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What's It Like To Be Skinned Alive?
If foxes could speak maybe they would tell you
It’s difficult to think of a more brutal way to die than being skinned alive. This was a barbaric medieval punishment handed out to an unlucky few. Thankfully, this torture technique is no longer. Yet some animals still experience unimaginable suffering at the hands of humans, all in the name of fashion. This represents a detachment from the natural world around us, which is one of the major causes of the environmental issues we’re facing.
In Medieval Europe stealing from a church could result in being skinned alive (also known as flaying). But how do you skin someone alive? The goal was to peel the skin off the body in one whole piece. That’s no easy task, and it sometimes required prep work. Prep work involved leaving victims out in the scorching sun or boiling them alive to make their skin more supple and easier to peel from the body.
The torturer would then go about making strategic incisions at various parts of the body, slicing through each layer of skin. The peeling usually began from the face, with every sinew of skin being ripped from the nerve endings. The pain experienced is unimaginable.
