The torture! In the book Vigiar e Punir Michel Foucault begins his narrative citing the forms of SUPLICATION.

The torture! In the book Vigiar e Punir Michel Foucault begins his narrative citing the forms of SUPLICATION.

The torture for those who are unaware of this practice is a form of torture, which aims to make the condemned confess his crime, his sin and repent of them. During the Middle Ages this method consisted of making the "criminal" suffer so that his sins could be purged.

Among the most common methods was the wheel - the condemned had his feet on the ground and hands in the middle of a large wheel, in this way the wheel was turned in order to stretch the whole body, not satisfied in some cases the bones of the legs and fathoms were breaks.

According to Lyn Hunt's story in her book "The Birth of Human Rights", this was the last type of torture used by justice. At least officially.

Foucault comments that throughout the Middle Ages justice itself realized that such measures were as cruel as the crimes committed by the condemned. That's why the methods were being perfected, in order to give a faster death. It was at this time that the guillotine was created, as it was common for nobles to die by decapitation (known as clean death) as opposed to the death of the poor (the wheel, hanging, stretching of limbs by horses, etc. (so-called dirty death) ).

Hunt also recalls that, as these practices were being rejected by society, humanization movements emerged throughout Europe that asked that the condemned be given a new way of receiving his sentence. Prison is born and with it the first novels.

Finally, it should be noted that such practices lasted until the mid-twentieth century. Being used mainly by some Authoritarian Regimes.