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The medieval period
Medieval society 1066 1485
The medieval period
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Torture played a big part of the medieval Europe society. The most common means of torture included burning, beating and suffocating people, However there were a lot of types of tortures that were used some examples of them are the saw torture, this torture was a form of execution in which someone was sawed in half, another example is the Iron Chair, this type of torture happened when the victim would be placed onto the chair which had heaps of sharp spikes followed by the progressive tightening of iron restraints which then forced the spikes deep into the flesh, The Wheel, this torture was able to break bodies as the wheel rolled forward and over them, this torture was a very popular one. There were different types of torture were used on
The Middle Ages lasted approximately 1,000 years, from the 5th to 15th century. The early part of the Middle Ages is also known as the Dark Ages. The Middle Ages has many nicknames including the Golden Ages and Medieval Times. One of the most accurate nicknames for the Middle Ages is, the Age of Faith. When one thinks of the Golden Ages, famine, plague, economic depression, crusades, disease, bloody wars, Vikings, persecution, and torture all come to mind. Torture during the Medieval Times was viewed differently than it is viewed today. Today, torture is viewed as cruel, inhuman, and degrading. In the U.S. torture is illegal but is sometimes used by the CIA and correctional facilities without public acknowledgement. As Schild said, “ In general, there are many indication that the people living at the time did not perceive the brutality of execution in the same way we would perceive it today, because they were filled with a deep sense of sin and thus were open to torture” (Thedeus).
On the other hand, the punishments that are borrowed from medieval torture techniques and imprisonment inflicts a physical and bodily pain upon the sufferer that is supposed to be taken literally. In the Medieval Era, their prisons were more like dungeons in the way that they were usually dark rooms with naked and ragged men that were chained to the stone floors. These prisoners were not allowed to move so they had to live in their own excrements, blood, and vomit which ended up filling the room with an odor that was so pungent it could have been a form of torture within itself. Dante used this idea of darkness and awful smells throughout the Inferno as the overall atmosphere of Hell. Also, the idea of the fiery and icy environments that Dante incorporates comes from the medieval prisons where the room would get so hot the prisoners would feel like they were on fire, and during the winter it would be extremely frigid. These ideas of extreme temperatures and darkness are only a few of the torture devices that Dante uses throughout his novel.
According to Joycelyn M. Pollock, torture is defined as the deliberate infliction of violence and, through violence, severe mental and/or physical suffering upon individuals. Torture, according to Christopher Tindale as quoted in Torture and the Ticking bomb by Bob Brecher, describes torture as:
Torture is one of the most extreme methods of eliciting information; unfortunately, it has been used for centuries and is still prevalent worldwide.
In today’s society there are many issues surrounding the topic of torture. There are two sides to this argument. One side would be that torture should never be used, the other side would be that torture should be used if it is absolutely necessary. Many times when torture is used it is used to get information out of an individual. On many occasions people hear of torture being used on terrorists that have been captured. Torture is also used on Soldiers that have been captured during war. During times of war torture is often used by both sides to gain an advantage over the other side. The use of torture is a widely debated topic in today’s world.
During the Middle Ages the influence of the Roman Catholic Church contributed to the adoption of torture by civil tribunals. The Italian municipalities adopted torture early, but it did not appear in other European countries until France legalized its use in the 13th century. Ultimately, torture became part of the legal system of every European nation except Sweden and England. Although torture was never recognized in the common law of England, it was practiced by exercise of the royal prerogative. In the American colonies torture was illegal; the few instances of its use were in ...
Torture, the most extreme form of human violence, resulting in both physical and psychological consequences. A technique of interrogation that has been proven time and time again to not only be ineffective but also a waste of time. Studies have shown that not only does torture psychologically damage the mind of the victim, but also can hurt the inflictor. If there is proof that torture is useless, why do we still use it? Torture should not be used to get information out of prisoners because of the risk of false information, enemy resistance and utter uselessness.
