The Art Of Torture

The Art of Torture

Going by the title of this paper you are probably asking yourself “How in

God’s name can torture be seen as an art, were these people mentally ill?”

well it was, but I talk about that later, let me tell you a little about the

history of torture. Torture has been around since the times of Ancient Greece

and is still around today, usually in the Mafia. Other than the mob, torture

isn’t very common in our society. Punishments aren’t near as harsh as they

used to be back in medieval times. The only punishments we have now are jails,

the punishments there were in medieval times were numerous and downright inhuman.

Torture would keep criminal from doing something wrong again, assuming he lived

through the torture. The punishments we have today are laughable and dumb.

Big deal, you are thrown in prison for a few years, you don’t suffer one bit,

but to the inmates, being thrown on a chain gang is so terrible. Being given

hundreds of paper cuts and being rolled in salt, now that’s terrible and I’m

sure the convict will never break the law again. Places like Singapore still

operate like this. It happened to that one teen who decided to spraypaint some

cars. He thought he could get away with it and he almost did, but he shortly

found out that he had a little pay-back coming to him. The kid was caned, and

he hasn’t done anything dumb since. Torture like this works, torture is a way

that can really make you have second thoughts before you do anything stupid.

Torture was practiced in numerous ancient civilizations. Convicts and war

prisoners were put to death by using torture to give them a slow, humiliating

death. To some American Indian tribes, it is a custom to torment and burn prisoners.

Crucifixion was a popular torture technique in ancient Rome. Rome also used

torture to get slaves, criminals, just about anybody, to get them to talk about

secretive information. You see in these ancient Roman times, people were given

information and were told that they should never tell this information to no

one, well the Romans found out about this and this caused a major uprise in

the use of torture.

In 12th century Europe torture became very widespread

like it had just did in Rome. Before Europe began using torture, they relied

on a more common judicial type of settlements for crimes, by the 13th century

confessions and...

... middle of paper ...

... is when the victim throat is slit open and the tongue

of the victim is pulled through the opening. This is one of the few tortures

still used today, this technique is usually used by mobs.

To conclude

this paper on the history, art, and tools of medieval torture, all I can say

is that the Middle Ages were a time were crime was not tolerated. Punishments

were sever and done to keep a criminal from ever breaking the law again. This

use of severe punishments worked unlike the legal system of today where criminals

are living a better life in prison than most of the poor are living. Prisoners

just go back to what they were doing after they are released from prison, and

they usually end up back in prison. Not too many criminals in the Middle Ages

were dumb enough to go out and break the law after being tortured, there was

no prison were they could spend years in, torture was a fast and effective

way of showing a criminal to never ever break the law again. “Torture, one

of the few legal systems that worked”.

Works Cited

The Gullotine

and the Terror, Arasse, Daniel.1987 Penguin Press.

The Executioner's Homepage,

http://www.luh.K12.ca.us/%7Ebg659808/torture.html