The learned writer on criminal cases, Josse Damhoudere, whom we have already mentioned, and whom we shall take as our special guide in the enumeration of the various tortures, specifies thirteen ways in which the executioner “carries out his executions,” and places them in the following order:—­“Fire”—­“the sword”—­“mechanical force”—­“quartering”—­“the wheel”—­“the fork”—­“the gibbet”—­“drawing”—­“spiking”—­“cutting off the ears”—­“dismembering”—­“flogging or beating”—­and the “pillory.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 345.—­The Punishment by Fire.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster:  in folio, Basle, 1552.]

But before entering upon the details of this revolting subject, we must state that, whatever punishment was inflicted upon a culprit, it was very rare that its execution had not been preceded by the amende honorable, which, in certain cases, constituted a distinct punishment, but which generally was but the prelude to the torture itself.  The amende honorable which was called simple or short, took place without the assistance of the executioner in the council chamber, where the condemned, bareheaded and kneeling, had to state that “he had falsely said or done something against the authority of the King or the honour of some person” (Fig. 344).  For the amende honorable in figuris—­that is to say, in public—­the condemned, in his shirt, barefooted, the rope round his neck, followed by the executioner, and holding in his hand a wax taper, with a weight, which was definitely specified in the sentence which had been passed upon him, but which was generally of two or four pounds, prostrated himself at the door of a church, where in a loud voice he had to confess his sin, and to beg the pardon of God and man.

When a criminal had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man.  Care was taken to leave a free space round the stake for the victim, and also a passage by which to lead him to it.  Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a shirt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains.  After this, faggots and straw were thrown into the empty space through which he had passed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once (Fig. 345).

Sometimes, the sentence was that the culprit should only be delivered to the flames after having been previously strangled.  In this case, the dead corpse was then immediately placed where the victim would otherwise have been placed alive, and the punishment lost much of its horror.  It often happened that the executioner, in order to shorten the sufferings of the condemned, whilst he prepared the pile, placed