Talk:Breaking wheel

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.

The reference to "Probertenencyclopaedia - illustrated" doesn't work now.

AWhiteC 21:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

But now it does. (It's not really up to standard, but has one relevant image.)--Niels Ø 08:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Torture?

From the introduction (added in the series of edits [1]):

It was not used for coercion through torture.

From the following paragraph (added from EB1911 [2]), ==Description==:

Breaking on the wheel was a form of torture and execution formerly in use

I find it hard to believe it was never used for torture, and it would be impossible to prove it wasn't, but know nothing of the subject matter; it just looks like a self-contradiction to me.--Niels Ø 08:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The contradiction is only an apparant one, depending on two uses of the term torture: in 'torture and execution' it simply means a torturous or very painfull way to apply capital punishment, on itself torture 'proper' is any cruel technique to coerce, i.e. force the victim to confession, conversion, obedience... but since breaking is lethal, there is no way to comply, so coercion would be utterly pointless, while a non-terminal dose of the same torturous technique of breaking, say, one or two limbs, (possibly on an identical wheel) makes rather effective torture (virtually reintroduced in Israel against the Intifada, be it without wheel and using stones rather then mallets). Still a bit of rephrasing maybe be advisable Fastifex 13:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The wheel clearly was used for torture at times, for example by the Castilian Inquisition. I have removed the assertion that it was not used for coercive torture. CanadrianUK (talk) 10:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

torture, like aggravated assault, is not defined by its possible use as an interrogation method. Rather its gravamen is "cruel and extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion or any other sadistic purpose" (See CA Penal Code Section 206). Mostly it is in the context of the latter that we see this phenomenon. Take Abu Ghraib where the abuse was entirely gratuitous, performed mostly for the warped sadistical entertainment value it gave to the perpetrators, ditto for psychopaths like Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, John Wayne Gacy etc.

[edit] Use in the Holy German Empire

the article states : "In the Holy Roman Empire, it is named (alongside impalement) as a mode of execution in in the "Cautio criminalis" of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, against traitors, highway robbers and notorious debauchees.". I questioned this, and somebody said it was from the Catholic Encyclopedia. The passage indeed seems to be derived from there, but even in context, said passage is about impossible to understand and verify. I mean : a) I can't find any references to a Hapsburg "cautio criminalis" , b) This is the first time I hear of impalement being mentioned in a Western European criminal code and c)the three crimes cited would not normally be punishable the same way, especially debauchery, which ordinarily entailed relatively light penalties, or went all the way to even worse than the wheel if it entailed such dreadful abominations as homosexuality or bestiality. So overall this passage does not make sense, and unless it can be improved in a hurry, I'm motioning to get suppressed altogether. --Svartalf 20:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


I have added a short referenced section on the use of the wheel under law in the HRE. CanadrianUK (talk) 10:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use in the Swedish Kingdom

During the Scanian War, this method was widley used to kill captured danish guerilla fighters and other captives that opposed Sweden during the great wars of Europe to make examples and as a form of psycological warfare aginst the enemy.

[edit] Cleanup

The paragraph beginning with "The methods of execution by crucifixion..." needs a cleanup. I'm not sure what it's trying to say. The entire "Description" section should be in chronological order as best as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 38.112.23.58 (talk) 16:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Content removed

I removed the following, which seemed like a haphazard collections of factoids without sources, sometimes of a dubious relevance: David.Monniaux 13:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

In the Holy Roman Empire, it is named (alongside impalement) as a mode of execution in the "Constitutio Criminalis Carolina" of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, against traitors, highway robbers and notorious debauchees.

The methods of execution by crucifixion (as under the Roman law), or breaking on the wheel (as under the Roman Dutch law and the Holy Roman Empire), were never recognized by the common law, and would fall within the term cruel and unusual punishments in the English Bill of Rights, and in the United States would seem to be unconstitutional (In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 446 (1889).) Even in the early 20th century, the Roman-Dutch modes of executing the sentence by decapitation or breaking on the wheel had not been formally abolished,[citation needed] but in practice the sentence in the Cape Colony was executed by hanging, and in Transvaal hanging was the sole mode of executing capital punishment (Criminal Procedure Code, 1903, S. 244). The Roman-Dutch law as to crime and punishments has been superseded in Ceylon and British Guiana by ordinance.

Another notable executee of the breaking wheel, Jean Calas, was executed for allegedly killing his son. This inspired some of Voltaire's work, which led to Calas' rehabilitation, and to a movement for the abolition of such tortures in judicial practice.

Peter the Great had more than 1,000 Streltsy executed, either by hanging, beheading, or being broken on the wheel, after he returned from the Great Embassy to find that over 2,000 of them had again revolted. After this he disbanded the remaining 16,000, confiscated their houses and their weapons, and exiled them, together with their families, to Siberia and other remote places in Russia.

In Roman Catholicism, the breaking wheel is the corresponding punishment in Hell for one of the Seven Deadly Sins, Pride.[citation needed]