How did people kill Catholic martyrs?

Answer 1

Martyrs have died for the Catholic faith in innumerable ways, the most famous of all, of course, were the martyrs in the Colosseum in Rome - being fed to the lions. But the Roman emperors and executioners were nothing if not inventive, they crucified them, tortured them in manifold ways. In England in the 16th century they came up with numerous horrific ways of torturing and killing martyrs, some good Catholic mothers were "pressed to death" - they made them lie on the ground, sometimes with a rock between their shoulders, then they put a large board on top of them and proceeded to pile large stones and boulders on the board until the person underneath died. A classic was hanging, drawing and quartering. They hung them by the neck until they were not quite dead yet, then they took them down and disemboweled them while they were still conscious and finally cut them in quarters. I could go on but you can Google all of this on the web. Japan had particularly gruesome ways for Christians to die, and there were many martyrs in Africa up until very recently.