I wondered if the prisoner’s stance in the engraving was normal for a sword execution, it seemed like it would be more efficient for everyone to place your neck on a backstop like the chained log. With the backstop you wouldn’t have to worry about your flopping body absorbing any of the executioner’s swing energy.
So to wikipedia I went, and based on the images in that article both of the prisoners are shown either standing or kneeling rather than resting their necks on a backstop. Ouch.
I wondered if the prisoner’s stance in the engraving was normal for a sword execution, it seemed like it would be more efficient for everyone to place your neck on a backstop like the chained log. With the backstop you wouldn’t have to worry about your flopping body absorbing any of the executioner’s swing energy.
So to wikipedia I went, and based on the images in that article both of the prisoners are shown either standing or kneeling rather than resting their necks on a backstop. Ouch.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Beheading_Fac_simile_of_a_Miniature_on_Wood_in_the_Cosmographie_Universelle_of_Munster_in_folio_Basle_1552.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Scharfrichterschwert-ffm002.jpg
The french form of beheading was to have them kneel upright during a beheading instead of putting their neck on a block.
It’s how Anne Boleyn was decapitated by the swordsman from Calais.
I once saw a video of an execution in Saudi Arabia, the prisoners were just kneeling with their heads bowed a little.