Torture Devices

The Breast Ripper

Cold or red-hot, the four claws slowly ripped to formless masses the breasts of countless women condemned for heresy, blasphemy, adultery and many other “libidinous acts”, self-induced abortion, erotic white magic and other crimes. In various places at various times –in some regions of France and Germany until the early nineteenth century– a “bite” with a red-hot ripper was inflicted upon one breast of unmarried mothers, often whilst their creatures, splattered with maternal blood, writhed on the ground at their feet.

Besides the punitive function, breast-ripping also served as an interrogational and juridical procedure.

The Branks

The Branks, or Scold's Bridle, is a sort of metal gag, which was principally used on scolding housewives. It was typically fashioned as a cage that locked onto the head, aided by a metal protrusion that fit into the mouth. This tongue-piece was often enhanced with spikes or a rowel (small spiked wheel) to discourage attempts to speak. They appear to have originated in Scotland in the 16th century and passed from there to England and thence to the Americas, although there is some evidence that a type of branks may have been used even earlier

Some were also fitted with a chain to permit securing the wearer in a public place. Ancient houses in Congleton, Cheshire had a hook fixed beside the fireplace to which the town gaoler could fix the community bridle if the wife nagged too much.

Occasionally a bell on a spring was added to herald the approach of the wearer. An example of this type is on display in the Torture Chamber of the Tower of London.

Branks were also used to silence witches to prevent them from chanting or reciting their magic spells.

In the Americas, the brankswere a type of humiliation punishment, while in medieval Europe, they were used more as a torture device.

The Wheel
 
 

Being broken or "braided" on the wheel was one of the most insidiously painful methods of torure and execution practised in Europe.

After hanging, “breaking with the wheel” was the most common means of execution throughout Germanic Europe from the early Middle Ages to the beginning of the eighteenth century; in Gallic and Latin Europe the breaking was done with massive iron bars and with maces instead of wheels.

The victim, naked, was stretched out supine on the ground or on the execution dock, with his or her limbs spread, and tied to stakes or iron rings. Stout wooden crosspieces were placed under the wrists, elbows, ankles, knees and hips. The executioner then smashed limb after limb and joint after joint, including the shoulders and hips, with the iron-tyred edge of the wheel, but avoiding fatal blows. The victim was transformed, according to the observations of a seventeenth-century German chronicler, “into a sort of huge screaming puppet writhing in rivulets of blood, a puppet with four tentacles, like a sea monster, of raw, slimy and shapeless flesh (rohw, schleymig und formlos Fleisch wie di Schleuch eines Tündenfischs) mixed up with splinters of smashed bones”. Thereafter the shattered limbs were “braided” into the spokes of the large wheel, and the victim hoisted up horizontally to the top of a pole, where the crows ripped away bits of flesh and pecked out eyes. Death came after what was probably the longest and most atrocious agony that the ingenuousness of the power structure could inflict.

Together with burning at the stake and drawing-and-quartering, this was one of the most popular spectacles among the many similar ones that took place in all the squares of Europe more or less every day. Hundreds of depictions from the span 1450-1750 show throngs of plebeians and the well-born lost in rapt delight around a good wheeling, better if of a woman, best of all if of several women in a row.

The Pear

 The pear was a device that expanded after being inserted orally, anally, or vaginally.  It was used to rupture the sensitive membranes and tissues of these areas.  With much of the damage being inside the body cavity, "confessions" thus extracted could seem to be freely given.

The Judas Cradle 

This procedure has remained essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages until today. The victim is hoisted up in the manner shown in the accompanying illustration, and lowered onto the point of the pyramid in such a way that his weight rests on the point positioned in the anus, in the vagina, under the scrotum or under the coccyx (the last two or three vertebrae). The executioner, according to the pleasure of the interrogators, could vary the pressure from zero to that of total body weight. The victim can be rocked, or made to fall repeatedly onto the point. The Judas cradle was thus called also in Italian (culla di Giuda) and German (Judaswiege), but in French it was known as la veille, “the wake” or “nightwatch”. Nowadays this method enjoys the favour of not a few governments in Latin America and elsewhere, with and without improvements like electrified waist rings and pyramid points.

The Headcrusher

Headcrushers exerted tremendous force on the head by means of a screw. This could be used to force a confession or as a means of execution.  Some headcrushers had a sharp point at the tip of the screw which would drive into the skull, anchoring it for the pressure of the skull plate.

Examples of headcrushers can be seen in the Tower of London and at the Tijuana, Mexico Cultural Center.

The Whirligig

The whirligig was a device used as a military punishment. The offender was put in a cage which was spun rapidly, resulting in nausea and vomiting.

The Cat’s Paw (also Spanish tickler)
  

About as large as four fingers of a man’s hand, these devices, usually attached to a short handle, served to rip the victim’s flesh to shreds and to strip it off the bones, in any part: face, abdomen, back, limbs, breasts.

The Heretic’s Fork

    

With the four sharp points rammed deep into the flesh under the chin and into the bone of the sternum, the fork prevented all movement of the head and allowed the victim only to murmur, in a barely audible voice, “abiuro” (“I recant”, engraved on one side of the fork). If instead he still refused, and if the Inquisition was the Spanish one, he was held to be an “impenitent heretic” and, dressed in the characteristic costume, was led to the stake, but with the consolation of the sacrament if extreme unction; if instead it was the Papal Inquisition, he was hanged or burnt, without the benefit of the pretty costume but still with that of proper Christian rites.

The Iron Maiden

The iron maiden, often styled after the Madonna or a favorite daughter, was more an instrument of execution than torture. The device either enclosed the victim within, as the one below, or embraced with the victim with her arms. In either case, the point was to skewer the victim.

In the version above, the floor inside opened up to drop the victim into a rack of knives for disposal after he expired within the maiden.

The Chair of Spikes

The purpose of this device is fairly obvious.  The victim is made to site on the chair with the straps tightening to drive the spikes into his or her flesh.  Weights could also be used as well as blows with mallets to further the damage.  While quite painful, the chair itself was not always immediately fatal.  However, infection and tetanus claimed many victims days or weeks after their ordeal.

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