Café Gallows House

The Groentenmarktje was also one of the places in Ghent where various punishments were carried out. The Galgenhuisje, the smallest café in Ghent, owes its name to a gallows that reportedly stood there. Since it used to be customary for corpses to be left to rot completely at the gallows, it seems quite unlikely that this gallows was used as a permanent one. Rotting corpses next to a butcher shop, it might not really be such a good idea.

There are two possibilities: either this was a symbolic gallows, to deter people and confront them with the punishment they could receive, or this was a temporary gallows, used to hang the criminals here for a while and then immediately transfer their bodies to the permanent gallows outside the city, where they could continue to rot peacefully.

Vizit