogne, sub anno 1422.
page 56 note e Boys, Hist, of Sandwich, p. 664.
page 56 note f Et omnes qui condempnati sunt in illo casu debent vivi sepeliri in loco ad hoc deputato super Sandoune, qui vocatur le Thiefdounes; et est area ipsa communitatis propria qualitercunque fuerit per alios appropriata.—Boys' History of Sandwich, p. 465.
page 57 note a Et si cely qest dampne soit de la Franchise, il sera amene au pount de la ville a la pleigne meer, et outr le pount botu en le havene: et sil soit del Geldable, sera suspenduz deyns la Lewe en certain lui appelle le Wahstrew [cwealmstow?]—Custumal of Pevensey. Sussex Arch. Collections, vol. iv. p. 213.
page 57 note b Lyon's Hist, of Dover, p. 272.
page 57 note c Infalistatio. This word is found in a curious passage in the Summa Parva of Kalph de Hengham, ch. iii … Commisit feloniam, ob quam fuit suspensus, utlagatus, vel alio modo mortis damnatus, vel demembratus, vel apud Dovere Infalistatus, vel apud Southampton submersus, &c. The learned Selden (who in some degree misunderstood the meaning of falaise, which really signifies the cliff,) observes on this: “It appears that several customs of places made in those days capital punishments several. But what is infalistatus? In regard it is of a custom used in a port town, I suppose it was made out of the French word falaise, which is, fine sand by the water side; or, a hank of the sea; in this sand, or bank, it seems their execution at Dover was. In this place, the copies vary, no one having all the punishments, but for the rarity of the remembrance, I took out of divers copies all these. The old English translation here helped not.”—Notes on Hengham's Summa, Works, iii. pt. ii. p. 1926. We have followed Selden in the use of Infalistatio, but, among the numerous MSS. of the Summa in the British Museum, are some in which the derivation is more obvious. Ducange, v. Infalistatio, says, “Ubi Editor ac Interpres vocem á Falaisiis, seu marinis aggeribus deducit quod apud Dubrenses felones in Falaisiis extremo supplicio afficerentur: quo casu legendam esset Infalisiatus.” A suggestion supported by the MSS. in question, some of which have phalizatus, infalisatus, and infalesatus, while others have the word in a more corrupt form. Scarcely two of the MSS. agree. In one of them Winchelsea is substituted for Southampton.
page 57 note d Omnes autem condempnati in isto casu jactari debent ultra quoddam Clued’ vocatum Stordisdale ex parte occidentali villas versus Bolewarhethe.—Usages de Hastynges, 1357. For the inspection of a transcript of this Custumal, my acknowledgments are due to Mr. W. Durrant Cooper.
page 58 note a Book 2, ch. ii.
page 58 note b Qui fanum effregerit, et ibi aliquid de sacris tulerit, ducitur ad mare, et in sabulo, quod accessus maris operire solet, finduntur aures ejus, et castratur, et immolatur Diis quorum templa violavit.—Lex Frisionum Addit. Sap. Tit. xii. De honore templorum. Corp. Juris Germ. Antiq. ed. Walter, torn. i. p. 374.
page 58 note c Scot. Hist. Lib. xii. p. 256, ed. Paris.
page 58 note d Fol. 78.
page 58 note e Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 94.
page 58 note f Ibid. vol. iii. p. 208.
page 59 note a Omnia qualstowa [cwealmstowa], i. occidendorum loca, totaliter regis sunt, in soca sua. Leg. Hen. J. c. x. ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 519.
page 59 note b Comp. pp. 176, 361, 412, and 417, Islands Landnama Bok. 4to. Haun. 1770.
page 59 note c —post hoc tempus, quo nos Theophaniam Domini celebrainus, omnes conveniunt, et ibi diis suismet LXXXX. et novem homines, et totidein equos cum canibus, et gallis, pro accipitribus oblatis, immolant, pro certo, ut prsedixi, putantes hos eisdem [erga inferos servituros et commissa crimina apud eos] placaturos.—Ditmarus, apnd Script. Rer. Brunswic, ed. Leibnitzii, torn, i. p. 327, Hanov. 1710.
page 59 note d Ibi [Ubsola] ctiam est fons, ubi sacrificia paganorum solent exerceri et homo virus immergi.—Adam Bremen. Lib. iv. Schol. 134.
page 59 note e Sauval, Ant. de Paris, ii. p. 597.
page 59 note f Ib. loc. cit.
page 59 note g Ib. loc. cit.
page 60 note a Cologne, 12mo. 1695, p. 5.
page 60 note b Consuetudo veró quandoque pro lege observatur, in partibus ubi fuerit more utentium approbata, ct vicem legis obtinet, longevi enim temporis usus et consuetudinis non est vilis authoritas.—Bracton, de Legibus, lib. i. cap. 3, fo. 2.
page 61 note a Frankfurter Chronik, Band ii. xxxiv. Capitel.
page 61 note b Ib. loc. cit. sub anno 1506. Hans Sebald Beham, the engraver, is said, by his biographers, to have been put to death in this way at Frankfort, but we can find no mention of his execution in the Chronicle of Lersner.
page 61 note c Ib. sub anno 1536. The horse-slaughterer of the city was also the public executioner.
page 61 note d The Life of Agnes was published at Munich by F. I. Lipowsky in 1801. It is illustrated by a plate of her tomb, well executed, but the portrait facing the title-page is that of a lady in the costume of the seventeenth century!
page 62 note a The Saxons in England, book ii. ch. 2.
page 62 note b Grimm, D. M. p. 563.
page 62 note c Brantome, Vie des dames Galantes, Discours viie. intimates that it was the punishment of offenders of another description: “Les plus grandes et superbes dames disent à leurs galands inferieurs: ‘Donnez vous bien de garde d'en dire un mot, tant seul soit-il, autrement il vous va de la vie: Je vous feray jetter en sac dans l'eau, ou je vous feray couper les jarretz.’“
page 62 note d —“mulieres pro furto non debent suspendi, sed humari debeant.” Jus Danic. apud Ludewig.—Vide Ducange, Gloss, v. “Humari.”
page 62 note e Ducange, v. “Infoditus.”
page 62 note f See “Le Chronique du Eoy Louys XI. autrement dicte Le Chronique Scandaleuse,” sub anno 1460.
page 62 note g Sauval gives a list of criminals who suffered this punishment at Paris, among whom is Marie de Romainville, “soupjonnee de larcin,” in 1295, and Amelotte de Christeuil, for robbery, in 1302. An individual named Prevot, found guilty of perjury, was sentenced by Philip Augustus to be buried alive.—Sauval, Hist, et Ant. de la Ville de Paris, tome ii. p. 594.
page 63 note a Lersner, loc. cit.
page 63 note b Annaler for Nordisk Oldteyndighed, 1836-7, p. 160.
page 63 note c We learn no details of this mode of execution from the “Praxis Criminis” of Millseus, fol. Par. 1558, nor from “La Practique et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles, par Josse de Damhoudere,” Louvain, 4c, 1554, although in the latter there is express mention of “la fosse” as one of the punishments common at that day.
page 64 note a Spangenberg, Neues Vaterl. Archiv, B. ii. s. 59.
page 65 note a Lib. ii. c. 26.