- Wool Merchants from Northleach Church
Wool Merchants from Northleach Church - The Assault
Seizing that moment, a party of camp followers run forward with a couple of planks, which they throw over the moat to make a temporary bridge. They are across in an instant, and place scaling-ladders against the walls. The knights, following close at their heels, mount rapidly, each man carrying his shield over his head, so that the bare ladder is converted into a covered stair, from whose shield-roof arrows glint and stones roll off innocuous. It is easy to see that a body of the enemy might thus, in a few minutes, effect a lodgment on the castle-wall, and open a way for the whole party of assailants into the interior. - Robert Braunche,of Lynn
Robert Braunche,of Lynn - Monumental Brass of Alderman Field and his Son, a.d. 1474
Monumental Brass of Alderman Field and his Son, a.d. 1474 - John of Eltham
Illustration the sepulchral effigy in Westminster Abbey of John of Eltham, the second son of King Edward II., who died in 1334. Here we see first and lowest the hacqueton; then the hauberk of chain mail, slightly pointed in front, which was one of the fashions of the time - John Fortey
John Fortey - Funeral Service of a Hermit
Funeral Service of a Hermit - An Execution in Paris
The woodcut represents the execution, in Paris, of a famous captain of robbers, Aymerigol Macel. The scaffold is enclosed by a hoarding; at the nearer corners are two friars, one in brown and one in black, probably a Franciscan and a Dominican; the official, who stands with his hands resting on his staff superintending the executioner, has a gown of red with sleeves lined with white fur, his bonnet is black turned up also with white fur. In the background are the timber houses on one side of the place, with the people looking out of their windows; a signboard will be seen standing forth from one of the houses. The groups of people in the distance and those in the foreground give the costumes of the ordinary dwellers in a fourteenth-century city. - A Chinese Tomb
The number of Chinese going in the same direction as ourselves was very great, as the worshipping of the tombs had just begun. Most of these people were on foot, but some went along in chairs. They carried with them long strings of paper ingots, to burn at the tombs. These ingots, or mock-money, are done up like little sugar-loaves, and are strung on cord. I saw men carrying five or six such long strings of ingots from the end of their bamboos. They also had offerings of cake in red painted boxes, fire-crackers, and bright-coloured and white paper, the latter of which they stick in strips on the graves. I also saw some men carrying roasted pigs cooked whole, for offerings. The Chinese are too thrifty to leave these at the tombs ; they merely offer them, then bring them home and feast on them with their relations. All male members of a family must worship their ancestors' tombs yearly, and we met fathers taking their sons of all ages with them to the graves. The tombs were soon on all sides of us ; they are in the form of a horse-shoe, and are built on the sides of the mountain in stone or asphalte. These belong to the rich ; the graves of the poorer class are simply marked by an upright stone or a conical mound of earth. - Burning the Dead - Etruscan Ceremony
Etruscan painting of a Ceremonial Burning of the Dead - Death of Sainte-Geneviève
Sainte-Geneviève, the patron saint of the Parisians, also perpetuated with her legend on the walls of the Panthéon, originally her church but now dedicated to the Grands Hommes of the nation, was born at Nanterre, near Paris, in 422, and guarded in the fields the flocks of her parents, Sévère and Gérontia. - Visit to the grave of a Relation
Filial piety in China extends beyond the grave. Every year at certain periods dutiful children assemble at the tomb of their parents or ancestors, to make oblations of flowers, or fruit, or pieces of gilt paper, or whatever else they consider as likely to be acceptable to the manes of the departed. Their mourning dress consists of a garment of Nanquin cotton, or canvas, of the coarsest kind. Some of the monuments erected over the dead are by no means inelegant; like their bridges and triumphal arches, they are very much varied, and made apparently without any fixed design or proportion. The semicircular or the horse-shoe form, like that in the print before which the mourner is kneeling, appeared to be the most common. - Assasination of Edward the Martyr
Assasination of Edward the Martyr - The Murder of La Salle by his Followers
For two years the wretched little colony struggled for life. La Salle was in sore distress. He knew he had many enemies among his men who would gladly take his life, but he hoped for help from France. No help came. It was plain to La Salle that he could save the suffering colony only by making his way to Canada. He therefore started out on January 12, 1687, with a party of seventeen men and five horses, on another long and dangerous journey through the dense forests—this time from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. Travelling north, the party crossed the Brazos River and toiled onward to the Trinity River. But La Salle's men were tired of travelling through the forests, and some of them were thirsting for his blood. They were waiting only for a suitable opportunity to carry out their murderous purpose. On the morning of March 19th they lay in ambush, and shot him dead as he approached, probably not far from the Trinity River. - The Death of Wolfe
The fighting was stubborn and furious, and Wolfe was in the thickest of the fray. While he was leading a charge, a bullet tore through his wrist. Quickly wrapping his handkerchief about the wound, he dashed forward until he was for the third time struck by a bullet, this time receiving a mortal wound. Four of his men bore him in their arms to the rear, and wished to send for a surgeon; but Wolfe said, "There's no need; it's all over with me." A little later, hearing someone cry "They run; see how they run!" he asked, "Who runs?" "The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!" Then said Wolfe in his last moments, "Now, God be praised. I will die in peace." - Jews burnt alive
The Jews of Cologne burnt alive From a Woodcut in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi:" large folio, Nuremberg, 1493. In 1370, the people of Brussels were startled in consequence of the statements of a Jewess, who accused her co-religionists of having made her carry a pyx full of stolen hosts to the Jews of Cologne, for the purpose of submitting them to the most horrible profanations. The woman added, that the Jews having pierced these hosts with sticks and knives, such a quantity of blood poured from them that the culprits were struck with terror, and concealed themselves in their quarter. The Jews were all imprisoned, tortured, and burnt alive. In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding hosts, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great kermesse, or annual fair. - Punishment by Fire
Punishment by Fire When a criminal had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man. Care was taken to leave a free space round the stake for the victim, and also a passage by which to lead him to it. Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a shirt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains. After this, faggots and straw were thrown into the empty space through which he had passed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once - Public Execution
Originally, decapitation was indiscriminately inflicted on all criminals condemned to death; at a later period, however, it became the particular privilege of the nobility, who submitted to it without any feeling of degradation. The victim--unless the sentence prescribed that he should be blindfolded as an ignominious aggravation of the penalty--was allowed to choose whether he would have his eyes covered or not. He knelt down on the scaffold, placed his head on the block, and gave himself up to the executioner. The skill of the executioner was generally such that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke. Public Executions.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Latin Work of J. Millaeus, "Praxis Criminis Persequendi:" small folio, Parisis, Simon de Colines, 1541. - Member of Brotherhood of death
Member of the Brotherhood of Death, whose duty it was to accompany those sentenced to death - Decapitation of Guillaume de Pommiers.
And his Confessor, at Bordeaux in 1377, by order of the King of England's Lieutenant. Froissart's Chronicles. No. 2644, Bibl. nat'le de Paris. - A Morai at Kayakakoua
A Morai [sacred place ] at Kayakakoua - Last Rites
- Funeral Procession
- Funeral Arch on the Hudson
- Assasination at Ford's Theatre
- Remains Lying in state at Chicago
Remains Lying in state at Chicago