Torture In Medieval Times

The idea of torture being an important and commonly used way to question accused witches is also supported by source thirty-four in Witchcraft in Europe, which is The Malleus Maleficarum written by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger in 1487. The Malleus Maleficarum is a handbook filled with many different sections covering a variety of witch beliefs, and its ninth action covers the method of sentencing that is to be used on the accused witch during questioning (Kors, 211). “And while she is being questioned about each several point, let her be often and frequently exposed to torture…” (Kors, 213). This source was the first encyclopedia covering witch beliefs that was available during the fifteenth century and was used quite often because of the beliefs it contained, which were held by Catholics and Protestants alike (Kors, 180). With The Malleus Maleficarum being cited often during that time, it is easy to assess that the wide use and acceptance of this handbook points to a time when the torture of accused witches was virtually accepted and pretty much commonplace practice.

Lastly, there was hanging. The victim was oftentimes hung alive at Tyburn in London. Big crowds would usually gather to see this happen. The criminal would stand on something, usually a ladder, which would later be removed from under them. The death punishment was the most serious punishment of them

The image below is a primary source of people being hung in the Middle Ages for murdering. The authors perspective is shown how he has drawn people hanging down while there are people watching them to show them not to do this. The viewpoint of the author is to say not to do this otherwise it will happen to you. The crowd around the punished people are there to show the seriousness of the punishments providing a warning and awareness of the consequences. It could lead to death and torture for the rest of their lives, this reflects to the authors point of view. Overall, Crimes and Punishments in the Middle Ages were very hard for people to escape. Authors presented a lot detail to show how life was strict back in the Middle Ages. Images that

Some other punishments were leather strap used on to hit anywhere on the body, beating with fists, and until unconscious, burning and scalding the hands, starvation, public

There have been many different types of forms used when it comes to punishing the accused offender. In the past the punishment methods used ranged anything from stoning to death, to setting someone alive on fire, hanging, or the beheading of someone, alongside with the attaching of the offender’s arms and legs to four separate horses, or oxen only to be pulled apart. In all these barbaric and inhuman acts by our standards today, were performed within the towns square so that the community and visitors would be able to witness these executions.

"It [torture] assured the articulation of the written on the oral, the secret on the public, the procedure of investigation on the operation of the confession; it made it possible to reproduce the crime on the visible body of the criminal; in the same horror, the crime had to be manifested and annulled. It also made the body of the condemned man the place where the vengeance of the sovereign was applied, the anchoring point for a manifestation of power, an opportunity of affirming the dissymmetry of forces."[4]

The Middle Ages was one of the most bloodiest times because of the torture tactics that were used as forms of severe punishments, handed down to citizens for a majority of crimes such as murder, theft, kidnapping and even trivial crimes like gossiping, sorcery, and heresy. Lack of education along with impunity caused excessive amounts of crime during the Middle Ages, making many of the lower class citizens resort to stealing. Multiple forms of torture were enforced to keep the community in a state of fear that would keep citizens thinking that they might end up being the next victim. The middle age punishments for crimes were precursors to today's law enforcement and prison system. With no police to regulate citizens on the daily keeping order and peace was in the hands of the community.

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Theft was very common as people were mostly poor, although stealing of valuable and less valuable goods had different punishments. Vagrancy was also a type of crime during the Middle Ages, as it was illegal to be jobless and homeless. The gossip of women was a type of crime. People not working hard, cheating on one’s spouse, and being drunk and disorderly conduct, were also to be punishable medieval crimes. Ordeal by fire was one of the trials you could be made do to.

The immense sickness wasn’t the only thing dark about Europe’s Middle Ages. The monarchs were cruel and unruly to their subjects while enforcing brutality upon their land and citizens. The laws enforced by these kings and queens were nothing short of diabolical, for there was no set list of limitations and rules meaning that the monarchs could punish anyone for anything, even if that meant simply disturbing the king. The executions of the ‘accused’ were public to the citizens, and were “a pitiless affair” (McGlynn). The kings ruled with an iron fist as their methods of justice were murderous as executions “sent out a message of warning and deterrence” and “offered the ultimate guarantee against repeat offenders”. The message monarchs tried to send while carelessly shedding blood was that they desired to make a statement, and scare citizens into not committing crimes, for they would know the gruesome consequences. If not death, the “standard, mandatory sentence” of all accused peoples was mutilation of “eyes, noses, ears, hands, feet and testicles”. To sum it all up, punishment in the Middle Ages was much more unforgiving than in this modern day of age; being burned at the stake or beheaded by the guillotine are still some of the most spine-tingling punishments to this day. In all of the depressing fog of the Middle Ages, could there truly have been a beneficial factor?

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In Medieval times determination of guilt and innocence was unfair and people relied on God to be the determinant of guilt or innocence. Trial by ordeal was a practice that was used to decide whether you were guilty or innocent (thefinnertimes.com).Trial by ordeal was made up of 3 trials – trial by water, trial by fire and trial by combat. These trials all have different negative features; trial by water was when the accused and accuser get tied up and thrown into the water, if someone floated they were guilty and if they sunk they were innocent. Trial by fire was when you either had to walk barefoot on fire or you had to hold a red-hot bar for a certain amount of time, if when the accused came back after 3 days and their hand hadn’t started to heal, they were declared guilty (yesnet.yk.ca). Trial by combat was undoubtedly the most unfair trial out of them all.

The history of torture in Europe may seem at first to be a steady progression of barbarous tactics, leading from one social purge to the next, but this is not completely the case. Torture has been used in a progression from primitive methods to the present more modern styles. It has also developed extensively, both in severity and variety of methods used. But in the end, torture has gone full circle; modern forms of torture are more like those methods used by savages than anything in between. Overall, the severity of torture has fluctuated, growing and receding with the passing of each new time period, but eventually reverting to its original state.

They tortured people to gain confessions. The church handled all confessions, however could not witness the bloodshed that they caused to get the accused to confess. All punishments were vary physical two of the most infamous were the strappado and aselli. The strappado, meaning pulley, was a device containing ropes to strap a person down from their arms and legs and weights were attached on the ropes. The person would be raised and their body would stretch causing mass amounts of pain and sometimes-immediate death. The aselli was a water torment. A person would lie down and be drowned rapidity until it looked like their veins would explode.

Some tortures included strapping the accused's feet in a pair of metal boots and then filling the boots with boiling hot oil. The accused were often whipped for their purification, sometimes they were left out in the open for hours after having been whipped while the torturers went out to lunch. They had to hang there and wait until they returned and often they received additional torture after their wait just to be certain they had been purified. Tortures were so extreme that many people took their practices underground to avoid the Inquisition.