Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Torture in the Middle Ages

http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-torture-and-punishment/


The Middle Ages is known for torture and punishment. Many of the king's castles had dungeons and torture chambers for their enjoyment of watching individuals squirm while being tortured alive until death. Different amounts of torture was used depending of the social status of the individual. Torture was a legal punishment used in order to find out information if the individual would not talk. Individuals were also tortured until their death for disobeying laws. There were quite a few ways of torture throughout Medieval times.

The Breaking Wheel- This is where individuals has their limbs broken off one by one. It was also called the Catherine Wheel, which was named after Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who brought this up as a form of execution in the Middle Ages.
Quartering- This is when the person being tortured has each arm and leg on four separate horses, the horses are then directed in four different directions tearing the limbs from the body.
  
Hanging- This is one of the most familiar forms of execution, that is when they hang the individual with a rope by their neck, resulting in death by breaking of the neck.
Burning- This is what they did with women they thought were witches, by burning them at the stake. In Middle Ages it was the same they tied prisoners to the stake and lit them on fire while watching them burn to death.
Pressing- This is the death of the person by slowly dropping a heavy object on them slowly crushing their body.
Decapitation- This was the removal of the prisoner's head by use of an ax. 
 
Boiling to death- This was when the prisoner was put in a large cauldron and literally boiled until death. 

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for making me queasy, Lex. It seems strange that a torture device was not only named after but introduced to the populace by a saint. Those two things simply do not go together in my mind. Did you ever watch the crucible in high school? If my memory serves me right one of the deaths was due to "pressing" like torture, rocks were piled one by one atop a man's chest. When we hear about torture or unethical interrogation practices we consider the acts so medieval, now I see why.

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    1. Kinzi,
      I couldn't believe when I read that a torturing device was brought upon by a saint. Complete opposite. But yes! I do remember watching that and your memory serves you correct. It was quite unsettling looking at these pictures but it kept my attention.

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  2. (Gag) This has to be a favorite post so far. I think the boiling someone to death is gross, but it reminds me of a scene in Game of Thrones, where Khal Drogo melts gold onto the head of his brother in law. I would like to know if when people were quartered, if they lived after? Yes, limb removal sucks, but the head and heart would still be there until they just bled out.. right? Yuck! I love this post lol.

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    1. It was quite interesting reading all of this ha! But I'm assuming they would probably still live after the limb removal until they bled out. Ugh, all of these sound like a horrific way to die, I couldn't imagine!

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