Can anyone define what "hang drawn and quartering" was and when was it used.?

Question

What is hang, drawn and quatering, who was it used by, why was it used and when was it excluded from the law?

Answer 1

This was considered to be a very cruel punishment. The victim was hung by the neck (typically on a gallows), but released from the gallows before death. The victim was then drawn (disemboweled). This involved ripping open the stomach and pulling out the victims intestines and other internal organs, and sometimes the genitalia. Sometimes the victim would still be alive to feel this pain. The victim was then quartered, the arms, legs, and head were cut off and put on public display. This punishment was reserved for males who had committed high treason or committed murder against royalty in England until being abolished in 1870.

Answer 2

That particular combination of treatments was used in Olde England to deal with traitors, up until the mid 1800's. As with many things of old, there are often conflicting versions of what was what. In this case, hanging is pretty straight forward (suffocation only, not neck breaking, and not to the point of death), and quartering meant hacking the body into four parts (plus the head, of course) - the parts were scattered about as visual reminders of what happens to traitors. The confusion is over the term "drawn" - did it mean drawn (dragged) to the scaffold? Or having the bowels drawn (pulled) out with disembowelment? Or the body drawn (pulled) apart by horses to facilitate the quartering? Regardless of the precise meaning, the end result was rather the same.

Answer 3

Hanging was just that, rope around the neck and hung until dead, widely used and still used to this day in some parts of the word (and can be used still in many areas)
Drawn and quartered was much more unusual where the "victim" had a rope tied to each extremity (arms and legs) and the other end was tied to four horses, which then were ridden away in four different directions tearing the person into pieces. Not used very often and particularly nasty.

Answer 4

"Hanging, drawing and quartering" was, in fact, one prolonged form of execution in England. It was reserved, mainly, for traitors.
The person was hanged, but not with the drop we associate with 'normal' hanging. They were raised up and suffocated till nearly dead.
They were then cut down and their body split open, the various bits that could be removed without completing the killing were burned in front of the person's eyes. Then they were either dismembered by being pulled ('drawn') apart by horses or hacked into 'quarters' with a sword. Bits would often be sent around the country to be displayed - the person's home town or the site of where the treachey took place, etc. The head was mounted on "Traitor's Gate" or some othter prominent site - including the original London Bridge! - as a warning to others.

Answer 5

It was an extreme form of punishment used in the Medieval period to punish serious crimes such as treason. The victim was hanged until dead, then had their head cut off (drawn), and then the rest of the body was cut into quarters, with the parts then displayed prominently in five seperate locations. It had fallen out of use by the time of the Renaissance.
This will vary depending on who you speak to, some will say that they were cut down from the rope just before they were dead (but in a lot of pain), and some will say that 'drawn' means being dragged off to the place where they were cut apart. It's possible, but my studies indicate the first method to be the correct one.

Answer 6

That's two methods of executing yo've got there, young lady.

Hanging is, I hope, self-explanatory.

It's not quite as gory as drawing and quartering, however. That involved attaching the each of the condemned person's arms and legs to a different horse and spurring the horses in four different directions. Death by drawing and quartering was gruesome and painful.