MEDIEVAL TORTURE DEVICES SERIES
MEDIEVAL TORTURE DEVICES TV

Or, the victim could be tied to the outside of the wheel with their feet tied to the ground. Once the victim was dead, the wheel would be raised up on a shaft for all to see.

The torturer then takes a hammer and proceeds to smash different parts of limbs over the wheel. The breaking wheel is a wagon wheel with teeth or cogs, onto which the victim is tied so that their limbs rest between the cogs. You may wonder how anything can get worse than this one. Not exactly the kind of boots you want to pick up in the January sales! Some versions would also feature inward pointing spikes, nails or blades to worsen the effect. Mallets are then used to drive the wedges in causing abrasions, lesions and, ultimately, the breaking of bones. Problems really begin when wooden wedges are inserted between the boot and the victim’s skin. The lower legs would be placed into a set of tightly fitted wooden or iron boots. Sometimes known as the Spanish Boot or the scarpines, the boot was something like a rack for your legs. This might not seem so bad but remember, you have no control over when you’re taken out of the water! You could be close to running out of breath or even on the verge of drowning before the torturer lets you back out! The method most often depicted as used to torture suspected witches, dunking is exactly what you would expect: the victim is submerged in water and then removed before drowning. Two metal plates with a vice mechanism into which the victim’s thumb is placed. Maybe not as lethal as other methods of torture, but this is certainly one to make you wince! The thumb screw is less a screw a more of a vice. This has the immediate effect of causing great pain! As the cranks are turned, the ropes restraining the victim tighten and the victim’s limbs are stretched.

Compared to other medieval devices, this one is simple: the victim is tied to a wooden structure featuring a system of cranks. The rack is the classic torture tool of the Spanish Inquisition. The reason that this most famous of devices receives a dishonourable mention is that it didn’t exist in the medieval period! The Iron Maiden was a 19th century hoax created to present the past as being more violent than the modern era to demonstrate the march of progress.

MEDIEVAL TORTURE DEVICES SERIES

Seems bad enough already but throw in a series of spikes pointing inwards at the victim which get closer and stabbier as the coffin is shut and you can imagine why it was so horrid! Not Bruce and the gang! Probably the most famous torture device of the Middle Ages, the Iron Maiden was an iron coffin, featuring a maudlin face, into which the poor victim was thrown. Despite all that exposure, it’s fair to say that the way those torture techniques are shown in media is probably toned down from the real thing! As part of our February Half Term Crime and Punishment event, here are the top seven most gruesome medieval torture techniques and devices…

MEDIEVAL TORTURE DEVICES TV

We have probably seen enough films, read enough books and watched enough TV dramas to know that the medieval world loved a bit of torture.

Medieval torture devices