# When and where was Guillotine used?



## LWFlouisa (Dec 20, 2017)

France is notorious for how long they used the Guillotine, though Nazis executed for more people than the France.

French Canada only used it once as an obscure historical note. But what part of Europe used the guillotine after the French refinement of decapitation machines? (Excluding things like Halifax Gibbet, Scottish Maiden, and Italian Mannia.)

In some subsets of countries like Alsace, France for example, it seems apparent more pardons were done than beheadings, although do to it being a war torn region, it's hard to verify things things completely, as Sergie Benanti told me when I was asking for clarifications about Anna-Marie Boeglin (the love interest in my science fantasy novella.)

But other places (like the rest of France) are far less vague in historical records. I know Luxembourg used it once on a woman, although it seems decidedly rare compared to France. Belgium had it, but I don't believe a woman was ever guillotined.

Compare this with say, earlier beheading machines, and the records seem far more numerous. Which seems weird, as the French Revolution was a bloody time in history. (Genocide might be a overstatement, not sure.)

I ask because even if something is set in the middle ages, I've noticed from time to time, and even in television shows that are apparently ancient history (Hercules anyone?) had a guillotine at one point. Yet the French model didn't come about until the 18th century.

Then I'm am one to look up obscure historical factlets, like how Wooden Clogs were not unique to The Netherlands.


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## CupofJoe (Dec 20, 2017)

I only know what Wikipedia tells me about this. 
As for film and TV... I've never taken many of them as factually accurate.
And as for wooden clogs... Up to fairly recently they were daily wear in parts of the North-west where clothing mills still ran. and in gunpowder works as the wood couldn't cause sparks.


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## Heliotrope (Dec 20, 2017)

Honest question... why does it matter? How does this matter to your story?


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## pmmg (Dec 20, 2017)

I am not sure the Hercules series (Kevin Sorbo right?) really counts as a effort to be historically accurate. They also had Julius Ceaser as a character, and that was well after everything the Greeks would have considered legends.

An actual guillotine is clearly a French invention of the late 1700's. Devices like it, I am sure would not be hard to imagine. I am sure Davinci could have come up with a device like this if he set his mind to it. I am just not sure the sentiment was there to make one, a humane death, when so many other forms of death would be available. If you want one of these devices in an earlier time period, and your world has the technology and sentiment to invent it, I don't think it would be a stretch that it was available earlier. Chopping off peoples heads was always in fashion.


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## LWFlouisa (Dec 20, 2017)

It matters as I already wrote the book, what more need be said? Defending me writing about guillotines is a practice in futility. Or am I misreading?

I mean just because I have it in my story doesn't mean I advocate capital punishment.


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## Devor (Dec 20, 2017)

So this should get posted a lot more often than it does, but I want to quote something from the guidelines for the Research forum:



Ravana said:


> Things that are NOT appropriate as responses in this forum:
> - “Who cares?” –The person asking the question does. So does every other person responding seriously and appropriately.
> - “Your readers won’t care.” –You can’t know this… unless you’re intimately familiar with the topic, in which case you should _explain why_ you think readers won’t care. Even then, you could be wrong.
> - “It’s your story; you can do whatever you want.” – This is *not* research. The OP already _knows_ he can make something up. What he “wants” is either to _avoid_ doing so, or to glean ideas founded in reality as a _basis_ for doing so.
> ...



The research forum is for, well, real-world discussion.  Please do not undermine a serious question, or the basis for a discussion, with responses like those described here.  You may even be right, perhaps nobody will care, but why should that prevent someone from learning a few facts?


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## pmmg (Dec 20, 2017)

Okay, fair enough...

An actual guillotine is clearly a French invention of the late 1700's.

Concepts of machines of this nature (beheading machines) can be seen in theory at least as far back as the 1200's. An early device like a guillotine was a Scottish Maiden, which was apparently used around the 1500's. As with any of these, as ideas tend to evolve, there were probably earlier versions than these, just not many records of them.

For the most part, why invent a machine, when an axe would be sufficient?


Scottish Maiden


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## pmmg (Dec 20, 2017)

Wow, somehow I missed the question here entirely, I am not sure what I was reading....

I found this on the internet

*What countries have used the guillotine?*

It was used by Algeria , Belgium , Germany , Greece , Italy up to 1875, Luxembourg , Monaco , Switzerland up to 1940, Sweden , Tunisia and Vietnam , which was then called Indo China and was under French control. The Papal States in Italy used the guillotine from 1814 to 1870 for 369 executions.

*How many people were executed by the guillotine?*

Under this system, at least 40,000 people were killed. As many as 300,000 Frenchmen and women (1 in 50 Frenchmen and women) were arrested during a ten month period between September 1793 and July 1794. Included in these numbers were, of course, the deaths of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

*When was the last time they used the guillotine?*

The guillotine remained France's standard method of judicial execution until as recently as the abolition of capital punishment in 1981. The last person to be executed in France was Hamida Djandoubi, who was guillotined on 10 September 1977.


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## LWFlouisa (Dec 20, 2017)

Thanks! I'll look into some of these. Just finished one book set in 21st century Alsatian-American Wild North West. (Guillotine Western)



pmmg said:


> Wow, somehow I missed the question here entirely, I am not sure what I was reading....
> 
> I found this on the internet
> 
> ...


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## Hybris (Jul 4, 2022)

I can confirm that the Guillotine had been invented during the XVIII century, by Dr Guillotin (1789, exactly), because before, they used the axe or the sword for the nobles, the hanging for the others. Buuut, the executionners weren't perfect, and oftenly, they did not succed to kill fastly and properly the victim. So it hurted. A lot. And it was quite loudy, bloody, and a charming experience for everyone.
Then came Dr Guillotin, a modern, scientific, and empathic man. He thought that being killed was a sufficient punishment, and that we didn't needed to torture the sentenced to death, and he invented a machine to make a clean cut - hurtless. It was the guillotine. Thank you, Dr Guillotin !
Then came the massacres of the Terror, and... well. Dr Guillotin's invetion became way less progressive.

PS - I just saw that it was a really old thread... I still post it, but I don't think it will be very useful...


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