In
medieval England, there were no such things as
Gangsta Rap music videos or
violent computer games, so the populace had to keep itself
entertained through good old-fashioned
brutality to their fellow man.
Drawing and Quartering was a punishment meted out to those poor souls who had been found guilty of treason. It was basically a long, painful death drawn out over several acts.
This is how you do it:
- Drag the condemned to a suitable spot. There should be a tree nearby.
- Hang the prisoner from the tree, but cut him down before he dies.
- Slit open the prisoner's stomach and draw out their entrails.
- Burn said entrails before the prisoner's eyes.
- Decapitate the condemned.
- Divide the body into four parts. Sometimes this was done with a sword, and sometimes it was done by tying the four remaining limbs to four horses and tearing the body apart.
Ouch. According to britannica.com, 'Drawing' refers to the drawing out of the entrails. Cecil Adams points out that it probably refers to the dragging of the condemned by horses. It's still not a pretty way to go.
As you can imagine, this sentence was not given lightly. The Scotsman William Wallace was probably the most famous recipient of this punishment, which was carried out upon him in 1305 (the end of the movie Braveheart shows the initial stages of his fate). This punishment stayed on the books from the 13th til the mid-19th centuries.