Tag Archives: exhumation

Executions

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Ancient lithography representing the elements of devotional practices towards the holy souls of the executed in Sicily.

June 29, 1972 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that capital punishment was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” The decision spared the lives of 600 individuals then sitting on death row. Four years later, in another ruling, the Court reversed itself and determined the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment. On October 4, 1976, the ban was lifted on the death penalty in cases involving murder.

Executions and the corpses of the executed have always fascinated people. Stories about the corpses fill books of folklore, legends and mythology. A hanged man’s hand was used to cure warts and skin tumors in England. All sorts of body parts were used in magic and medicine and these were taken from the corpses of the executed either by the executioner or by people who came to unearth and exhume the bodies of the executed in graveyards.

Prayers, folklore and customs from Southern Italy testify that even the souls of criminals had their part in the devotional practices of the population. Invoking the holy souls of the executed who dwelled for a long time in Purgatory, people established a compassionate connection between the actual and the heavenly world. The Catholic and political context of places like 19th-century Sicily, where the bandit might be seen as a popular hero who opposed the Bourbon oppressor, strongly connotes the concept of “holy soul”.

July 12, 1801: Two Strikes? Vampires home free!

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The Monastery of Horezu, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Wallachia, Romania

The Monastery of Horezu, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Wallachia, Romania

Wallachia, the region of southern Romania which borders the more famous region of Transylvania to the north, was an independent principality until 1859, when it united with Moldavia to form the basis of the modern state of Romania. Transylvania joined 59 years later (1918) to form the new Kingdom of Romania. Vlad the Impaler, often thought to have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was actually the ruler of Wallachia (not Transylvania).

In 1801, before its unification with Moldavia, farmers and rural peasants still believed fervently in vampires even though modern science was beginning to dispel belief in vampires among the aristocracy. One of the more common ways farmers had in Wallachia to dispatch a vampire was to exhume the body and decapitate the corpse. If the vampire seemed to still attack the living after that, then the body was exhumed again and the body was either turned face-down or a wooden stake driven through it. If the attacks still seemed to continue, the body would be dug up a third time and burned (which was a difficult undertaking because dead bodies are so moist and therefore the last resort of vampire dispatchers — you can read about the fascinating science involved in burning dead bodies in Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality by Paul Barber).

It was the continued exhumation of corpses which came to the attention of the Wallachian authorities. On July 1, 1801 the authorities in Wallachia proclaimed that a corpse could not be exhumed more than TWICE in Wallachian territory if it was suspected of being a vampire!

Blood was not only important to the vampires the Wallachian farmers were trying to destroy. The stunningly beautiful Curtea de Arges Monastery was built by a ruler of Wallachia in 1512. But the walls kept crumbling because of a problem with the foundations. The architect and construction workers resorted to an ancient practice to reinforce the foundations: they sprinkled the blood of a newborn baby on the foundations and the walls stopped crumbling. (Another version of the story says how the pregnant wife of the architect was sealed alive inside the walls in order to stop them from crumbling.)

July 12, 1801: Vampires home free after two strikes

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The Monastery of Horezu, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Wallachia, Romania

The Monastery of Horezu, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Wallachia, Romania

Wallachia, the region of southern Romania and which borders the more famous region of Transylvannia to the north, was an independent principality until 1859, when it united with Moldavia to form the basis of the modern state of Romania, with Transylvania joining 59 years later (1918) to form the new Kingdom of Romania which was first established 1881.

In 1801, before its unification with Moldavia, there was still a fervent and widespread belief in vampires among the farmers and rural peasants though modern science was beginning to dispel vampiric beliefs among the aristocracy. One of the more common ways of dispatching a vampire in the countryside was to exhume the body and decapitate the corpse. If that did not work, the body was exhumed again and a wooden stake driven through it or it might be turned to face down. If all else failed, a third exhumation could lead the to burning of the corpse (which was a difficult undertaking and therefore the last resort of the vampire dispatchers).

It was the continued exhumation of corpses which came to the attention of the Wallachian authorities. On July 1, 1801 there was a proclamation made that in Wallachian territory a corpse could not be exhumed more than TWICE if it was suspected of being a vampire!