Monday, May 14, 2012
Medieval torture
This link outlines some of the common medieval torturing techniques. One that fascinated me in particular was the "Keep Torture." The witch or other victim would be nailed to the door of a cage, which only had openings big enough for small animals and birds to get in and antagonize the victim. The cage was always hung high over the main square or above a church for more public humiliation. After much pecking from birds and torment from other pests, the victim would commonly pass out from pain and exhaustion, only to be woken up from rocks being thrown from passer-bys. What do you guys think, or do you know of any interesting/crazy torturing techniques from this time period??
http://medieval-castles.org/index.php?cat=31
DAVID STENGER
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I looked through the website you shared with us, and I agree one of the most disturbing methods of torture they could have possibly come up with may have been the "Keep Torture" method. While all of these different methods (in the site shared below) are not necessarily reserved for witches (except number two) they are all particularly disturbing and crazy techniques for torture. Flaying, a technique reserved specifically for the worst criminals- witches, captured soldiers and criminals were basically skinned alive. http://www.ranker.com/list/top-10-types-of-medieval-torture/litgoddess (Beware, this website does contain some disturbing methods of Medieval torture)
ReplyDelete-Victoria McKinley
Reading through the websites posted, I think the flaying technique sounds awful. That this horrific method was commonly used for those accused of witchcraft truly shows just how seriously this offense was taken. In this method the torturer dips the criminal in boiling hot waters, then takes a knife to the criminal's body, slowly peeling off layers of skin. While this is truly disturbing, the victims died soon after the process began, luckily ending their pain. I find the other torture techniques almost equally horrific, especially the ones that do not seek to kill the victim, but instead only cause excruciating pain until they confess. After reading about these techniques, it is no wonder to me that so many innocent people confessed to being witches, and to so many other crimes. Method's such as thumbscrew torture, which we saw in the video in class on tuesday, slowly crushes the victim's thumbs until they agree to speak. As we saw in the movie, this method is extremely effective--several women accused the Deacon of crimes he did not commit, simply to end the torture.
DeleteI've had the chance to look at a couple of methods of torture and the one that appalls me the most is the "Drawn and Quartered". This act was prevalent within England, before and after the English civil war. Essentially, a man or woman is tied to a rack and from there on they either have an executioner disembowel them or have horses pull each of their limbs until they break. In light of that and the ones that you posted, Victoria, I can understand how people who were accused of witchcraft back then would just scream out whatever the interrogator wanted to hear, which leads to a most unsuccessful pursuit of the facts to say the least.
ReplyDeleteWow. Reading about all these different torture techniques fascinates me and at the same time, makes my bones cringe. Before this class, I had only really heard about stoning and whipping. Now I'm overwhelmed with the plethora of gory, i'll even go as far as to say, creative, and inhumane methods of torture. What boggles my mind is the severity of some of the investigation techniques. They progress in danger from something often survivable, like the thumbscrew torture, to something as deadly as the exposure torture; victims were nailed to the ground under the scorching sun and acquired harsh burns as well as were eaten alive by small and/or large animals (from the website David provided). I cannot believe some of the methods that were used to get "truth" out of accused persons. Most methods ride the fine line of life and death, and to think -many of these people were potentially innocent!
ReplyDeleteI know that iron maidens and torture wheels were common during the Spanish inquisition. The link at the bottom is one with the common forms of torture during the inquisition. Although the Spanish inquisition may not be fully associated with witch hunts (it was intended in the beginning for mediterrean muslims), it can show the various forms of torture that were employed during this time period. One form that got my attention immediately is called strappado. Basically, you were chained to the ground and a rope from overhead pulled your shoulders out of their sockets.
ReplyDeletehttp://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/spanish-inquisition3.htm
The "Keep Torture" somewhat reminds me of some of the medieval movies I have seen in the past in which witches were placed in suspended iron cages and left out in public for everyone to see and antagonize. I dont know if this is a play off of the "Keep Torture" or if this was an entirely different form of punishment, or even if this was just thrown into some movies just for the fun of it. Some of these methods of torture that are explained in your link though are insanely cruel. I cant believe they thought of things like this to do to people to try and get them to talk, and if you think about it those who were wrongly accused would lie about using witchcraft just to get out of being tortured any further. Although all of these methods look gruesome and unbearable, I believe the "Thumbscrew" and the variation of that pertaining to the knees would be the worst. just to have the tips of your fingers crushed until you leaked information would be extraordinarily cruel and painful.
ReplyDelete-William McVeigh
well that movie today showed it all, i kept waiting for them to convicted the torturer guy but I guess it was more realistic how it ended.
