Immurement (; ), also called immuration or live entombment, is a form of imprisonment, usually until death, in which someone is placed within an enclosed space without exits.Definition of Immurement This includes instances where people have been enclosed in extremely tight confinement, such as within a coffin. When used as a means of execution, the prisoner is simply left to die from starvation or dehydration. This form of execution is distinct from being buried alive, in which the victim typically dies of asphyxiation. By contrast, immurement has also occasionally been used as an early form of life imprisonment, in which cases the victims were regularly fed and given water. There have been a few cases in which people have survived for months or years after being walled up, as well as some people, such as anchorites, who were voluntarily immured.
Notable examples of immurement as an established execution practice (with death from thirst or starvation as the intended aim) are attested. In the Roman Empire, Vestal Virgins faced live entombment as punishment if they were found guilty of breaking their chastity vows. Immurement has also been well established as a punishment of robbers in Persia, even into the early 20th century. Some ambiguous evidence exists of immurement as a practice of coffin-type confinement in Mongolia. One famous, but likely mythical, immurement was that of Anarkali by Emperor Akbar because of her supposed relationship with Prince Saleem.
Isolated incidents of immurement, rather than elements of continuous traditions, are attested or alleged from numerous other parts of the world. Instances of immurement as an element of massacre within the context of war or revolution are also noted. Entombing living persons as a type of human sacrifice is also reported, for example, as part of grand burial ceremonies in some cultures.
As a motif in legends and folklore, many tales of immurement exist. In the folklore, immurement is prominent as a form of capital punishment, but its use as a type of human sacrifice to make buildings sturdy has many tales attached to it as well. Skeletal remains have been, from time to time, found behind walls and in hidden rooms, and on several occasions have been asserted to be evidence of such sacrificial or punitive practices.
History Europe
According to Finnish legend, a young maiden was wrongfully immured into the castle wall of Olavinlinna as a punishment for treason. The subsequent growth of a rowan tree at the location of her execution, whose flowers were as white as her innocence and berries as red as her blood, inspired a ballad.Olavinlinna Legends Similar legends stem from Haapsalu,The Immured Lady Kuressaare,The immured knight Põlva"Legend has it that a girl was immured in the wall of the church in a kneeling position and thus the place came to be called Põlva (the Estonian word põlv means knee in English)." Põlva linn and Visby."... is the Maiden's Tower (Jungfrutornet), in which legend has it that the daughter of a Visby goldsmith was walled up alive for betraying the town to the Danes out of love for the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag."Visby Tourist Attractions
According to a Latvian legend, as many as three people might have been immured in tunnels under the Grobiņa Castle. A daughter of a knight living in the castle did not approve of her father's choice of a young nobleman as her future husband. Said knight also pillaged surrounding areas and took prisoners to live in the tunnels, among these a handsome young man whom the daughter took a liking to, helping him escape. Her fate was not so lucky as the knight and his future son-in-law punished her by immuring her in one of the tunnels. Another nobleman's daughter and a Swedish soldier are also said to be immured in one of the tunnels after she had fallen in love with the Swedish soldier and requested her father to allow her to marry him. According to another legend, a maiden and a servant were immured after a failed attempt at spying on Germans to gain intelligence on their plans for what is now Latvia.
In book 3 of his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides goes into great detail on the revolution that broke out at Corfu in 427 BC:Thucydides, 3.81.5
The Vestal Virgins in ancient Rome constituted a class of priestesses whose principal duty was to maintain the sacred fire dedicated to Vesta (goddess of the home and the family), and they lived under a strict vow of chastity and celibacy. If that vow of chastity was broken, the offending priestess was immured alive as follows:Smith (1846), p. 353
The order of the Vestal Virgins existed for about 1,000 years, but only about 10 effected immurements are attested in extant sources.Dowling (2001), "Vestal Virgins: Chaste keepers of the flame"
Flavius Basiliscus, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire from AD 475–476, was deposed, and in winter he was sent to Cappadocia with his family. There they were imprisoned in either a dry cistern,Peter Sarris opts for freezing to death, rather than death by starvation. Sarris (2011), p. 252 or a tower,Evagrius (2000), p. 143, footnote 31 and perished. The historian Procopius said they died exposed to cold and hunger,Procopius (2007), p. 71 while other sources, such as Priscus, merely speaks of death by starvation.Rohrbacher (2013), p. 89
The patriarch of Aquileia, Poppo of Treffen (r. 1019–1045), was a mighty secular potentate, and in 1044 he sacked Grado. The newly elected Doge of Venice, Domenico I Contarini, captured him and allegedly let him be buried up to his neck, and left guards to watch over him until he died.Hübner (1700), p. 590
In 1149, Duke Otto III of Olomouc of the Moravian Přemyslid dynasty immured the abbot Deocar and 20 monks in the refectory in the monastery of Rhadisch, where they starved to death. Ostensibly this was because one of the monks had fondled his wife Duranna when she had spent the night there. However, Otto III confiscated the monastery's wealth, and some said this was the motive for the immurement.Wekebrod (1814), pp. 118–119
Local legend claims that in the 18th Century, in the ruins of Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, an immured skeleton was found behind a wall along with a table, a book, and a candlestick. By some, he is believed to be the fourteenth abbot, immured for some crime he had committed.Dodsley (1744), p. 103. On suspicion of it being the remains of the fourteenth abbot, Thornton Abbey; and its "immured" Abbot However there is no evidence for this claimed discovery and it is likely a combination of local folklore.
