The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History (33 page)

BOOK: The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History
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Burning at the stake.

 

 

Burning the feet.

 

The process of burning was relatively straightforward. The condemned was led to the place of execution where a mound of brushwood, bundles of twigs and logs had been piled around a large wooden stake. The victim and a guard then mounted the pyre and the victim was chained to the stake and, usually, had their clothing smeared with grease, oil or tar to help fuel the flames. Before the pyre was lit, a priest asked the condemned to affirm their faith in God and offered them a cross to kiss. An eyewitness account describes what happened next. The story comes from England, the year was 1555 and the victim was Rev. Dr John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester who had been condemned for refusing to convert from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism.

 

Burning at the stake of Thomas Tomkins.

 

    Command was now given that the fire should be kindled, but owing to the number of green [twigs] it was some time before the flames set fire to the reeds. Another fire was soon kindled of a more virulent nature … he now prayed with a loud voice. ‘Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me; Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And these were the last words he was heard to utter. But even when his face was completely black with the flames, and his tongue swelled so that he could not speak, yet his lips went till they were sunk to the gums; and he knocked his breast with his hands until one of his arms fell off, then continued knocking with the other while the fat, water and blood dripped out at his finger ends. At length, by renewing of the fire, his strength was gone … Soon after, the whole lower part of his body being consumed, he fell over the irons that bound him, into the fire, amidst the horrible yells and acclamations of the bloody crew that surrounded him. This holy martyr was more than three quarters of an hour consuming; the inexpressible anguish of which he endured as a lamb … his nether parts were consumed and his bowels fell out some time before he expired …

 

BURNING SULFUR

 

Toward the end of the great age of witch hunts, German inquisitors sometimes tortured suspected witches by placing a lump of sulfur under one or both armpits and setting it alight. Considering that sulfur burns so furiously that even water can not extinguish it, and that major veins and arteries lie embedded beneath the arms, this could well have been not only unimaginably painful but terminal.

 

THE CAULDRON

 

Apparently devised by the Spanish Inquisition, the cauldron consisted of nothing more than a large kettle which was turned upside-down on a victim’s stomach. Beneath the cauldron were several mice, or one or two rats. A charcoal fire was then lit on the upturned bottom of the pot and as the vessel heated to red-hot the frantic rodents sought the only possible route of escape by clawing and chewing their way into the victim’s stomach.

 

The cauldron or fire bowl.

 

 

FRYING AND ROASTING

 

From the days of ancient Assyria until early eighteenth-century France, people have been heaved into gigantic frying pans and roasted like living chops. This account of frying comes from the Roman chronicler Gallonio and describes one such execution which took place during Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christians (64–68 AD).

    The frying pan … was filled with oil, pitch or resin, and then set over a fire; and when it began to boil and bubble, then were the Christians of either sex thrown into it … to the end that they might be roasted and fried like fishes …

 

Roasting alive.

 

The Romans occasionally roasted one of their victims on a gridiron, a grate-like construction that functioned like a massive barbeque grill. Supposedly St Lawrence the martyr was dispatched this way in the year 258. Similarly, during the Spanish Inquisition, there are reports of Inquisitional victims being put into gigantic pans and slid into huge ovens like roasts.

 

HOT WIRE

 

While binding various parts of the body with cords and ropes was common in many places and times, the Mogul Emperors of India took this torture one step further and bound their victim’s thumbs, fingers or hands with hot wires. As though the pain of the searing wire burning its way into their flesh were not enough, once the wire was in place it was doused with cold water, causing it to contract and cut its way still deeper into flesh and bone.

 

SPANISH CHAIR

 

The Spanish Inquisition seemed never to run out of creative ways to inflict pain on their victims. The Spanish Chair looked like nothing so much as an old-fashioned wicker garden chair, with the exception that it was made entirely out of iron. The open spaces of the back, seat and between the arms and legs were filled with chain mail and metal restraints at the wrists, ankles and across the chest held the victim in place. In some cases this chain mail was fitted with sharp spikes that dug into the victim’s flesh. Once strapped and spiked into place, the agony was increased either by placing a brazier of hot coals under the seat, or exposing the victim’s feet directly to a live fire. To prevent the feet from burning away too fast, they were sometimes basted with oil or fat. While it would be comforting to say that this little horror was limited to the Spanish Inquisition, the truth is that it was widely adopted throughout Germany, France, much of Central Europe and even, according to some sources, Great Britain, and remained in use until well into the 1700s.

 

Trial by ordeal.

 

 

TRAIL BY FIRE AND WATER

 

During the Dark Ages and early Middle Ages, Trial by Ordeal was a perfectly acceptable means of determining whether or not a person was guilty of a specific crime. Despite the fact that the outcome was as random as throwing dice, Trial by Ordeal was accepted by the Church, governments and the populace at large as an incontrovertible means of establishing the truth – primarily because it removed the flawed element of human judgment and left the outcome firmly in the hands of God. In Trial by Fire the accused was required to walk barefoot over anywhere from three to nine red-hot ploughshares, pick up a glowing hot iron bar and walk three paces or, alternately, place their hand inside a super-heated glove of chain mail. When the ordeal was over, the damaged part of the body was salved with ointment and wrapped in a linen bandage. Three days later the bandage was removed; if no blisters had appeared the accused was deemed innocent. If, on the other hand, there was obvious blistering the judgment was ‘guilty’. Trial by Water involved the accused plunging their hands (sometimes swathed in protective layers of linen cloth) into a vat of boiling water in order to extract a large stone from the bottom of the pot. As with Trial by Fire, the hands were salved and bandaged and examined after three days.

TORTURE BY CRUSHING, SMASHING OR BREAKING

 

 

BOOTS

 

This particularly nasty little device first appears in the historical record around the year 1590 and was used in different forms and shapes throughout Britain, Europe and the Orient for centuries. The British and European version of the boot was generally an iron, boot-shaped shell designed to fit over the foot and lower leg of the victim. Once in place, wooden wedges were driven between boot and leg until the limb crushed to the point where blood, muscle and even bone marrow oozed from the cracks and out around the top of the boot. As though that were not enough, sometimes the boot was applied red-hot, searing the flesh before the crushing began. In India, the boot consisted of little more than two boards, lashed to either side of the victim’s foot, after which the ropes were twisted so tight that the ankle bones, and eventually the entire foot, was crushed.

BOOK: The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History
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