# You will be burnt at the stake: How much pain to expect? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861 "2010-05-18T04:25:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/21 "2010-05-18T15:33:37Z")
I think you can get an idea how bad being burned at the stake was by reading _Foxe’s Book of Martyrs_ between the lines. Notice how the Protestant martyrs in the book go bravely to their deaths, while the Catholics go cowardly to theirs, shrieking and weeping from the pain. Probable truth: they all went shrieking and weeping. Part of the reason both religious sides went in for public burnings is because it was public torture. They really wanted to make an example of their victims. I didn’t do enough study on the burnings of Catholic martyrs, but the Marian government went out of their way to make sure their burnings were seen by large crowds. Heretics were supposed to be punished in their parish but some executions were moved to larger urban centers to ensure more attendees. That wouldn’t have happened if the Marian church officials hadn’t wanted the burnings to be public spectacle. Church officials knew they couldn’t burn every heretic in England. The purpose of the burning was _pour l’encourager les autres_. And in the 16th century there was nothing to encourage someone like the threat of painful, fiery death. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/22 "2010-05-18T15:54:09Z")
**How much pain to expect?** A lot. Until your nerve endings melt away. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/23 "2010-05-18T15:59:38Z")
Recently, there was a thread on the Dope asking about the most horrible videos people have seen. Once was of the burning of witches in Kenya. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to seek out the link. What surprised me most (and this was the burning of a handful of witches, not just one) is that every single one of them, that I remember, went rather stoically. They just kind of sat there like the burning Buddhist monk, waiting for the fire to consume them. No screaming, no convulsing, no writhing. That’s just made it all the more disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![toodlepip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@toodlepip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toodlepip)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/24 "2010-05-18T22:32:28Z")
IIRC, in Norway, witches were often given a pitcher of wine before they were tortured and burned. The ladder method was thought to be quicker and more humane than burning at the stake. [Linky:](http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/burning.html) > [@](#): > > Three slightly different methods of burning were used. The first, consisted of using a heap of faggots piled around a wooden stake above which the prisoner was attached with chains or iron hoops. The British and Spanish Inquisition preferred this method as it had the greatest visual impact. This form of burning typically subjects the prisoner to a far more agonising death as it some time before the flames reach head level. In most cases of treason and witchcraft the prisoner was strangled first before the fire was lit. In Scotland the strangling formed part of the sentence for convicted witches. > > The second method was to tie the condemned to the stake and heap faggots all round them, effectively hiding their sufferings from sight so that they died inside a wall of flames . It is said that Joan of Arc died by this method. It is thought that this method led to a much quicker death because the victim is forced to breathe the flame and hot gasses surrounding their face. The heat of the air causes the lining of the trachea to swell up thus blocking the airway and leading to suffocation within a few minutes. > The third method, used in Germany and the Nordic countries, involved tying the prisoner to a near vertical ladder, the top of which was tied to a frame, and then swinging them down onto the fire. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/25 "2010-05-18T23:21:03Z")
> [@BaneSidhe](#): > > I’ve read that familes sometimes bribed someone to put green wood on the fire as it would produce a lot of smoke and hopefully the person being burned would suffocate before the fire got to them. So that says something to me about the pain factor. Executioners could also be bribed to strangle the condemed as they were tying them to the stake. It wasn’t just witchs and heretics that were burned. In England if a woman was convicted of treason she was condemed to burning (unlike men who’d be drawn & quartered). One reason for the difference I’ve heard was that it was to “protect her modesty” (since drawing & quartering involved being stripped naked). :dubious: Of wouldn’t her dress burn away first exposing her skin to the crowd, or would the smole & flames cover everything up? ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/26 "2010-05-19T00:39:32Z")
to add to what **toodlepip** said, there was also the old Russian way of burning people inside “house”, or maybe better described as a specially built shack. Unfortunately I cannot find English articles about it, on Russian wikipedia it is “sozhzhenie v srube”. Before 18th century it was used to execute people for witchcraft and for heresy, including belonging to the (perfectly orthodox but distasteful to the government) Old Believers sect. ---
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/27 "2010-05-19T00:53:02Z")
In one of Rick Atkinson’s books on WWII, he mentions that the Sherman tank was often referred to as a “Zippo” since they caught fire easily when hit, and that the screams from inside the tanks often lasted as much as ten minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/28 "2010-05-19T00:57:41Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Executioners could also be bribed to strangle the condemed as they were tying them to the stake. > > It wasn’t just witchs and heretics that were burned. In England if a woman was convicted of treason she was condemed to burning (unlike men who’d be drawn & quartered). One reason for the difference I’ve heard was that it was to “protect her modesty” (since drawing & quartering involved being stripped naked). :dubious: Of wouldn’t her dress burn away first exposing her skin to the crowd, or would the smole & flames cover everything up? In Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World he quotes an unnamed historian that when Joan of Arc was being burned, the executioner put the fire out after her clothing had burned away “…that the onlookers might see all that pertaineth, or ought to pertain, to a woman…” ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_Doubt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Angel\_of\_Doubt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_Doubt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/29 "2010-05-19T17:16:44Z")
