Humans have practiced capital punishment by beheading for millennia. The Narmer Palette (c. 3000 BCE) shows the first known depiction of decapitated corpses. The terms “capital offence”, “capital crime”, “capital punishment”, derive from the Latin caput, “head”, referring to the punishment for serious offences involving the forfeiture of the head; i.e. death by beheading.[13]

Some cultures, such as ancient Rome and Greece, regarded decapitation as the most honorable form of death.[14] In the Middle Ages, many European nations continued to reserve the method only for nobles and royalty.[15] In France, the French Revolution made it the only legal method of execution for all criminals regardless of class, one of the period’s many symbolic changes.[14]

Others have regarded beheading as dishonorable and contemptuous, such as the Japanese troops who beheaded prisoners during World War II.[14] In recent times, it has become associated with terrorism.[14]

If a headsman’s axe or sword is sharp and his aim is precise, decapitation is quick and thought to be a relatively painless form of death. If the instrument is blunt or the executioner is clumsy, repeated strokes might be required to sever the head, resulting in a prolonged and more painful death. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex,[16] and Mary, Queen of Scots[17] required three strikes at their respective executions. The same could be said for the execution of Johann Friedrich Struensee, favorite of the Danish queen Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, is said to have required up to 10 strokes before decapitation was achieved.[18] This particular story may, however, be apocryphal, as highly divergent accounts exist. Historian and philosopher David Hume, for example, relates the following about her death:[19]

She refused to lay her head on the block, or submit to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner, that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could: and thus, shaking her venerable grey locks, she ran about the scaffold; and the executioner followed her with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck before he was able to give the fatal stroke.

To ensure that the blow would be fatal, executioners’ swords usually were blade-heavy two-handed swords. Likewise, if an axe was used, it almost invariably was wielded with both hands.