ReplyDeleteGoing through the website makes me feel lucky that I was born during the time period I was. My second cousins newphew wrote a book about the history of torture. It mostly included devices of torture like thumbscrew torture. I have always heard about stoning, whipping, and even the kind of torture where you stretch the persons body but I have never heard of "heat torture" or "the pear of anguish". To me those sounds the worst but really they all sound terrible and unhumane. Even watching the torture "happen" in the movies makes it unbearable to think about
ReplyDeleteWow--I think the most disturbing one on that website for me was the exposure method of torture. I can't even imagine being nailed to the ground, forced to get sunburned, and just having to WAIT for some animal to come eat me alive. That just seems to me like one of the worst ways to die. It's so sad to read these, knowing that people would come out and say they were witches just so they didn't have to go through such painful torture. Understandable, I wouldn't want to go through any of that either!
ReplyDelete-Julia Mains
I completely agree with you on this! All of them are horrible, but the excruciating agony of Exposure is unfathomable. Even past the pain and humiliation, I cannot imagine the mental state this kind of torture could place a person in. The idea of waiting and wanting an animal to come and eat my burnt flesh just to make the agony stop is incredible. Maybe it's just a contemporary perspective, but as inquisitors and people living during the time I cannot even being to grasp how this continued for so long and to such extremes. It really makes me question humanity and how secure we really are. If this kind of hysteria could occur then, it most certainly could happen now. It's definitely eye-opening.
DeleteIt clear that torture fails to yield any usable concrete evidence since it just forces the person being tortured to confess to what ever the administer wants them to. This particular torture though seems to fail even in that sense and that it seems more to be a cruel death sentence since the end result is the person being killed by exposure. All in all torture is a crime of equal or perhaps even greater maliciousness than what the accused is being tortured for.
Delete-Joshua Rennecker
I agree with Joshua, in that this does not seem to be torture to me rather just a way to kill the witch or whoever was being tortured. I feel that if they had no chance to survive by giving up some information or admitting to something that this method was just a long painful death sentence. I also agree that this would be one of the worst ways to die and extremely painful.
DeleteRyan Siggins
I wonder how many people ever realized that those old techniques only made the people being tortured say whatever they needed to to have it stop. I know alot of people were probably corrupt and made those trials and did the torture to gain wealth but there still were some that believed it was useful.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I don't understnd either. They have to had known they weren't actually getting the truth they were just getting exactly what they wanted to hear... but I guess in the end that's all that mattered and they would take it anyway they needed to to make a conviction or to get their sick torture ways in.
Delete-Ashleigh Mussulin
The people that were doing the torture probably did not care if they correct person was convicted or not. It gave them power and they could use it however they wanted. It also allowed the elites in society to have the order and fear they desired from the people.
Delete-Max Moreland
On that website I saw a torture method used for witches which was especially disturbing to me. The witches were stripped and nailed to the ground in the sun and allowed to get terrible sun burns all over their bodies. Then, wild animals would come and eat them alive! People hoped for a bear to come for them so their death would be faster but their worst fear would be that mice would come and nibble on them until they died.
ReplyDelete-Emily Reinhart
I think it is funny that they used all these different types of torture to get a person to confess to the truth, an initially, the person would confess to the truth, but the tortures would go on until the person confessed to a lie. what a joke. Like Gr. Green said, toward the end everyone was tired of all that was happening, the people knew that others were not telling the truth just to end the pain, and I believe, the people in charge of the tortures knew this too, that's why it came to an end, everyone realized how terrible this all was, and finally spoke out.
ReplyDelete^Ethan Zucal
DeleteI think one of the sickest methods of torture was the Breast Ripper where a woman breast would be ripped off if she was caught cheating. I think this is extremely barbaric method of torture and seems it was almost a death sentence since the woman would often die from disease and infection if she even survived the initial ripping off of the breast. It also mentioned on that website that this was common during the dark ages and that makes sense because woman were often treated much worse than men were. I did not see any torture method for men that were cheating during that time but i doubt it was as severe as what the women went through.
ReplyDeleteRyan Siggins
These torture techniques are horrible to read about! I cringed at all of them as I read each description. The ones that made me cringe the most were the keep torture and the pear of anguish. Just thinking about how much pain both of those would cause makes me sick. It's horrible that people would actually do such things to others. As a lot of the others have said, I am so glad I live in this time and not back then when these techniques were considered acceptable and usable on people.
ReplyDelete~Amanda Phillips
Well some of these torture methods are absolutely appalling and make me gag just reading about them. To think that this was normal and people did this to each other is crazy to me..I couldn't imagine inflicting or receiving this type of pain or humiliation! The torture method mentioned below was really disturbing to me, and shows how they got creative (in a disturbed sense) with inflicting pain. It seemed to turn into some sort of demented entertainment in some ways.
