a capital punishment, in which the head is severed from the body by the stroke of an axe, a sword, or some other instrument.

Beheading was a military punishment among the Romans, and known by the name of decollatio. The head of the culprit was laid on a cippus or block, placed in a pit dug for the purpose, beyond the cellum, and near the porta decumana; and preparatory to the stroke, he was tied to a stake, and whipped with cords. In the early ages the blow was given with an axe, but in aftertimes with a sword, which was thought the more reputable manner of execution. In England, decapitation is a punishment reserved for the nobility, as was formerly the case in France; being reputed less derogatory to their rank than hanging, which is the punishment inflicted on plebeian criminals.

In Scotland beheading was anciently performed by an edge instrument called the maiden, introduced into this country by the regent Morton, who was the first that suffered by it. This instrument has been preserved, and may still be seen in the apartments of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. The guillotine, so called from the name of its inventor, M. Guillotin a physician, who is also said to have lost his head by his own contrivance, is an instrument somewhat analogous to the maiden; with this exception, that the knife descends angularly, and, cutting saw-wise, is more instantaneously and decisively effective. In France beheading is an ordinary capital punishment for great crimes, and the guillotine, notwithstanding all the revolutionary horrors associated with it, is still the instrument by which decollation is performed.