Types of Punishments in the Middle Ages

Perhaps unfairly to the Middle Ages, "medieval" smacks of cruelty and brutality.

The very word "medieval" sends a shiver up the spine, connoting benightedness and brutality while conjuring up images of sadistic punishments long ago outlawed by the precepts of a more enlightened age. In fact, the period between 500 and 1500, the European Middle Ages, does not appear particularly violent compared to 20th-century Europe. Nonetheless, some of the punishments employed by medieval authorities would strike most modern Europeans as both cruel and unusual.

Imprisonment

Dark, wet, claustrophobic, vermin-infested, reeking of human waste, dungeons made hellish prisons.

Because public authorities lacked the wealth needed for holding prisoners on a large scale, imprisonment was much less used during the Middle Ages than today, suggest the UK's National Archives. Yet for those poor souls in them, dungeons inflicted hideous punishment. Underground, beneath a round tower, without light or sanitation and with water, mud, mold and vermin covering the floor, a typical dungeon often had no window or other outlet except for an overhead trapdoor down which the prisoner and, later, food and drinking water, could be lowered by rope, Roger Smith observes in his book "The History of Incarceration."

Shaming

Offenders were put in restraints for the amusement of passersby.

Intending to shame offenders by humiliating them before their peers, medieval authorities sometimes used stocks and, for women, the ducking stool, the UK's National Archives observes. The stocks typically consisted of a wooden frame with holes in which the victim's hands, feet, head or some combination of these could be held while the public looked on. The ducking stool was a chair attached to the end of a plank that rested on a fulcrum, which enabled the seat to be lowered and lifted. Tied to the chair, the offending woman could be dunked in water before the eyes of her neighbors.

Torture

Medieval torture devices inflicted manifold agony on their victims.

Deputy editor of the "Western Journal of Medicine," Gavin Yamey conveys the gruesome nature of medieval torture techniques -- thumbscrews, head squeezers, stretching racks and interrogation chairs with spikes. Such devices typically aimed to crush, break or shatter bone, stretch limbs, or slice, burst or tear flesh, leaving victims to die slowly of dehydration, blood loss, infection, or some combination of such afflictions. To deter crime, authorities typically made spectacles out of punishments including mutilation, burning alive, burial alive, decapitation, and branding, says Smith. In branding, torturers applied red-hot irons to various parts of the body, Linda Alchin notes at her educational website Medieval-Life-and-Times.

Execution

People accused of heresy or witchcraft were sometimes burned at the stake.

In medieval England, execution was normally done by hanging -- a form of punishment reserved for the most serious offenses such as murder, forgery, arson and stealing goods worth more than a schilling, according to the UK National Archives. With the start of the Inquisition in the early 13th century, burning became a method of execution used throughout western and central Europe for heretics, Jews and persons accused of witchcraft, notes the Jewish Virtual Library. Bound to stakes, victims were often strangled first to limit their agony but, if they failed to confess the crimes of which they were accused, executioners dispensed with strangulation, allowing the flames to wreak their full anguish.

References

• The UK's National Archives: Crime and Punishment
• "The History of Incarceration"; Roger Smith; 2007
• Lexic.us: Ducking Stool
• "Western Journal of Medicine"; Instruments of Torture; Gavin Yamey; 2001
• "Medieval Life and Times"; Branding; Linda Alchin; 2009
• The Jewish Virtual Library: The Inquisition

Resources

• "Oddee"; Ten Most Frightening Torture Techniques from the Middle Ages; David Morton; 2009
• "Capital Punishment UK"; Richard Clark; 1995
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online: Burning at the Stake
• Brian J. Orr: Burning at the Stake
• "Longwood University"; Getting Medieval: Torture Through the Centuries; Larissa Tracy; 2010