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세인트 마리 성당과 지뱃거리 뒷마당에 위치한 핼리팩스 지뱃의 복제품 사진, 2008년

핼리팩스 지뱃(The Halifax Gibbet /ˈhælɪfæks ˈdʒɪbɪt/)은 초기 단두대(guillotine)로서, 영국 요크셔 서쪽지방의 핼리팩스 마을에서 사용하였다. 16세기 즈음에 도끼와 검의 대체수단으로 참수형에 사용되었을 것으로 추정한다. 핼리팩스지방은 한때 웨이크필드의 영지로, 영주에게는 최소 13½펜스 가치 이상의 재화를 훔쳐 붙잡히거나 자백한 사람을 즉결참수할 수 있는 권한이 있었다. 참수형은 영국에서 꽤 일반적인 사형방식이었지만 다음의 두가지 관점에서 핼리팩스의 경우는 독특했다. 유일하게 단두대를 사용하였고, 17세기 중반까지도 경범죄를 참수했다는 것이다.

이 장치는, 15피트(4.6m) 길이의 두 기둥 꼭대기에 가로지어 연결된 목재 기둥으로 구성되어 있다. 그 사이엔 4 ~ 6피트(1.37m) 정도의 네모난 나무판이 있고, 아랫부분에 7파운드 12온스(3.5kg) 무게의 도끼머리가 박혀있다.[11] 전체 구조가 계단으로 오르는 9피트(2.7m) 너비와 4피트(1.2m) 높이의 기반석위에 있다. 도끼가 박힌 나무판 위에 연결된 밧줄은 도르래를 통해 날을 들어올릴 수 있게 하고, 기반석의 핀에 묶음으로써 고정하였다. 그 밧줄을 자르거나 풀어서 작동시켰다. 

1286년에 처음으로 처형이 기록된 이래로 1650년 후반까지 거의 100여명의 사람이 핼리팩스로 참수되었다. 하지만 도입된 날짜가 명확하지 않기 때문에 정확한 숫자는 알기 힘들다. 1650년에 여론은 죄가 비교적 가벼운 도둑들도 핼리팩스 지뱃으로 참수하는것은 지나치다는 의견이 많았기에 영국연방의 호민관 올리버 크롬웰에 의해 사용이 금지되었고, 곧 해체된다. 1840년 즈음에 기반석이 재발견되면서 보존되오고 있으며, 작동은 되지않는 복제품을 1974년에 제작하여 세워놓았다. 근방의 기념명패에는 이 기구로 처형되었던 52명의 이름이 새겨져있다.

역사

핼리팩스 지뱃 법으로 알려진 법은 한때 핼리팩스 지방이 속했던 웨이크필드 영주에게 힘을 주었고,영주에게는 최소 13½펜스 가치 이상의 재화를 훔쳐 붙잡히거나 자백한 사람을 즉결참수할 수 있는 권한이 있었다. 

17세기 판화에 나타난 핼리팩스 지빗의 모습

The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo-Saxon custom of infangtheof, which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates. Samuel Midgley in his Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light, published in 1761, states that the law dates from a time "not in the memory of man to the contrary". It may have been the consequence of rights granted by King Henry III to John de Warenne (1231–1304), Lord of the Manor of Wakefield. Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the 11th-century legal text entitled De Baronibus, qui suas habent curias et consuetudines (Concerning the barons who have their courts of law and customs). Neither was the decapitation of convicted felons unique to Halifax; the earls of Chester amongst others also exercised the right to "behead any malefactor or thief, who was apprehended in the action, or against whom it was made apparent by sufficient witness, or confession, before four inhabitants of the place", recorded as the Custom of Cheshire.

A commission appointed by King Edward I in 1278 reported that there were at that time 94 privately owned gibbets and gallows in use in Yorkshire, including one owned by the Archbishop of York. What was unusual about Halifax was that the custom lingered on there for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere.