ReplyDelete"The Pear of Anguish had the shape of a pear; As a handle was turned, the spoon-shaped lobes opened; increasing pain. Even though the Pear of Anguish was mostly used for oral punishments, homosexuals had it fixed in their anus and women in their vagina. Causing severe pain, after this torture was employed on the mouth; the victim's teeth would get destroyed; making blood pour out of the victim's mouth often causing death.
If introduced in the anus or vagina, death was a step away. The Pear of Anguish was rarely washed, thus causing infections very frequently. If the victim didn't die by an infection however, he would die by other diseases caused by the severe damage of his or her intestines."
This is truly disgusting. I can't even imagine...
-Rachel Skowron
One thing I found very interesting is how exclusively it was said to be used. The description seems to imply that it was used only on homosexuals and women that induced miscarriages. Since it was so exclusively used it could have been done so on purpose. Perhaps to instill fear in all the homosexuals and women that induced miscarriages in that era… Times are different and this form of torture is no longer used (obviously), but I wonder if there are still things that we do to promote fear in the gay and lesbian community? Any thoughts?
Delete-Satbir Singh
Here’s something crazy: http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-was-the-brazen-bull
ReplyDeleteIt was called the Brazen Bull. It was invented by the ancient Greeks, but was still used in centeral Europe during the medieval and early modern period.
“During the medieval period, the Brazen Bull was a popular torture device. It was essentially a hollowed out statue in the shape of a bull. Torture victims, after having had their tongues ripped out, were placed inside the bull, where they were sealed in. Next, a fire would be lit all around the brass bull statue. As the heat cranked up and the poor fellow inside the bull began to panic, the sounds produced by his cries and thrashings made the Brazen Bull look like it was alive. Not having to see the victim, onlookers could more easily separate themselves from the torture taking place.”
-Satbir Singh
While that torture is ridiculously obscene, I do find it pretty interesting, just how primitive humans can be, especially during the medieval period. Humans have a lust for bloodshed, going back to ancient gladiator spectacles and even today with football and UFC, so public tortures like these do not surprise me. I found this website about medieval torture methods, some of them are very interesting, and graphic.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.medievality.com/torture.html
One of the more extreme ones I read was "The Rat Torture" which reads:
"A cheap and effective way to torture someone was with the use of rats. There were many variants, but the most common was to force a rat through a victim's body (usually the intestines) as a way to escape. This was done as follows:The victim was completely restrained and tied to the ground or any horizontal surface. A rat was then placed on his stomach covered by a metallic container. As the container was gradually heated, the rat began to look for a way out - through the victim's body. Digging a hole usually took a few hours of agonizing pain for the victim. This almost invariantly resulted in death."
-Michael Schmidt
I found a website listing many torture devices for witches and these especially caught my eye:
ReplyDelete"Bootikens were boots that went from the person's ankles to knees. Wedges were hammered up the length of the boot into the person's leg, breaking and crushing bones as it went.
The Pear. It was a pear shaped apparatus that was often inserted into orifices. It was then expanded by way of a screw. It was often expanded enough until it tore and mangled which ever orifice it had been inserted in. Death would follow shortly, from either blood loss or infection. It was usually equipped with sharp spikes at the end so that a person could also be stabbed with it, usually in the neck.
The Turcas was used to tear the fingernails out. This was followed by sticking pins or needles into the raw and exposed skin of the fingers."
The amount of torture suspected witches went through without evidence is absolutely disturbing to me. The fact that on the basis of no evidence and someone blaming them to be a witch would call for such techniques. It's actually sad to me that the people in power had so much hate for people, witch or not. Obviously s a person in power, you may feel threatened and scared of witches but to impose such gruesome torture devices on them is sickening.
-Jessica Petrus
The torture methods used were pretty awful, especially when you consider that the people being tortured were innocent. The specific techniques used though are very interesting to me. It seems people saw torture as a form of entertainment. Even today if someone was guilty of something really awful I would have a hard time watching them be tortured, and at the very least I would not enjoy watching it. All of the torture methods used make me cringe reading about them. I can't imagine how some people who were tortured did not confess. It truly is unfortunate the number of people that were executed and tortured for doing absolutely nothing.
ReplyDeleteI still can not stand any of the water tortures. La Toca - placing a cloth in the mouth and pouring water in. Dunk stool - tying victim to chair and using a rope to dunk them underwater for longer periods of time. Swimming - adding weights to a person / tying arms and legs and throwing them in water to see if they sink or swim. Not really involving pain but the fear of and the actual drowning makes it all the worse.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Taggart