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The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment from antiquity into early modern times for public execution by breaking the criminal's bones/bludgeoning him to death. As a form of execution, it was used from classical times into the 18th century; as a form of ''post mortem'' punishment of the criminal, the wheel was still in use in 19th-century Germany. ==Description== The wheel was typically a large wooden wagon wheel with many radial spokes. The condemned were lashed to the wheel and their limbs were beaten with a club or iron cudgel, with the gaps in the wheel allowing the limbs to give way and break. Alternatively, the condemned were spreadeagled and broken on a saltire, a cross consisting of two wooden beams nailed in an "X" shape, after which the victim's mangled body might be displayed on the wheel. A wheel was sometimes used for the actual bludgeoning. During the execution for parricide of Franz Seuboldt in Nuremberg on 22 September 1589, a wheel was used as a cudgel. The executioner used wooden blocks to raise Seuboldt's limbs, then broke them by slamming a wagon wheel down onto the limb.〔Depicted in the contemporary woodcut ''An Aggravated Death Sentence'', Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.〕 The survival time after being "broken" could be extensive. Accounts exist of a 14th-century murderer who lived for three days after undergoing the punishment. In 1348, during the time of the Black Death, a Jew named Bona Dies underwent the punishment. The authorities stated he lived for four days and nights afterwards. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Breaking wheel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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