Editing Tyburn (section)

== Social aspects ==
Sites of public executions were significant gathering places and executions were public spectacles. Scholars have described the executions at Tyburn as "carnivalesque occasion[s] in which the normative message intended by the authorities is reappropriated and inverted by an irreverent crowd" that found them a source of "entertainment as well as conflict." This analysis is supported by the presence of shouting street traders and food vendors and the erection of seating for wealthier onlookers.<ref>Tales from the Hanging Court, Tim Hitchcock & Robert Shoemaker, Bloomsbury, pp. 305, 306;</ref><ref>McKenzie, Andrea (2007). Tyburn's Martyrs, Executions in England 1675–1775. London, England: Hambledon Continuum, Continuum Books. pp. 21, 24. {{ISBN|978-1847251718}}.</ref> Additionally, a popular belief held that the hand of an executed criminal could cure cancers, and it was not uncommon to see mothers brushing their child's cheek with the hand of the condemned.<ref name=":0">Tales from the Hanging Court, Tim Hitchcock & Robert Shoemaker, Bloomsbury, pp. 309, 316;</ref> The gallows at Tyburn were sources of cadavers for surgeons and anatomists.{{when|date=July 2020}}<ref name=":0" />