-
Treason law in England from 1351 to the present
By Stephanie Brown (@StephEmmaBrown) In 1305, William Wallace was hanged, drawn, and beheaded. Notes from the court state that ‘his heart, liver, lungs and all his entrails be cast into the fire and burned’ and ‘his body be cut into four parts.’ His head was to be placed on London Bridge, with each ‘quarter’ of…
-
20. An Icelandic Executioner’s Axe
By Stephanie Brown (@StephEmmaBrown) This axe can now be found at the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik. It was used on 12 January 1830, to execute Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a maid, and Friðrik Sigurðsson, a farmhand, for their role in the murders of ‘womanizer’, Natan Ketilsson, and Pétur Jónsson, an unfortunate bystanding victim. The crime took…
-
18. A Treasure Trove of Plundered Art
By Callie Belback During the Second World War, as European cities fell to the Nazis, art conservators in the United States began to advocate for a field-based conservation corps whose duty would be to identify and protect cultural treasures. This soon became the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section of the Allies (MFA). The MFA…
-
5. Medieval Murder Maps
By Stephanie Brown (@StephEmmaBrown) Upon finding a dead body in medieval England, you were required to raise the alarm to alert bystanders and the authorities. Once the coroner had been notified of a violent death, they summoned an investigative jury from the village or parish where the person had died and from the three neighbouring…
doinghistoryinpublic.org 