Archaeologists working just outside Grenoble have uncovered a 16th‑century timber gallows and ten burial pits containing at least 32 individuals—mostly men, some women—whose remains suggest they were displayed after execution. Archival records from 1544–1547 describe a gallows with a nearly 27‑foot brick base, eight stone pillars and a timber crossbeam capable of hanging up to eight people simultaneously. Researchers tentatively identified two victims—Benoit Croyet and Huguenot leader Charles Du Puy Montbrun—and say the burials were intended to prolong the punishment and social stigma after death. The find combines archaeology and archives to illuminate judicial violence during the Reformation.
16th‑Century Gallows Unearthed Near Grenoble With Mass Burial Pits Revealing Reformation‑Era Executions
Archaeologists Found a 16th-Century GallowsNirian - Getty Images
Archaeologists excavating a redevelopment site just outside Grenoble have uncovered the remains of a 16th‑century public gallows and ten associated burial pits containing at least 32 people. The discovery, led by the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), sheds new light on how executions and post‑mortem punishments were carried out and recorded during a turbulent era of religious and political conflict.
Site and Finds
Fieldwork at a location that has served over time as a military training ground, a place for public celebrations, and a fairground revealed ten pits containing predominantly male remains, along with a smaller number of women. Some bodies were placed head‑to‑toe, lying on their backs or stomachs; in several cases remains were fragmentary, sometimes dismembered or stacked. Archaeologists interpret these burials as the deliberate denial of a proper interment, extending the punishment of execution into death.
Archival Evidence and Gallows Design
Initial interpretations of the pits considered a range of explanations—military burials, a leper cemetery, or local church graves—until archival research matched the finds to a timber‑framed public gallows recorded in Grenoble’s 16th‑century construction documents. Records dated 1544–1547 describe a structure with a brick foundation nearly 27 feet (about 8.2 m) per side, eight stone pillars (a symbolic number linked to local judicial hierarchy) rising roughly 16 feet (about 4.9 m), and a timber crossbeam capable of supporting up to eight people at once. The gallows were sited on a slightly raised terrace with a drainage ditch to reduce flood risk near two nearby rivers north of the Porte de France.
Historical Context and Identified Individuals
INRAP researchers believe the gallows were constructed during an intensifying period of repression of the Reformation and may have remained in use into the early 17th century. Archival work allowed the team to tentatively identify two individuals among those buried: Benoit Croyet, a Protestant accused of attacking Grenoble in 1573 and executed on the gallows, and Charles Du Puy Montbrun, a Huguenot leader in Dauphiné condemned for rebellion against the king.
"The discovery of these gallows and the understanding of the practices they entailed provide a new case study for a burgeoning field of research concerning these places of justice—markers of jurisdictions, symbols of security, instruments of social degradation—and, more generally, for reflections on what it meant, or still means, to be condemned to an ignominious death." — INRAP
Significance
Beyond the grisly details, the site offers rare archaeological and documentary evidence of judicial practice and social control in early modern France. The combined physical and archival record helps historians understand how legal punishment, public display, and the denial of burial functioned as tools of authority and stigma during the Reformation era.
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