The Breaking Wheel

The Breaking Wheel. 

The breaking wheel is another cruel and disturbing form of execution brought to bear by our forefathers. Also known as the Wheel of Catherine, it was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages into the early modern period by breaking the bones of a criminal or bludgeoning them to death. 

The most common form would start with breaking the leg bones. To this end, the executioner dropped the execution wheel on the shinbones of the convicted person and then worked his way up to the arms. Here, rhythm and number of beatings were prescribed in each case, sometimes also the number of spokes on the wheel. To increase its effect, often sharp-edged timbers were placed under the convict's joints. 

In the second act, the body was braided into another wooden spoked wheel which was possible through the broken limbs, or tied to the wheel. The wheel was then erected on a mast or pole, like a crucifixion. After this, the executioner would be permitted to decapitate or garrotte the convicted. Alternatively, the "wheeled" convict may be burnt alive. 

The bodies of the convicted would remain on the wheel, left to animals to scavenge. Accounts exist of a 14th-century murderer who remained conscious for three days after undergoing the punishment. This also had a sacral function beyond death: according to the belief at that time, this would hinder transition from death to resurrection.

The breaking wheel was used as a form of execution in Germany as recently as the early 19th century...

Its use as a method of execution was not fully abolished in Bavaria until 1813 and the last known use of this form of execution took place in Prussia in 1841. 

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