I’ve heard that in England witches were hanged, not burned, (by law) unlike Europe. Is this correct? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/30 "2010-05-19T17:58:42Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > The slack-jawed sort. Which, although awkward, is far preferable to having a bunch of god damned sexual Tyrannosauruses (like me) heaped around your feet. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/31 "2010-05-19T19:12:59Z")
30 years ago, my English History professor claimed that the fires were actually quite small in order to give the condemned ample time to confess. Not that it would do them any good. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/32 "2010-05-19T19:20:40Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > 30 years ago, my English History professor claimed that the fires were actually quite small in order to give the condemned ample time to confess. Not that it would do them any good. Sorry, no link, but I read something similar. In fact, it was actually quite ghastly - describing how, “if done properly”, the feet would burn away first, then the legs, then the hands (tied behind), etc. The pain must have been unimaginable. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/33 "2010-05-19T20:17:43Z")
Isn’t there some research or experience that, if a trauma is severe enough, the brain simply stops registering pain at all? Perhaps the victims simply shut down at that point. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/34 "2010-05-19T20:24:43Z")
> [@Mapache](#): > > In one of Rick Atkinson’s books on WWII, he mentions that the Sherman tank was often referred to as a “Zippo” since they caught fire easily when hit, and that the screams from inside the tanks often lasted as much as ten minutes. American tank crews were told that they had the best tanks in the world during training. Then they were shipped over to Europe where they found out that the Sherman couldn’t even penetrate the front armor of a German Tiger tank. The Tiger, on the other hand, could put a shell in through the front and out through the back of a Sherman. The Shermans also had a tendency to catch fire when hit by German high velocity rounds. The British started calling the Shermans by the name “Ronson” which was a brand of cigarette lighter with the advertising slogan “Lights the first time, every time!” Some Shermans were called Zippos, but that nickname was usually reserved for Shermans that had the flame thrower on the front of them. ---
**Author:** ![Ispolkom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/35 "2010-05-19T20:28:28Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > to add to what **toodlepip** said, there was also the old Russian way of burning people inside “house”, or maybe better described as a specially built shack. Unfortunately I cannot find English articles about it, on Russian wikipedia it is “sozhzhenie v srube”. Before 18th century it was used to execute people for witchcraft and for heresy, including belonging to the (perfectly orthodox but distasteful to the government) Old Believers sect. Wow. Learn something new every day. I knew that Old Believers certainly committed mass suicide by burning themselves in buildings (dramatized at the end of Mussorgsky’s opera "Khovanshchina), but my impression was that the occasional Russian execution by burning was your standard stake, and I would have assumed that “srub” meant something like framework. But no, I see that at least occasionally they did burn people up in huts. Good to know. In Hilary Mantel’s wonderful novel “Wolf Hall” a character describes a Spanish device with a counterweight that allows you to dip the heretic into the flames and then pull him out. That sounds like a slow and especially nasty way to go. In Salem the witches were hanged. I think that was standard practice in England, but after being shown wrong on pre-Petrine methods of burning people, I’ll defer to those with better knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/36 "2010-05-19T20:50:44Z")
St. Lawrence of Rome was burned in 258, not on a stake but on a gridiron (basically a grill over an open flame). His response was “This side’s done, turn me over and have a bite!” Now he’s the patron saint of comedians 😃 ---
**Author:** ![toodlepip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@toodlepip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toodlepip)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/37 "2010-05-19T21:25:21Z")
> [@Ispolkom](#): > > In Salem the witches were hanged. I think that was standard practice in England, but after being shown wrong on pre-Petrine methods of burning people, I’ll defer to those with better knowledge. From the link in my previous post: > [@](#): > > Burning at the stake in public was used in England & Wales to punish heresy for both sexes and for women convicted of High Treason or Petty Treason. > … > In England witchcraft was a felony and thus punishable by hanging. In Scotland, witches were burned. In Wales, witches were accepted as healers and “wise women”, and only a small number of witches were tried. Ireland largely escaped the witch hunt, too. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/38 "2010-05-19T22:13:55Z")
Perhaps this is directly related, perhaps not. In the 1475 painting [St. Dominic Presiding over an Auto da Fe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pedro_Berruguete_-_Saint_Dominic_Presiding_over_an_Auto-da-fe_%281475%29.jpg)the two victims (Jews, I think) have distinct erections, their penises surrounded by some sort of nasty looking cage. I’ve often wondered what’s going on in this image. (Other clothed victims are awaiting their turn, as soon as the branches near them get lit.) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/39 "2010-05-19T22:44:36Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Perhaps this is directly related, perhaps not. In the 1475 painting [St. Dominic Presiding over an Auto da Fe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pedro_Berruguete_-_Saint_Dominic_Presiding_over_an_Auto-da-fe_%281475%29.jpg)the two victims (Jews, I think) have distinct erections, their penises surrounded by some sort of nasty looking cage. I’ve often wondered what’s going on in this image. (Other clothed victims are awaiting their turn, as soon as the branches near them get lit.) Are they stiffies or just penile cages? Perhaps it was to call attention to their circumcisions, in an antisemitic stylee? ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861/40 "2010-05-19T22:53:06Z")
> [@Mapache](#): > > In Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World he quotes an unnamed historian that when Joan of Arc was being burned, the executioner put the fire out after her clothing had burned away “…that the onlookers might see all that pertaineth, or ought to pertain, to a woman…” Probably to settle the question of whether she was, in fact, a woman, as the contrary had been rumoured. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-will-be-burnt-at-the-stake-how-much-pain-to-expect/539861.md?page=3)