Lots of great answers here already. I’d humbly submit this for your consideration:
His name was Jan van Liden (John of Leiden) and he was the leader of an Anabaptist movement in 1534. Now the Anabaptists saw Martin Luther’s issues with the Catholic church as a good starting point. They went ahead and founded their own branch of Christianity which outlawed money and personal property. Also Jan van Liden’s version of Anabaptism allowed for polygamy (he himself had 16 wives). Convinced that they were in the right, van Liden and some like minded folks took over the city of Münster for about a year and a half.
Believe it or not the 16th century Catholic church was totally cool with this!
Just kidding. The ousted ruler of Münster, Prince-Bishop Franz von Waldec, laid siege to the city for 18 months, starving many of its inhabitants (that’s not the cruel death part). At one point van Liden’s spiritual leader, Jan Mathys, attempted to charge the Prince-Bishop’s army with only 30 men. That didn’t work out so well for him. He was flayed, castrated and beheaded in front of the city. That’s still not the cruel death part.
Eventually the siege ended as the Prince-Bishop’s well-armed and well-fed troops were able to break through the gates. They found Jan van Liden and two other Anabaptist leaders hiding in a basement. OK, now comes the cruel death part. So what did they do to these guys?
They were led out to the Münster square naked. In full view of the townspeople. One at a time they were half-hanged. Then one at a time they were brought to the scaffold where red hot tongs were used to pierce their skin. For an hour.
They were required to be tortured for an hour. If one of them passed out they were revived and the time that they had spent unconscious was added to their hour.
After this the red hot tongs were used to rip their tongues from their mouths. Finally, mercifully, the executioner plunged a flaming dagger into their heart. Bernhard Knipperdolling, upon watching his friend go first, attempted to strangle himself with his restraints.
He was not successful.
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