Until recently, people brought whole families to watch heretics being burned, broken on the wheel, or disemboweled.

Judge as of 2011-10-06. True: the historical record shows that public executions and torture of heretics and others (burning, breaking on the wheel, disembowelling, e.g., hanging, drawing and quartering) were popular public spectacles attended by whole families including children, continuing into the early modern period (16th–18th/19th centuries), which in the long view of history counts as 'until recently'. Mostly true: such spectacles and family attendance are documented, but a detail is off, e.g., disembowelling was mostly for traitors rather than heretics, or the practices ended earlier than implied. Mixed: public executions were common, but there is little evidence that families attended them as a group. Mostly false: these spectacles were rare or poorly documented and the claim generalizes from isolated cases. False: such executions were not public spectacles attended by families.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 VIOLENT DEATH – EXECUTIONS IN HISTORY The Book Trap (Weebly blog) · 11 July 2014

   “Hangings were public spectacles in Britain until 1868. Indeed, it was theatre. The cronies of the condemned would come to see them off. Parents would even bring their children to watch.”

2. E2 VIOLENT DEATH – EXECUTIONS IN HISTORY The Book Trap (Weebly blog) · 11 July 2014

   “Burning at the stake was reserved for women guilty of high treason to preserve public decency since hanging, drawing and quartering necessitated the prisoner being stripped to the waist. Both female and male heretics were also put to death this way.”

3. E3 Executions for Treason, 1660–1820 (Chapter 2) - Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900 Cambridge University Press · 4 October 2023

   “Continental nations still used spectacular modes of execution – especially breaking on the wheel or decapitation by sword – upon common criminals during the eighteenth century. In England, bloody and prolonged executions were inflicted solely upon traitors.”

4. E4 The Last Public Execution in France Oxford University Press blog (by Paul Friedland) · 17 June 2012

   “73 years ago today, Eugène Weidmann became the last person to be executed before a crowd of spectators in France, marking the end of a tradition of public punishment that had existed for a thousand years.”

An academic chapter (E3) says continental European states still broke common criminals on the wheel in public during the eighteenth century, and that England reserved bloody, prolonged executions for traitors. That supports the long survival of these spectacles, but indicates that in England bloody, prolonged executions were inflicted solely on traitors [E3]. E4 says public executions in France continued until 1939. E1 and E2, both from a popular history blog, say parents brought their children to British public hangings until 1868 and that heretics were burned at the stake. However, no source directly documents families attending the burning of heretics, so the claim holds in substance but is off on some details.