Suspected thieves were detained in the custody of the lord of the manor's bailiff, who would summon a jury of 16 local men "out of the most wealthy and best reputed", four each from four local townships. The jury had only two questions to decide on: were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused, and were they worth at least 13½d. The jury, the accused, and those claiming that their property had been stolen, were brought together in a room at the bailiff's house. No oaths were administered and there was no judge or defence counsel present; each side presented their case, and the jury decided on guilt or innocence.

So strictly was the law applied that anyone who apprehended a thief with his property was not allowed to recover it unless the miscreant and the stolen goods were presented to the bailiff. The goods were otherwise forfeited to the lord of the manor, and their previous rightful owner was liable to find himself charged with theftbote, or conniving in the felony. Halifax's reputation for strict law enforcement was noted by the antiquary William Camden and by the "Water Poet" John Taylor, who penned the Beggar's Litany: "From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us!"

Before his execution a convicted felon was usually detained in custody for three market days, on each of which he was publicly displayed in the stocks, accompanied by the stolen goods. After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men, sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty, and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution, for the official records.

The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick, of which Halifax was a part. The gibbet was about 500 야드 (460 m) from the boundary of the area, and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment. At least two men succeeded in cheating the executioner in that way: a man named Dinnis and another called Lacy. Dinnis was never seen in Halifax again, but Lacy rather unwisely decided to return to the town seven years after his escape; he was apprehended and finally executed in 1623.

The earliest known record of punishment by decapitation in Halifax is the beheading of John of Dalton in 1286, but official records were not maintained until the parish registers began in 1538. Between then and 1650, when the last executions took place, 56 men and women are recorded as having been decapitated. The total number of executions identified since 1286 is just short of 100.

Local weavers specialised in the production of kersey, a hardwearing and inexpensive woollen fabric that was often used for military uniforms; by the 16th century Halifax and the surrounding Calder Valley was the largest producer of the material in England. In the final part of the manufacturing process the cloth was hung outdoors on large structures known as tenterframes and left to dry, after having been conditioned by a fulling mill. Daniel Defoe wrote a detailed account of what he had been told of the gibbet's history during his visit to Halifax in Volume 3 of his A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, published in 1727. He reports that "Modern accounts pretend to say, it [the gibbet] was for all sorts of felons; but I am well assured, it was first erected purely, or at least principally, for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters; and it seems very reasonable to think it was so".

Eighteenth-century historians argued that the area's prosperity attracted the "wicked and ungovernable"; the cloth, left outside and unattended, presented easy pickings, and hence justified severe punishment to protect the local economy. James Holt on the other hand, writing in 1997, sees the Halifax Gibbet Law as a practical application of the Anglo-Saxon law of infangtheof. Royal assizes were held only twice a year in the area; to bring a prosecution was "vastly expensive", and the stolen goods were forfeited to the Crown, as they were considered to be the property of the accused. But the Halifax Gibbet Law allowed "the party injured, to have his goods restored to him again, with as little loss and damage, as can be contrived; to the great encouragement of the honest and industrious, and as great terror to the wicked and evil doers."

The Halifax Gibbet's final victims were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell. Wilkinson had been found guilty of stealing 16 야드 (15 m) of russet-coloured kersey cloth, 9 yards of which, found in his possession, was valued at "9 shillings at the least", and Mitchell of stealing and selling two horses, one valued at 9 shillings and the other at 48 shillings. The pair were found guilty and executed on the same day, 30 April 1650. Writing in 1834 John William Parker, publisher of The Saturday Magazine, suggested that the gibbet might have remained in use for longer in Halifax had the bailiff not been warned that if he used it again he would be "called to public account for it". Midgley comments that the final executions "were by some persons in that age, judged to be too severe; thence came it to pass, that the gibbet, and the customary law, for the forest of Hardwick, got its suspension".

