ABSTRACT
In 2005 I published an article on atrocities described in medieval accounts of peasant rebellions and their suppression.1 I began with a celebrated and elaborately awful example, the execution of the Hungarian peasant leader György Dózsa in July 1514 at Temesvár/Timis¸oara in Transylvania. Dózsa had been captured by John Zápolya, the governor and military commander (voivod) of Transylvania. He was placed naked on an iron ‘throne’ which was then heated in fire. A red-hot iron sceptre was placed in his hand and an iron circlet fitted around his head like a crown. This mock coronation alluded to Dózsa’s supposed claim to rule as a ‘peasant king’. After an hour or so of this torture, Dózsa was taken off the throne and his followers, soldiers of his entourage known as heyduks, were forced to eat pieces of his flesh (they had been starved for ten days previously). Refusal meant instant death. According to an account written just after the rebellion was suppressed, the heyduks were compelled to dance in a circle ‘according to their custom’ accompanied by music provided by fifes and viols, after which clerics sang the Te Deum as the execution unfolded.2 Dózsa’s remains were then decapitated and quartered. The pieces were sent for display in Buda, Pest, Belgrade, and Varad.3
