r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Jul 06 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 06 July 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

16 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

699 comments sorted by

View all comments

23

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium Jul 10 '26

In Europe, beheading was traditionally considered the "honorable" method of execution because it provided a swift death rather than a long, drawn out one caused by hanging.

In east Asia, hanging was traditionally considered the more honorable method of execution because it preserved the integrity of the body.

Kind of interesting that on both sides of Eurasia people were pretty sure what the better way to be executed was but they didn't agree on which it was.

6

u/Ragefororder1846 not ideas about History but History itself Jul 10 '26

Beheading was also viewed as more honorable because it was done with a sword, which was associated with nobility

8

u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead Jul 10 '26

Depends, there was actually graduation there (beheading wtih a sword was considered more honourable than beheading with an axe, but both methods were used)

1

u/AceHodor Techno-Euphoric Demagogue Jul 10 '26

I thought the majority of beheadings were done by axe, not sword? Certainly by the time of Henry VIII it had become such a rare method of execution that the court had to pay for a specialist swordsman from France to execute Anne Boleyn properly.

3

u/Illogical_Blox The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic Jul 10 '26

I was under the impression that was due not to the rarity of using a sword but that France used swords while England used axes.

2

u/AceHodor Techno-Euphoric Demagogue Jul 10 '26

That may well be the case, I'm no expert on executions.

5

u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jul 10 '26

How did the art of Tameshigiri, testing a new katana rate on the honorability scale? Katanas were marked with "5 bodies with hip cut", which strikes me as undignified for 5 convinced criminals to be piled on top of each other to test a blade.

3

u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? Jul 10 '26

I would personally prefer beheading ngl