A head on a spike (also described as a head on a pike, a head on a stake, or a head on a spear) is a severed head that has been vertically impaled for display. This has been a custom in a number of cultures, typically either as part of a criminal penalty following execution or as a war trophy following a violent conflict. The symbolic value may change over time. It may give a warning to spectators. The head may be a human head or an animal head.
History The earliest known archeological evidence for mounting heads on stakes has been identified in Sweden, at a Mesolithic site in Kanaljorden, in the floor of a dried lake, dating to 8,000 years ago.Gummeson et al. 2018. There, archeologists recovered human crania with the remnants of wooden stakes still in place within the two crania. The crania exhibited evidence of blunt force trauma that looked to have resulted from a violent confrontation. Archeologists interpreted the wooden stakes as evidence that the heads had been mounted for display by members of the Swedish Mesolithic hunter-gatherer culture.
In England, the heads of criminals, especially those convicted of treason, were mounted for display on London Bridge from about 1300 until about 1660.Thornbury 1878.London Bridge Head Spikes Heads were usually dipped in tar to slow down the decomposition process. Criminal punishment was sometimes posthumous, as the body of Oliver Cromwell was exhumed so that it could be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his head was mounted on a spike and displayed for 30 years.Fitzgibbons 2008: 31.
Notable examples Oswald of Northumbria ( 604–642) William Wallace ( 1270–1305) Simon Fraser (d. 1306) Jack Cade (c. 1420–1450) Richard of York (1411–1460) Edmund, Earl of Rutland (1443–1460) Elizabeth Barton (1506–1534) John Fisher (1469–1535) Thomas More (1478–1535) Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485–1540) Richard Gwyn (c. 1537–1584) Muiris Mac Ionrachtaigh (d. 1585) Fiach McHugh O'Byrne (1534–1597) Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) Feidhlimidh Riabhach Mac Dhaibheid (d. 1608) Cathaoir Ó Dochartaigh (1587–1608) Terence O'Brien (1600-1651) Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) Redmond O'Hanlon (c. 1640–1681)Stephen Dunford (2000), The Irish Highwaymen, Merlin Publishing. Pages 103–104. Blackbeard (c. 1680–1718) Éamonn an Chnoic (died c. 1724)Stephen Dunford (2000), The Irish Highwaymen, Merlin Publishing. Pages 47–48. Jacques de Flesselles (1730–1789) Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay (1740–1789) Madame de Lamballe (1749–1792) Staker Wallace (1733–1798) John Murphy (1753–1798) Vela Peeva (1922–1944)
Gallery
See also Battlefield cross, a symbolic replacement of a cross made up of the soldier's rifle stuck into the ground with helmet on top Decapitation Headhunting Impalement, in which the object is alive at the time of penetration London Bridge Mounting points and synonyms: spike, stake, pike, polearm, pale, picket
References
Bibliography