Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed during the 16th-century, it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650.
About Halifax Gibbet in brief
Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed during the 16th-century, it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650. By 1650, public opinion considered beheading to be an excessively severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo-Saxon custom of infangtheof, which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates. The names of 52 people known to have beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque. It is not known how many individuals died via the Halifax Gibbet, but it is believed that the custom lingered on for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere in England. What was unusual about Halifax was that the jury, who would summon a jury of 16 men, would only decide on questions on the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused, claiming they were worth at least 13½d. The Lord of the Manor of Wakefield, of which Halifax was a part, had the power to try and execute any felon for the theft of goods to the value of 13½D or more.
The law was not unique to Halifax; the earls of Chester amongst others also exercised the right to execute convicted felons in the area. A commission appointed by King Edward I in 1278 reported that there were 94 privately owned gibbets in use in Yorkshire, including one owned by the Archbishop of York. The gibbet Law was not recorded in the 17th century, but is believed to be from the time of King Henry III to John de Warenne, lord of the Manor of Wakefield. It may be that the law dates from a time “not in the memory of man to the contrary”; it may also have been the consequence of rights granted by King HenryIII to John De Warennes, Lord of Wakefield, in the 12th century. The Gibbet Law was not recorded in the 13th century, but was described in the 11th- century legal text entitled De Baronibus, qui suas habent curias et consuetudines. Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the11th- Century legal text. It was described as “the best reputed” of four local townships, four from each of each of which had only two people claiming their property had been stolen, claiming that they were the most wealthy and reputed.
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This page is based on the article Halifax Gibbet published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
