Punishment In The Elizabethan Era

There were 20 people executed in 2016 (“Executions By Year”). At first glance, this may seem like a fairly normal number that is close to the previous few years. However, when comparing this to the amount of people executed during the Elizabethan Era, it is a miniscule number. The exact number is unknown, but Queen Elizabeth I was said to have executed hundreds, or even thousands of people, just on her own. Just from these numbers alone, it is easy to tell that crimes committed and punishments received were extremely brutal compared to what we have today, and have impacted the way we deal with things.

To begin, there were many various crimes that the commoners committed in the Elizabethan Era. A few of the common crimes were theft,

At the beginning of the era, punishments were decided by individuals or their families. This led to punishments were the quantity and quality did not match the significance of the crimes committed. Eventually, proportionate punishment was created, and left to the community, or whoever enforced the law. The reason for their extreme punishments, like execution or banishment on people was because they thought it would make other people refrain from breaking the law. However, studies have been shown that making punishments very harsh did not help much at all, if any (“Punishment”). Some of the most common severe punishments included hanging, burning, the pillory, whipping, branding, starvation in front of the public, and cutting off parts of the body. They also used items such as the scold’s bridle, which was an iron muzzle placed over the head and had a metal piece that stuck in the person’s mouth. The drunkard’s cloak was a type of pillory used on people who became drunk. Overall, most punishments that did not involve anything too serious were normally shameful to the criminal by placing them in front of the public. Some of the minor punishments included being carried in a cart through the streets, and riding backwards on a horse. The pillory was probably the most used prop for punishment, because it varied in intensity, such as getting the criminals ears nailed to the pillory itself. In that time period, they had specific punishments for certain offences. Some of these specifics included stealing anything over 5 pence led to being hanged. Also, the punishment for poaching varied based on the time of day. “Poaching at night resulted in the punishment by death, whereas poaching during the day time did not” (Alchin). Another major form of punishment used was imprisonment. At that time, prisons were very unsanitary and many diseases were