Immurement

Book three, chapter 81, passage five reads as follows:[8] Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.The Vestal Virgins in ancient Rome constituted a class of priestesses whose principal duty was to maintain the sacred fire dedicated to Vesta (goddess of the home and the family), and they lived under a strict vow of chastity and celibacy.

If that vow of chastity was broken, the offending priestess was immured alive as follows:[9] When condemned by the college of pontifices, she was stripped of her vittae and other badges of office, was scourged, attired like a corpse, placed in a closed litter, borne through the forum attended by her weeping kindred with all the ceremonies of a real funeral to a rising ground called the Campus Sceleratus.

The pontifex maximus, having lifted up his hands to heaven and uttered a secret prayer, opened the litter, led forth the culprit, and placed her on the steps of the ladder which gave access to the subterranean cell.

He delivered her over to the common executioner and his assistants, who led her down, drew up the ladder, and having filled the pit with earth until the surface was level with the surrounding ground, left her to perish deprived of all the tributes of respect usually paid to the spirits of the departed.The order of the Vestal Virgins existed for about 1,000 years, but only about 10 effected immurements are attested in extant sources.

[15] In 1149, Duke Otto III of Olomouc of the Moravian Přemyslid dynasty immured the abbot Deocar and 20 monks in the refectory in the monastery of Rhadisch, where they starved to death.

[20] Being labeled the most prolific female serial killer in history has earned her the nickname of the "Blood Countess", and she is often compared with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia in folklore.

For example, in the 4th century AD, one nun named Alexandra immured herself in a tomb for ten years with a tiny aperture enabling her to receive meager provisions.

[24] In Catholic monastic tradition, there existed a type of enforced, solitary confinement for nuns or monks who had broken their vows of chastity, or espoused heretical ideas.

As Henry Charles Lea puts it, the tradition seems to have been that of complete, utter isolation from other human beings, but that food was, indeed, provided:[25] In the case of Jeanne, widow of B. de la Tour, a nun of Lespenasse, in 1246, who had committed acts of both Catharan and Waldensian heresy, and had prevaricated in her confession, the sentence was confinement in a separate cell in her own convent, where no one was to enter or see her, her food being pushed in through an opening left for the purpose—in fact, the living tomb known as the "in pace".In the footnote appended to this passage, Lea writes:[26] The cruelty of the monastic system of imprisonment known as in pace, or vade in pacem, was such that those subjected to it speedily died in all the agonies of despair.

Even this slender innovation provoked the bitterest resistance of the Dominicans and Franciscans, who appealed to Pope Clement VI., but in vain Although the vade in pace tradition therefore seems to one of perpetual confinement, but not immurement where the individual was meant to starve to death.

However, Sir Walter Scott, himself an antiquarian, notes in a remark to his epic poem Marmion (1808):[27] It is well known, that the religious, who broke their vows of chastity, were subjected to the same penalty as the Roman Vestals in a similar case.

A small niche, sufficient to enclose their bodies, was made in the massive wall of the convent; a slender pittance of food and water was deposited in it and the awful words Vade in pace, were the signal for immuring the criminal.

It is not likely that, in latter times, this punishment was often resorted to; but, among the ruins of the abbey of Coldingham were some years ago discovered the remains of a female skeleton which, from the shape of the niche, and the position of the figure seemed to be that of an immured nun.The practice of immuring nuns or monks on breaches of chastity has a long history, and Francesca Medioli writes the following in her essay "Dimensions of the Cloister":[28] At Lodi in 1662 Sister Antonia Margherita Limera stood trial for having introduced a man into her cell and entertained him for a few days; she was sentenced to be walled in alive on a diet of bread and water.

In the same year, the trial for breach of enclosure and sexual intercourse against the cleric Domenico Cagianella and Sister Vincenza Intanti of the convent of San Salvatore in Ariano had an identical outcome.In the ancient Sumerian city of Ur some graves (as early as 2500 BC.)

