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The code [of Charles V of Germany, 1532] favored drowning for women, usually in the form of being lowered from a bridge and held under until dead… Like fire, water was believed to have purifying properties, drowning therefore being considered particularly appropriate for moral crimes. Burial alive sometimes came into this category, the code specifying such a sentence for women guilty of infanticide… The guilty woman was lain in a shallow grave and covered in thorns; the grave was then filled in, starting with the feet. At some point, again mimicking Vlad Dracul, a stake was driven through the woman’s heart, ‘perhaps to prevent the body from returning from the dead in a reflection of folk beliefs about vampirism,’ fears more prevalent in central and eastern Europe than in the west.
Sean McGlynn, By Sword and Fire: Cruelty and Atrocity in Medieval Warfare, London: Phoenix, 2008, p. 25-6
