Levant An episode from the Crusades In 1123,
Joscelin de Courtenay and
Baldwin II were separately ambushed and surprised by a Turkish
emir, Balac, and made prisoners at the castle at Quartapiert. Some 50
Armenians, bound by oath to Joscelin as
Count of Edessa, decided to free their liege lord as well as Baldwin II. Dressed as monks and pedlars, they gained entry in the town where the two nobles were held captive, and managed, through massacre, to take control of the castle. Joscelin slipped out in order to raise a force, while Baldwin II and his nephew Galeran remained behind to hold the castle. Apprised of the capture of the castle, Balac sent quickly a force to recapture it, and Baldwin II saw no possibility of holding it. Graciously, Balac took Baldwin and his nephew merely prisoners. Not so merciful was he towards the Armenians: Several of them were flayed, others buried up to the neck and used as target practice, the rest were sawn apart.
The Assassins The
Assassins, a misnomer for the
Nizari, an
Ismaili sect, had an independent kingdom in the Levant during the age of the
Crusades, and were feared and loathed by Muslims and Christians alike. The Jewish traveller
Benjamin of Tudela, travelling the region around 1157 notes that the Assassins were reputed to saw in two the kings of other peoples, if they managed to capture them.
Ottoman Empire A number of accounts exist where the
Ottomans are said to have sawn persons in two, most of them said to occur in
Mehmed the Conqueror's reign (1451–1481).
1453 conquest of Constantinople A number of cruel excesses against the populace of
Constantinople are said to have happened in the wake of the
taking of the city. According to one rendering of the tale:
1460 Capture of Mystras After the last
Despot of Morea,
Demetrios Palaiologos, in 1460 switched allegiance to the Turks and gave them entry to Mystras, a tale grew up that the actual
castellan at the castle of
Mystras was ordered sawn in two. This tale was "well known" in later centuries, whatever its actual veracity.
1460 Michael Szilágyi In 1460, the Hungarian general
Michael Szilágyi was seized by the Turks, and since he was regarded as a traitor and spy, he was sawn in half at Constantinople.
1460–1464 campaigns and slaughter in the Morea In the following years, inhabitants in Greece under the Venetians fought several battles in the Morea. In 1464, for example, a small city is said to have been subdued, and 500 prisoners sent to Constantinople. There, they were put to the saw, according to one account.
1463 conquest of Mytilene, Lesbos The
Knights Hospitallers, then stationed at
Rhodes, sent several knights to aid in the defence of
Mytilene from the Turks. They eventually surrendered, under promise of having their lives spared. Instead, according to some reports, they were sawn asunder. According to
Kenneth Meyer Setton, the
sultan had actually promised to spare the heads of some 400 knights, and sawed them in half to keep his oath of not harming the heads.
1469/1470 conquest of Negroponte The
Triarchy of Negroponte, a
Crusader state or under control of the
Republic of Venice, was extinguished by the
capture of the city in 1469/1470, and the governor Paolo Erizzo, is said to treacherously to have been ordered sawn in two, after have being promised his life would be spared. The sultan, Mehmed the Conqueror, is said to have cut off the head of Erizzo's daughter by his own hands, because she would not yield to his desires.
1473 The arsonist at Gallipoli In 1473, a Sicilian called Anthony is said to have set fire to the sultan's ships at the
Sanjak of Gelibolu,
Gallipoli. After being captured at
Negroponte, he was brought before the sultan who asked him what harm had been done to him that he performed such an evil deed? The young man answered that he simply wanted to harm the enemy of Christianity in some glorious way. The sultan is said to have ordered that Anthony should be sawn in two.
1480 invasion of Otranto In 1480, the Ottomans, led by
Gedik Ahmed Pasha, invaded mainland Italy,
occupying Otranto. A
general massacre, of disputed magnitude, occurred. Archbishop
Stefano Pendinelli was, by some reports, ordered to be sawn in half.
1611 revolt of Dionysius the Philosopher Dionysius the Philosopher led an eventually unsuccessful revolt against the Ottomans, seeking to establish a power base at
Ioannina. Dionysius was flayed alive, and his skin, stuffed with straw, was sent as a present to the sultan,
Ahmed I, at Constantinople. The other principal conspirators were said to be punished in various ways, some were burnt alive, others impaled, and yet others sawn asunder.
The mythologized death of Rhigas, the protomartyr of Greek independence Rigas Feraios (1760–1798) was an early Greek patriot, whose struggle for independence of Greece preceded with about 30 years the general uprising known as the
Greek War of Independence. His actual manner of death has garnered many tales;
Encyclopædia Britannica 1911, for example, states that he was shot in the back. Yet others state that he was strangled. Some 19th century stories report that he was sawn in two. Finally, one source asserts he was beheaded.
Mughal Empire near the towns of
Mohali and
Sirhind in Punjab, India. The Sikh
Bhai Mati Das, a follower of the 9th guru,
Guru Tegh Bahadur was in 1675 AD ordered to be executed by emperor
Aurangzeb, along with several other prominent Sikhs, including their Guru, because the Guru was resisting the forceful conversion of Kashmiri Pandits into Islam. Bhai Mati Das was sawn in half, the others in different manners.
Burma Several reports state that even in the 1820s, sawing criminals in two was an occasional punishment in Burma for "certain offences". The criminals were fastened between two planks prior to the sawing. This may have been conflated by reports of
disembowelment, for which eyewitness reports exist. The Burmese general
Maha Bandula is said to have had one of his high-ranking officers sawn in two, due to some act of disobedience, the person being fastened between two planks for that purpose.
Vietnam Martyrdom of Augustin Huy On occasion, a confusion of reports may exist where, for example, performed post-mortem indignities are misinterpreted as the actual manner of execution: In 1839, the governor of Vietnam's
Nam Định Province summoned five hundred soldiers to a banquet to pressure them into trampling upon a cross in renunciation of Christianity. Most of the guests complied, but three Catholic soldiers refused. One of the
Vietnamese Martyrs, Augustin Huy, is reported by some sources to have been sawn in two. Others report that he was hacked to death, or cut in two. But a letter from 1839, just three weeks after the execution 12 June, states that he was beheaded:
Imperial China Technique The movement of a saw may cause a body to sway back and forth making the process difficult for the executioners. The Chinese overcame this problem by securing the victim in an upright position between two boards firmly fixed between stakes driven deep into the ground. Two executioners, one at each end of the saw, would saw downwards through the stabilized boards and enclosed victim. Whether sawing as an execution method actually existed, or that cases referred to are garbled accounts of the "
slow slicing" method of execution remains an open question.
Tang dynasty The emperor
Zhaozong of Tang (r. 888–904) is said to have commanded one of his prisoners sawn asunder.
Qing dynasty When the
last emperor of the
Ming dynasty committed suicide in 1644, the
new emperor had one of the previous regime's strongest supporters, Chen, said to be viceroy of Canton, sawn in two. Growing more popular in his martyrdom, the new regime condemned Chen's execution, declared he was a holy man and erected a Canton pagoda in his memory. ==Europe==