Ever since humankind has existed, so has torture. It is, according to Dictionary.com, the “extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.” The use of torture to punish or get information out of someone, such as waterboarding, is still used today. Fortunately, cutting people’s heads off in public is no longer a common use of torture as it was in the past. Torture is present in both pieces of literature, Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies and Shakespeare’s Othello. Physical and psychological (emotional) torture are both present, but emotional torture is longer lasting and much harder to recover from.
The guillotine was first introduced during the French Revolution by a man named Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin. He is a physician who first was involved with the issues of medicine. On December 1, 1789 he became interested in the idea of capital punishment. He invented the guillotine. It was a contraption used for causing immediate and painless death. It included a falling blade, running between two upright boards of wood and later a basket. Therefore, one may believe that the design of the guillotine helped with executions.
Several other punishments of the medieval period were also rather gruesome. If you were charged with treason, but you were a noble person otherwise, you were to be simply hanged and buried. If you committed murder, and were found guilty of attempted murder, you’d be tied up, near the scene of the crime and left to starve to death. If you were convicted of a successful murder, you’d be hung for a little while, have your hands cut off, and then led to where you’d be executed. Rouges were to be sent to the stockades and whipped, anyone who disturbed the peace were to be continuously du...
Medieval times are the era that deserves the blame; torture methods first begun in the 14th century. Most towns had a council to decide a person’s punishment. Also, most towns had torture chambers in dungeons or tall towers because some towns became rebellious to public torture. Instead, the guilty person(s) were tortured inside the castles and towers. Also, many people would be tortured at the same time. (http://www.medievality.com/torture-introduction.html). The main reason for public torture was to scare other civilians from doing the same things; it usually worked. These methods were in place of sitting in jail. (http://www.medievality.com/torture-information.html). One form of torture was “The Rat.” A person was tied down to a flat surface, and a metallic box was placed on top of the person’s stomach. Then, a rat was placed under the box. Gradually, the metallic box was heated. The rat had no choice, but to find a way out. It chewed through the person’s stomach to escape. The person, almost always died. Sometimes the torturer would leave the dead body outside as another example as to what not to do. Animals and bugs would eat at the flesh and it would decay very quickly. Another example of a form of torture would be “The Brazen Bull.” It was a hallow brass bull, with a side door. (http://www.weirdworm.com/10-bizarre-torture-methods/). A person that was to receive the tort...
The death penalty was used frequently during the medieval times in Roman Britain to discourage the people from committing any types of crimes. Criminals were sentenced to death for committing a range of crimes, the most common being felonies including theft and murder. They were often put to death using a range of resources such as being hanged or beheaded. The criminals were punished so harshly to deter the people from committing any further crimes. Source 1 portrays a woman being beheaded, this could be because she stole something worth more than two days wages or has committed a murder. Her crime has been deemed serious enough that she has to be executed to be portrayed for others not to commit the same crime as she has or they will suffer the same fate. Wealthy people who are in a higher class who have committed similar or the same crimes would be exiled to another city, unless they had tried to go against the king in which case they would be executed. Over the years the death penalty has become much less common.
Torture from the Latin tortus, "twisted" is defined as the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. The origins of torture
Beaten, broken, burned, bruised, tortured. Torture is defined as a “deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical and mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of an authority to force another person to yield information, make a confession, etc” (Torture). Throughout history, torture has been used for extreme punishment or unreasonably hateful oppression but more recently torture has been used to force the weaker willed into talking. Torture is an extraneous way to get any information or a needed confession from a suspect and it has very terrible effects on those who do the torturing and those who have suffered/are suffering through tortured. Even though some people believe that using “enhanced interrogation”, or torture, techniques to get some potentially critical information and/or confessions, the negative effects on both the tortured and torturer are far too great to risk. Having to argue over destroying, harming, and beating a person is completely ridiculous though it has been around for a long time.
Henri Alleg, a French journalist living in Algiers, wrote The Question while being held captive in an Algiers prison. The methods and ramifications of torture in Europe in the late 1950’s were extremely horrific. They included, but were not limited to, electrical shocking, various beatings and burnings, and waterboarding, as described in his personal account. Alleg eventually overcame his captors and escaped. However, his account brought up many questions surrounding what is done to uphold the safety of the citizens of a country.