Head on a spike

Oliver Cromwell's head was placed on a spike and erected in the 17th century. A drawing from the late 18th century.

Placing a severed head on a spike (or pike or pole) is a custom used sometimes in human history and in culture. The symbolic value may change over time. It may give a warning to spectators. The head may be a human head or an animal head.

Noted examples

• John the Baptist (late first century BC – c. 30 AD)
• William Wallace (c. 1270–1305)
• Simon Fraser (d. 1306)
• Jack Cade (c. 1420–1450)
• Richard of York (1411–1460)
• Thomas More (1478–1535)
• Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485–1540)
• Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)
• Jacques de Flesselles (1730–1789)
• Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay (1740–1789)
• Staker Wallace (1733–1798)
• John Murphy (1753–1798)
• Vela Peeva (1922–1944)

Gallery

• 
  A sketch of a head impaled on a pike, included in a letter to Ronald Fuller dated 1924
• 
  Drawing of the French Revolution: "Aristocratic Heads on Pikes"
• 
  Engraving c.1789 of French militia hoisting the heads of Jacques de Flesselles and the marquis de Launay on pikes

See also

• Decapitation
• Mouting points and synonyms:
  • spike, stake, pike, pole, pale, picket
• Battlefield Cross, a symbolic replacement of a cross made up of the soldier's rifle stuck into the ground with helmet on top
• London Bridge
• Impalement, in which the object is alive at the time of penetration