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Common Tortures: Thumbscrews Leg Vises Scourging Strappado Squassation Ladder Stocks (with iron spikes) Severe friction with rope around neck to cut to the bone Cold water Baths Burning feathers dipped in sulfur (held under groin and armpit) Prayer stool. Seat is filled with sharp wooden pegs Force feeding of herring cooked in salt, and denial of water Scalding water baths (with lime added) Description: Boots - Also called Spanish boots. It consists of a vise enclosing the legs from ankles to knees, operated by screws or wedges. When the vice is forced together tightly, the bones and flesh of the legs are severely lacerated and crushed. When putting a witch to the question, use a large hammer to strike the wedges and tighten the vice, then repeat the question. Ladder - A method of torture employed in the preliminary stages of questioning, followed by strappado and squassation. The accused, garbed only in a shirt or underpants, is placed horizontally on his back, resting on the ladder, or on the ground between two fixed posts. His legs are fastened with roped to one end, and his arms, bound together and extended over his head, are attached to the other end by a kind of tourniquet. When the tourniquet is tightened, the rope contracts so that his body is suspended taut in the air. A more severe use of the ladder involves twistings of the rope to increase pain. The prisoner, man or woman, is bound to the two uprights of the ladder by relatively thin ropes from his shoulders, arms, and fingers down to his toes. The ropes are wound round and round the limbs and the uprights. By this means, little sticks can be inserted into the ropes and rotated as in a tourniquet. The cords are twisted and tightened so that the limbs and joints are squeezed in many places, and the knots in the ropes forced into the flesh. Hair Shirt - Force the accused to wear a hair shirt steeped in vinegar, so that the skin is pulled off the body Squassation - In the question extraordinaire, the final torture designed to make prisoners inform on their accomplices, the accused is hoisted as in strappado, his hands bound behind his back to a cord secured to a pulley in the ceiling of the torture chamber. The victim is raised off the ground, and then suddenly release a few feet so that he almost, but never quite, touches the ground. This jerking causes intense pain and complete dislocation of all the limbs. The higher the drop, the greater the pain. More than three applications (severe torture) usually causes death. `Very severe' torture consists of adding weights to the feet of the prisoner as he hangs, and twisting the ropes binding his hands. The weights used range from 40 to 660 pounds each. A description from Philip Limborch's History of the Inquisition: The prisoner hath his hands bound behind his back, and weights tied to his feet, and then he is drawn up high, till his head reaches the very pulley. He is kept hanging in this manner for some time, that by the greatness of the weight hanging at his feet, all his joints and limbs may be dreadfully stretched, and on a sudden he is let down with a jerk, by the slacking of the rope, but kept from coming quite to the ground, by which terrible shake his arms and legs are all disjointed, whereby he is put to the most exquisite pain-the shock which he receives by the sudden stop of his fall and the weight at his feet stretching his whole body more intensely and cruelly. Strappado - A common form of torture to force confessions and the naming of accomplices. The prisoner's arms are tied behind his back with a rope attached to a pulley, and then he is pulled into the air. Frequently, weights are attached to the feet to pull his shoulders from their sockets without leaving visible marks of rough treatment. Sometimes toescrews and thumbscrews are applied while the victim is suspended. Strappado is customarily one of the `lighter' measures used, but can easily develop into squassation, a more severe variant. Degrees of Torture - 1st: Stripping and binding 2nd: Strappado 3rd: Squassation Detailed instructions for the Preparatory Torture from the Malleus Maleficarum: It must be remembered that methods of torture vary from place to place, and from Inquisitor to Inquisitor. Nevertheless, the basic principles and procedures remain fairly constant. The first stage of torture is designed to force the victim to confess. This is the Preparatory Torture, the question preparatoire. It is generally simple, though horrible and effective. It begins with threatening, and continues with taking the victim to the torture chamber to view the horrors (in conspectu tormentorum). At this territio, or session to induce terror, the torturer will explain the uses of each instrument and the kinds of pain each would cause. Often the viewing finishes with binding ropes around the prisoner, possibly on the ladder or rack. The witch is stripped and bound with ropes that are gradually tightened around the limbs; alternatively, the arms and feet might be tied to the ends of the ladder, and as the ropes are tightened, the body slowly stretched out. The method of beginning an examination by torture is as follows. First, the jailers prepare the implements of torture, then they strip the prisoner (if it be a woman, she has already been stripped by other women, upright and of good report). This stripping is lest some means of witchcraft may have been sewed into the clothing- such as often, taught by the devil, they prepare from the bodies of unbaptized infants, that they may forfeit salvation. And when the implements of torture have been prepared, the judge, both in person and through other good men, zealous in the faith, tries to persuade the prisoner to confess the truth freely; but if he will not confess, he bids the attendants prepare the prisoner for the strappado or some other torture. The attendants obey forthwith, yet with feigned agitation. Then, at the prayer of some of those present, the prisoner is loosed again and is taken aside and once more persuaded to confess, being led to believe that he will in that case not be put to death... But if, neither by threats nor by promises such as these, the witch cannot be induced to speak the truth, then the jailers must carry out the sentence, and torture the prisoner according to the accepted methods, with more or less severity as the delinquent's crime may demand. And, while he is being tortured, he must be questioned on the articles of the accusation, and this frequently and persistently, beginning with the lighter charges- for he will more readily confess the lighter than the heavier. The prisoners are fed only on salted food, and how all their drink is mixed with herring pickle, and no drop of pure, unadulterated wine, beer, or water is allowed them, but raging thirst is purposely kept up in them...but this cruel, raging, devouring thirst the inquisitors do not consider torture. Only binding, strappado, and squassation is considered torture. To secure a confession of guilt, however, is not the only nor even the primary purpose of torture. The real torture was reserved for the question definitive, the Final Torture, which seeks to make the witch reveal the names of accomplices. Final Torture consists of two phases: the Ordinary Torture (strappado) followed by the Extraordinary Torture (squassation) There are many supplementary punishments for acts at which the court takes offense. No limits hinder the ingenuity of the witch judges: Cut open the feet and pour hot oil into the wound Piercing the tongue Forcible feeding of herrings cooked in salt, followed by denial of water immersion of the accused in baths of scalding water with lime added Wooden Horse Heated iron chair Boots of leather with boiling lead poured into them Water torture (question de l'eau) - water is poured down the throat of the accused, along with a soft cloth to cause choking. The cloth is pulled out quickly so that the entrails will be torn. Steps of torture in witchcraft trials
Torture can be applied up to three times without new evidence introduced. Refinements can be added to these basic methods, such as flogging, application of fire, thumbscrews, etc.
Methods of the Inquisition |
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