The actual punishment meted out to men found guilty of paederasty might vary between different status groups. In 1409 and 1532 in Augsburg, two men were burned alive for their offences; a rather different fate was prescribed to four clerics found guilty of the same offence in another 1409 case. Instead of burning, they were locked into a wooden casket that was hung up in the Perlachturm, and they starved to death.Osenbrüggen (1860), p. 290
After confessing in an Inquisition Court to an alleged conspiracy involving lepers, the Jewry, the King of Granada, and the Sultan of Babylon, Guillaume Agassa, head of the leper asylum at Lestang, was condemned in 1322 to be immured in shackles for life.Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies, p. 43
Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian; 1560–1614) was immured in a set of rooms in 1610 for the death of several girls, with figures being as high as several hundred, though the actual number of victims is uncertain. The highest number of victims cited during the trial of Báthory's accomplices was 650; this number comes from a claim by a servant girl named Susannah that Jakab Szilvássy, Báthory's court official, had seen that figure in one of Báthory's private books. The book was never revealed and Szilvássy never mentioned it in his testimony. Being labeled the most prolific female serial killer in history has earned her the nickname of the "Blood Countess", and she is often compared with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia in folklore. She was allowed to live in immurement until she died, four years after being sealed, ultimately dying of causes other than starvation; evidently her rooms were well supplied with food. According to other sources (written documents from the visit of priests, July 1614), she was able to move freely and unhindered within the castle, more akin to house arrest.
Asceticism A particularly severe form of asceticism within Christianity is that of anchorites, who typically allowed themselves to be immured, and subsisted on minimal food. For example, in the 4th century AD, one nun named Alexandra immured herself in a tomb for ten years with a tiny aperture enabling her to receive meager provisions. Saint Jerome () spoke of one follower who spent his entire life in a cistern, consuming no more than five figs a day.O'Reilly (2000), p. 180 Gregory of Tours, in his writings, related two stories of immurement, including that of a nun in Poitiers. She was immured in a cell at her own request after experiencing a vision of Salvius of Albi, who was himself immured for a period prior to becoming bishop.Gregory of Tours. A History of the Franks. Pantianos Classics, 1916
In Catholic monastic tradition, there existed a type of enforced, solitary confinement for nuns or monks who had broken their vows of chastity, or espoused heretical ideas. Henry Charles Lea offers an example:Lea (2012), p. 487
Indeed, the punitive function of was that of perpetual seclusion. The guilty were condemned not to starve to death quickly, but to live in utter isolation from other human beings. As Lea describes in a footnote to this case:Lea (2012), footnote 444
Meanwhile, Sir Walter Scott, himself an antiquarian, favors the alternative in a remark to his epic poem Marmion (1808):Scott (1833), p. 392
The practice of immuring nuns or monks on breaches of chastity continued for several centuries into the early modern period. Francesca Medioli writes the following in her essay "Dimensions of the Cloister":Medioli, Schutte, Kuehn, Menchi (2001), pp. 170–171
Asia In the ancient Sumerian city of Ur some graves (as early as 2500 BC.) clearly show the burial of attendants, along with that of the principal dead person. In one such grave, as Gerda Lerner wrote on page 60 of her book The Creation of Patriarchy:
The Neo-Assyrian Empire is notorious for its brutal repression techniques. Several of its rulers memorialized their victories in self-congratulatory detail. Here is a commemoration Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) made that includes immurement:Kurkijan (2008), p. 17
Émile Durkheim in his work Suicide writes the following about certain followers of Amida Buddha:Durkheim (2010), p. 224
By popular legend, Anarkali was immured between two walls in Lahore by order of Mughal Emperor Akbar for having a relationship with crown prince Salim (later Emperor Jehangir) in the 16th century. A bazaar developed around the site, and was named Anarkali Bazaar in her honour.On Anarkali legend and tomb, Anarkali's Tomb A tradition existed in Persia of walling up criminals and leaving them to die of hunger or thirst. The traveller M. E. Hume-Griffith stayed in Persia from 1900 to 1903, and she wrote the following:Hume-Griffith (1909), pp. 138–139
Travelling back and forth to Persia from 1630 to 1668 as a gem merchant, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier observed much the same custom that Hume-Griffith noted some 250 years later. Tavernier notes that immuring was principally a punishment for thieves, and that immurement left the convict's head out in the open. According to him, many of these individuals would implore passers-by to cut off their heads, an amelioration of the punishment forbidden by law.Tavernier, Phillips (1678), p. 233 John Fryer,John Fryer travelling Persia in the 1670s, writes:Fryer (1698), p. 318