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Old 17th December 2006, 03:15 PM   #32
fernando
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Hi Philip
The illustration with the Marchioness of Tavora being decapitated was just to support the idea of horizontal beheading, as it comes with a romanticized version written by the famous Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco.
No doubt that the version with all the nobles ( and some servants ) being executed at the scaffold was more publicized ... some were laid on the wheels, others against St. Andrews crosses ( Aspas ) ... some with their bone canes mace crushed before being killed, some after being killed, depending from the sentence instructions ... others were burnt alife. Also the wheels were connected to ropes disguised under the scaffold, so that they would be strangled ( garroted ) with the wheel turning. The Marchioness was the first to be conducted there, and taken for a round on the scaffold, to both be seen by the public and to be made familiar to all these processes, described to her by the hangmen, before she was executed.
This event took place in 1759, and was a Secular ( civilian ) process, not an Inquisition ( religious ) exercize.
Eventually the processes used in torture by Seculars and Religiouses were distinct, each having their own "specialities".
You are right, Autos de Fé in Portugal started on 1536 and ended on 1821; however the last one with life sentence took place in 1761, when they burnt alife a Jesuit priest, named Malagrida, whom had actually been envolved with the Tavoras, in the famous conspiracy process a few years before, against the King Dom José.
fernando
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