Please add Geni profiles of those executed by the state by burning. For accidental deaths by burning, please use the project Death by burning.

Deliberately causing death through the effects of combustion, or effects of exposure to extreme heat, has a long history as a form of capital punishment. Many societies have employed it as an execution method for such crimes as treason, rebellious actions by slaves, heresy, witchcraft and demonstrated sexual deviancy, such as incest or homosexuality. The best known type of executions of death by burning is when the condemned is bound to a large wooden stake. This is usually called burning at the stake (or, in some cases, auto-da-fé).

Fast facts:

• It is not known when burning was first used in Britain, but there is a recorded burning for heresy in 1222, when a deacon of the church was burnt at Oxford for embracing the Jewish faith so he could marry a Jew.
• It is claimed that as many as 200,000 people were burned for witchcraft in Europe in 16th and 17th centuries. 
• "You will be burnt at the stake: How much pain to expect?"

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From A History of Violence: Burning at the Stake

Burning at the stake was popular in Catholic and Protestant lands. There were three methods of burning at the stake. In the first method, burning wood was piled around a stake driven into the earth. The prisoner hung from the stake from chains or iron hoops. In the second method (popular in punishing witches), the prisoner again hung from a stake, but this time the wood was piled high around the victim so the observers could not see her pain and suffering as she burned. In the third method (popular in Germany in the Nordic countries), the victim was tied to a ladder which was tied to a frame above the fire. The ladder was then swung down into the flames.

Law required that victims be strangled before burning at the stake, but many victims were deliberately burned alive. This violence was used as both punishment and warning, similar to the sacrificing of criminals in front of an audience at the Roman Colosseum.  

Originally, burning at the stake was primarily used for women convicted of treason (men convicted of treason were hanged, drawn and quartered). Later, burning at the stake became a popular punishment for men and women accused of heresy or witchcraft.

The 16th and 17th centuries saw a which-hunt such as the world had never seen. Rumors spread like wildfire of people participating in wild witches' Sabbats, the adoption of animal forms, and ritual cannibalism. Superstitious fear flung accusations everywhere, and the population lived in terror. As many as 200,000 people were burned at the stake for witchcraft during this time. Burning was believed to cleanse the soul, tantamount for those accused of witchcraft or heresy.

Henry the VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary") gave birth to England's most famous burnings at the stake. One of her victims was the sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in 1556. During the course of Bloody Mary's five year reign, she was responsible for 274 burnings. Her victims were condemned of heresy--being Protestant.

In the 17th century, during the Spanish Inquisition, burning at the stake was a popular choice for punishment since it did not spill the victim's blood (the Roman Catholic Church forbade this). The burning meant the victim would have no body to take into the afterlife.

Burning at the stake began to fall out of favor in the 18th century when more "humane" methods of capital punishment rose.

methods

The auto da fe was not the only manner in which "execution by fire" was carried out. Other methods included:

• The Grill: a gridiron is prepared with coals beneath it, and the body is placed on it. (E.g. Saint Lawrence)

timeline

• 21st century immolations
  • 5/01                29 chilean prisoners
  • 8/6/01             25 indian mental patients shackled to poles
• 20th century immolations
  • 1945             february, dresden firebombing, 250,000 killed; march, tokyo firebombing, 100,000 killed; may, tokyo firebombing, 83,000 killed; august, hiroshima and nagasaki nuclear bombings, 340,000 killed
  • 1966-74        vietnam: napalm
  • 1993              100 muslim civilians at ahmici in croatia, burned in their homes by croatian soldiers

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resources

• Death by burning
• List of deaths by fire throughout history
• Burning of women in England
• Capital Punishment UK
• Your 60 second guide to heresy
• List of people burned as heretics
• Open Access - List of Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation

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