Oliver Cromwell finally ended the exercise of Halifax Gibbet Law. To the Puritans it was "part of ancient ritual to be jettisoned along with all the old feasts and celebrations of the medieval world and the Church of Rome". Moreover, it ran counter to the Puritan objection to imposing the death penalty for petty theft; felons were subsequently sent to the Assizes in York for trial.

기작

A New and Complete History of the County of York , Thomas Allen 作, 1829 에 묘사된 핼리팩스 지빗의 사용모습

정확히 언제 핼리팩스 지빗이 도입되었는지는 확실하지 않지만, 16세기에도 도끼나 검으로 참수를 집행하였으므로 그 전까지는 알려지지 않았을것이다. 영국 고유의 기계로 여겨지는 이 장치는, 15피트(4.6m) 길이의 두 기둥 꼭대기에 가로지어 연결된 목재 기둥으로 구성되어 있다. 그 사이엔 4 ~ 6피트(1.37m) 정도의 네모난 나무판이 있고, 아랫부분에 7파운드 12온스(3.5kg) 무게의 도끼머리가 박혀있다. 전체 구조가 계단으로 오르는 9피트(2.7m) 너비와 4피트(1.2m) 높이의 기반석위에 있다. 도끼가 박힌 나무판 위에 연결된 밧줄은 도르래를 통해 날을 들어올릴 수 있게 하고, 기반석의 핀에 묶음으로써 고정하였다.

그 밧줄을 자르거나 풀어서 작동시켰다. 동물절도범의 경우, 밧줄의 끝을 핀에 감은 후 훔친 동물이나 같은 종의 동물에 묶어 핀쪽을 풀리게 하므로써 날을 떨어뜨렸다.

1586년 라파엘 홀린셰드(Raphael Holinshed)의 이야기에서는 지뱃의 효율성을 증명하였고, 구경꾼들의 참여에 대한 세부사항을 추가했다.

The Imperial Magazine 의 1832년 9월판에 실린 기사는 희생자들의 마지막순간을 묘사하기도 했다.

토마스 딜로니(Thomas Deloney)의 소설Thomas of Reading (1600)에서는 지역 거주민들 사이에서 사형 집행인 역할을 맡기기 어려움에 대한 해결책으로 핼리팩스 지뱃의 발명을 제안한것은 수사였다고 한다.

비록 기요탱(guillotine)이 18세기말 프랑스혁명의 참수방법으로서 단두대의 이미지로 유명하기는 해도, 다른 많은 참수기구들이 유럽 각지에 결쳐 오랫동안 쓰여왔었다. 기요탱 박사(Dr Guillotin)가 핼리팩스 지뱃을 알고 있었는지는 알려져 있지 않지만, 그 디자인은 모르튼 백작 4세 제임스 더글라스(James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton)의 것을 모방했다고 한다. 스코티시 메이든(the Scottish Maiden)이라고 알려진 비슷한 그 기계는 현재 스코틀랜드 국립 박물관에 전시되고 있다.  메이든은 핼리팩스 지뱃보다는 작은, 프랑스의 기요탱과 같은 높이인 10피트(3.0m)이다.

 

복원

핼리팩스 지빗은 1650년에 마지막으로 처형에 쓴 후 분해하였고, 그 장소는 1840년에 놓여있던 기반이 다시금 발굴되기까지 방치되어 있었다. 1974년 8월에 기존의 석재 기반위에 작동은 하지 않는 실제크기의 모형을 만들어 세웠다. 그 모형에는 원래의 것을 모방한 칼날이 장착되어 있는데, 핼리팩스 지역의 변두리에 위치한 부스타운의 뱅크필드 박물관에서 2011년에 전시되기도 하였다. 근방의 기념명패에는 이 기구로 처형되었던 52명의 이름이 새겨져있다.

핼리팩스 지빗의 작동하는 실물크기 복제품은 2008년 6월 15일에 방송되었던 히스토리채널의 "Surviving History"시리즈를 통해 제작되었다.

참고 문헌

주석

인용

바깥고리

• 단두대(guillotine)