MEDIEVAL TORTURES

MEDIEVAL TORTURES

🪞🗡️🗝️

These horrific tortures took place in Medieval Era.

We can be fortunate and thankful we were born a couple centuries after...

Take a peek...

 

1️⃣THE BRAZEN BULL

IN ANCIENT GREECE

▪️Possibly,one of the the most imaginative means of "sadistic torment",the Brazen Bull,unleashed pain on victims in ancient Greece.

▪️The tyrant Phalaris, allegedly commissioned this torture device to exercise his sadistic streak.

The-poor-victims were sealed inside the gleaming bull and slowly burned to death.

▪️A series of pipes on the inside made it sound as if the victim's wailing and thrashing were the sound of an actual bull,giving this torture implement a decidedly macabre streak.

▪️Even though this torture was not used commonly during the Middle Ages compared to its reputation in the Greek & Roman Eras,it was allegedly still used in Central Europe.

This torture was similar to being boiled alive,just without the water.

2️⃣THE CROCODILE TUBE

FOR THE HERETICS

▪️A rare and slightly mysterious form of torture, the Crocodile Tube,is thought to have been used only occasionally to extract confessions from accused heretics.

▪️The victim was placed inside a spike-filled cylinder just big enough for their body,with head & feet exposed on either end.

The tube was then shut,leaving the victim totally immobilized and impaled on the spikes.

▪️And that's not all.There was often a small fire burning just beneath the cylinder, gradually heating the tube until the torturer extracted a confession-or the victim died.

▪️The torturer could inflict all manner of unpleasantness on the victim's exposed face and feet,mutilating their head and toes in order to hurry the process along.

3️⃣THE SPANISH INQUISITION DONKEY

FOR THE BLASPHEMERS 

▪️Known colloquially as a wooden horse or a Chevalet, the Spanish Donkey followed a similar principal as the Judas Cradle,letting gravity do most of the work. Victims-almost always women-were seated astride the apparatus,a vertical wood board with an inverted V-Shaped wedge on top.

Weights were then attached to their feet,placing all the combined pressure on that one sharp point,to create a sensation like being split down the middle.

▪️While there are accounts of this method being used on blasphemers during the Spanish Inquisition,the so-called Spanish Donkey is a play on a familiar form, one that extended to the United States,from the "riding the rail" punishments of the early Colonial Era to "The Mule," on which Confederate soldiers captured in the Civil War,would ride until they lost consciousness.

4️⃣THE HERETIC'S FORK

THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION

▪️The Heretic's Fork was primarily used during the Spanish Inquisition.

The instrument consisted of two forks set end to end and strapped around the victim's neck.

The tines of the fork penetrated the flesh under the chin at one end and the upper sternum in the other.

▪️With their hands behind their backs,victims was made to kneel or stand upright.

This forced any liars or blasphemers subjected to the punishment,to strain to keep their chin elevated.

Obviously,sleeping, speaking,or even swallowing were impossible.

▪️As such,it's often speculated that the Heretic's Fork was just one part of the process,perhaps one used to silence a victim after obtaining a confession.

▪️In any case,this was not often a fatal torture,though the risk of infection was high.

5️⃣THE MYSTERIOUS PEAR OF ANGUISH

(possibly not used for stretching socks...)

▪️For years,examples of the Pear of Anguish have been displayed in museums as examples of late-medieval torture implements.

▪️In theory,this pear-shaped device would be inserted into a person's mouth,anus, or vagina,then a screw would be turned,causing the separate "leaves" to expand outwards, causing enormous pain and distension.

▪️There are,however,no primary sources suggesting that this was ever the case, and there is no evidence of a Pear of Anguish even existing until the early 1600s,when,according to 1639's "L'Inventaire Général de L'Histoire des L'arròs", thieves used similar mechanisms to gag victims.

▪️Historian Chris Bishop,has largely discredited the notion that the Pears of Anguish that can be found in museums today,were used for torture in the Middle Ages,but their actual use is mysterious.

▪️Bishop theorizes that what's now known as the Pear of Anguish,could have a use as prosaic as "shoe-extenders, or sock-stretchers,or glove-wideners."

6️⃣IMPALING

▪️Last but not least,Impaling. Less a method of torture than a means of execution, impalement was typical of medieval punishment due to its simplicity.It was exactly what it sounds like: a large spike was inserted longitudinally,usually via the anus and emerging around the chest,shoulders, neck,or head.

▪️Like so many tortures, impalement didn't originate in the Middle Ages.

In fact,impalement was codified as a punishment in the Code of Hammurabi in 1772 BCE.

▪️The medieval period did mark maybe the most notorious impalings, however,thanks to the aptly named Vlad the Impaler.

▪️Vlad III Dracula,relied on impalement to keep order in Wallachia,his little corner of 15th-century Romania.

▪️It was in his battles against the Ottoman Empire that resulted in historical notoriety,though,as he's said to have impaled as many as 20.000 Ottoman Turks outside the city of Targoviste,in order to dissuade the next wave from advancing.