In one such grave, as Gerda Lerner wrote on page 60 of her book The Creation of Patriarchy: The human sacrifices were probably first drugged or poisoned, as evidenced by a drinking cup near each body, then the pit was immured, and covered with earth[29]The Neo-Assyrian Empire is notorious for its brutal repression techniques, not the least of those reasons being because several of its rulers congratulating themselves upon the vengeance they wrought by going into detail of how they dealt with their enemies.

The traveller M. E. Hume-Griffith stayed in Persia from 1900 to 1903, and she wrote the following:[33] Another sad sight to be seen in the desert sometimes, are brick pillars in which some unfortunate victim is walled up alive ...

Men bricked up in this way have been heard groaning and calling for water at the end of three days.Travelling back and forth to Persia from 1630 to 1668 as a gem merchant, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier observed much the same custom that Hume-Griffith noted some 250 years later.

[34] John Fryer,[35] travelling Persia in the 1670s, writes the following:[36] From this Plain to Lhor, both in the Highways, and on the high Mountains, were frequent Monuments of Thieves immured in Terror of others who might commit the like Offence; they having literally a Stone-Doublet, whereas we say metaphorically, when any is in Prison, He has it Stone Doublet on; for these are plastered up, all but their Heads, in a round Stone Tomb, which are left out, not out of kindness, but to expose them to the Injury of the Weather, and Assaults of the Birds of Prey, who wreak their Rapin with as little Remorse, as they did devour their Fellow-Subjects.In the late 1650s, various sons of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan became embroiled in wars of succession, in which Aurangzeb was victorious.

[37] During Mughal rule in early 18th century India, the two youngest sons of Guru Gobind Singh were sentenced to death by being bricked alive for their refusal to convert to Islam and abandon the Sikh faith.

It was, no doubt, well deserved; for he had immured alive a great number of Greek Christians when he rebuilt the Walls of Barut..The heads of these miserable victims, which the butcher had left out, in order to enjoy their tortures, are still to be seen.Staying as a diplomat in Persia from 1860 to 1863, E. B. Eastwick met at one time, the Sardar i Kull, or military high commander, Aziz Khan.

The remains of these living tombs may still be seen outside Derwaze-i-kassah-khane ("Slaughter-house Gate") at Shiraz, while another series lines the road as it enters the little town of Abade...Immurement was practiced in Mongolia as recently as the early 20th century.

In a newspaper report from 1914, it is written:[43] ... the prisons and dungeons of the Far Eastern country contain a number of refined Chinese shut up for life in heavy iron-bound coffins, which do not permit them to sit upright or lie down.

The folklore of many Southeastern European peoples refers to immurement as the mode of death for the victim sacrificed during the completion of a construction project, such as a bridge or fortress (mostly real buildings).

One of the most famous versions of the same legend is the Serbian epic poem called The Building of Skadar (Зидање Скадра, Zidanje Skadra) published by Vuk Karadžić, after he recorded a folk song sung by a Herzegovinian storyteller named Old Rashko.

Manole, working on the roof, sees her approach, and pleads with God to unleash the elements, in order to stop her, but in vain: when she arrives, he proceeds to wall her in, pretending to be doing so in jest, with his wife increasingly crying out in pain and distress.

[53] Many other Bulgarian and Romanian folk poems and songs describe a bride offered for such purposes, and her subsequent pleas to the builders to leave her hands and breasts free, that she might still nurse her child.

A cycle whereby a team of skilled builders toils all day only to return the next morning to find their work demolished is eventually ended when the master mason's wife is immured.

[58] Within Inca culture, it is reported that one element in the great Sun festival was the sacrifice of young maidens (between ten and twelve years old), who after their ceremonial duties were done were lowered down in a waterless cistern and were immured alive.

They were then all closed up, and the earth heaped upon them to the height of a large hill.At the end of Verdi's opera Aida the Egyptian General Radames is found guilty of treason and is immured in a cave as punishment.

In response, her husband has the closet door sealed and plastered over, then spends the next twenty days living in his wife's room to ensure her lover cannot escape.