Medieval Torture and Punishment

Torture, punishment or fun practices, do not do justice in describing medieval torture devices. Medieval practitioners would bring together the accumulative knowledge of the Greeks, Romans and Mesopotamians to create a new art, the art of fear. Regardless of how one looks at this practice it is perfectly clear that medieval tortures were intended to be cruel.

To be given The Rack as a punishment, a criminal would have to have stolen, be under suspicion of a crime, or had murdered another person. The rack was commonly used to extract information. It was also used to extract confessions or to simply interrogate the criminal. Of course, there were many exemptions to this punishment. Such as, how big or small the crime the victim committed, or why he/she committed the crime in the first place, and even where the victim lived justified the exemptions. All these things helped to determine the victim’s type of punishment. So, the rack was used to control the levels of pain the criminal received, which also inflicted on the crimes that were committed. The rack was described as of having a wooden frame usually above ground. Also, with two ropes attached to the bottom and two more tied to a handle on the top. Some of the common people believe that the rack was a little too cruel, just to extract a tiny bit of information. Yet, others had felt it wasn’t enough determination to get the information needed for the crime or situation. Or it could had, had something to do with personal hatred towards the victim to feel it wasn’t justified enough. An example of the type of crime a victim would have had to commit would have been stealing. Once again, it depended on what was stolen, because there was different types of punishment, the rack is only one of them. If a victim stole they could get a punishment of their right hand getting cut off. The victim could also have got beaten and burned alive; all while being publicly humiliated.

Another well used practice was ‘The Chair of Torture’ or also known as Judas Chair. This torture or punishment was to also extract confessions. Someone with five hundred to one thousand spikes being split into their skin, while the rupturing of the skin is not greatly entered. Meaning not hitting any vital organs, but also the wounds closed to delay blood loss, causing the victim to bleed, slowly and finally die in about a week or so.