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When used as a verb, gibbeting refers to the public display of executed criminals. EXECUTION EQUIPMENT Gallows Gibbet is sometimes used to describe a Gallows , a structure used in the Execution of criminals by Hanging . Guillotine Gibbet is also the name used for an early form of the Guillotine , employed in Ireland , England and Scotland . The British Museum has a drawing depicting the execution of one Murcod Ballagh in 1307 in Ireland. A notable example was employed in the West Yorkshire town of Halifax , where Decapitation was the penalty for numerous offences, including the theft of cloth (Halifax being a centre of wool cloth manufacture). The device was used from the late 13th Century through to 1648 . The Halifax model of gibbet was also introduced in Scotland during the minority reign of James VI (later King James I Of Great Britain ), where it was known as the (Scottish) Maiden . James Douglas, 4th Earl Of Morton introduced the maiden, and was later executed by the device, on 2 June 1581 . DISPLAY Gibbet usually refers to a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. It can also be used as a verb, denoting the action of placing criminals in gibbets. This practice is also called "hanging in chains". {Link without Title} Gibbeting was Common Law punishment, which a judge could impose in addition to execution. This practice was regularised by the Murder Act 1752 , which empowered Judges to impose this for murder. It was most often used for Traitor s, Murderer s, Highwaymen and sheep-stealers, to discourage others. The structures were therefore often placed adjacent to public highways. There are many places named Gibbet Hill in England. One is between Coventry and Kenilworth in Warwickshire , and others are found at Frome in Somerset , near Haslemere in Surrey , and Mary Tavy in Devon . Although the intention was deterrence the public response was complex. Samuel Pepys expressed disgust at the practice. There was Christian objection that persecution of criminals should end with their death. The sight and smell of decaying corpses was offensive, and regarded as "pestilential", so a threat to public health. Pirate s were sometimes executed by hanging on a gibbet erected close to the low-water mark by the sea or a tidal section of a river. Their bodies would be left dangling until they had been submerged by the tide three times. In London , 'Execution Dock' is located on the north bank of the River Thames in Wapping ; after tidal immersion, particularly notorious criminals' bodies could be hung in cages a little further downstream at either Cuckold's Point or Blackwall Point, as a warning to other waterborne criminals of the possible consequences of their actions (such a fate befell Captain William Kidd in May 1701 ). There was objection that these diplays offended foreign visitors and did not uphold the reputation of the law. The dead bodies still went through the process of Decomposition , and could easily be nibbled at by scavenging animals. To maintain Hygiene , most cultures Bury (or otherwise dispose of) their criminals just the same as normal citizens. It is only the most heinous criminals who warrant gibbeting. This public humiliation, even after death, is a notable exception to most Culture s' Respect For The Dead . Variants In some cases, the bodies would be left until their clothes rotted or even until the bodies were almost completely decomposed, after which the bones would be scattered. In cases of Drawing And Quartering , the body of the criminal was cut into five portions, each of which was often gibbeted in different places. So that the public display might be prolonged, bodies were sometimes coated in tar and/or bound in chains. Sometimes, body-shaped iron cages were used to contain the decomposing corpses. In March 1743 in the town of Rye , East Sussex , Allen Grebell was murdered by John Breads. Breads was imprisoned in the Ypres Tower and then hanged, after which his body was left to rot for more than 20 years in an iron cage on Gibbet Marsh. The cage and Breads's skull are still kept in the Town Hall. {Link without Title} Another example of the cage variation is the ''gibbet iron'', on display at the Atwater Kent Museum in Philadelphia , U.S. The cage, created in 1781 , was intended to be used to display the body of convicted Pirate Thomas Wilkinson so that sailors on passing ships might be warned of the consequences of piracy. As Wilkinson's planned execution never took place, the gibbet was never used. The last two men gibbeted in England were William Jobling and James Cook, both in 1832 . Their cases are good examples of the different attitudes to the practice. William Jobling was a miner who was hanged and gibbeted for the murder of Nicholas Fairles, a colliery owner, and local Magistrate , near Jarrow , Durham . After being hanged the body was taken off the rope, and loaded into a cart and taken on a tour of the area before arriving at Jarrow Slake where the crime had been committed. Here the body was placed into an iron gibbet cage. The cage and the scene being described thus: :"the body was encased in flat bars of iron of two and a half inches in breadth, the feet were placed in stirrups, from which a bar of iron went up each side of the head, and ended in a ring by which he was suspended; a bar from the collar went down the breast, and another down the back, there were also bars in the inside of the legs which communicated with the above; and crossbars at the ankles, the knees, the thighs, the bowels the breast and the shoulders; the hands were hung by the side and covered with pitch, the face was pitched and covered with a piece of white cloth." The gibbet was a foot in diameter with strong bars of iron up each side. The post was fixed into a one-and-a-half ton stone base, sunk into the Slake. {Link without Title} The body was soon removed by fellow miners and given a decent burial. James Cook was convicted of a gruesome murder in Leicestershire . 20,000 people attended as the cage was hoisted 33ft up. Ranting preachers harangued the crowd, and issued improving pamphlets, and the whole event was more like a fair than a judicial process. The Home Secretary sent an order from London that the body be removed. An example of an iron cage used to string up bodies on a gibbet can still be seen in the Westgate Museum at Winchester . {Link without Title} Crucifixion can be considered a form of gibbeting, but is mortal in itself. Sources Gatrell, V.A.C., The Hanging Tree, OUP, 1994, pp.266-9 TIMELINE
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