The Medieval Tortures of the Roman Catholic Church

The Medieval Tortures

It is an historical fact the Roman Catholic Church supplanted all civil authority of the European Governments for exactly 1,260 years.

The most common means of torture included burning, beating and suffocating, however the techniques below are some of the more extravagant and depraved methods used and allowed by the Roman Catholic Church.

Torture room in the Inquisition cathedral in Nuremberg

 

 

Iron Gag or Mute’s Bridle

This device stifles the screams so as not to disturb the conversation of torturers. The iron “box” on the inside of the ring is forced into the victim’s mouth and the collar fastened behind their neck. A small hole allows the passage of air but this can be stopped up by a touch of the executioner’s fingertip, producing suffocation.  Often constructed with a long spike that pierced the tongue and the floor of the mouth, protruding from underneath the chin, while the other end penetrated up through the bony palate of the mouth into the sinuses.

Often those condemned to the stake were thus gagged because their screams would interfere with the sacred pagan music played during the grandiose public festivities in which dozens of heretics were burnt at one time.

The Pendulum

A fundamental torture one that is often just a preparation of the victim for more effective infliction of still more tortu­res. No complex equipment is needed the victim’s wrists are tied behind his back then a rope is attached to the wrist restraints and the sufferer is slowly hoisted up ripping the humerus from the sockets and dislocating the scapula and clavicle. The agony can be heighten­ne by means of weights progressively attached to the feet until at last the skeleton is pulled apart as it is by the bench and ladder racks.

 

 

The Rack

The Rack was an instrument of torture often used in the Middle Ages, and a popular means of extricating confession. The victim was tied across a board by their ankles and wrists, rollers at either end of the board were turned by pulling the body in opposite directions until dislocation of every joint occurred. According to

 

Puigblanch, quoted inMason’s History of the Inquisition,

 

 

“in this attitude he experienced eight strong contortions in his limbs, namely, two of the fleshy parts of the arms above the elbows, and two below; one on each thigh, and also on the legs.”

 

Bound, the heretic, could then be subjected to other forms of torture.

The Rack was extensively used during the Spanish Inquisition.

Other forms included the detainee being fastened in a groove upon a table on his or her back. Suspended above was a gigantic pendulum, the ball of which had a sharp edge on the lower section, and the pendulum lengthen with every stroke. The victim sees this engine of destruction swinging to and fro only a short distance from ones eyes.

Momentarily the keen edge comes nearer, and at length cuts the skin, and gradually cuts deeper and deeper, until their life has fully expired.

 

The Ladder Rack

Preparation for the Ladder Rack often started with the crushing of the shins with the screw-activated “Spanish Boots”.

 

 

With the arms securely affixed behind the victim’s back the person was then put onto the inclined slope of the Ladder Rack.  Thus load the executioner would push the 2 heels of the feet forward causing the victim to plummet downward so that the shoulders were immediately and violently wrenched out of their sockets.

 

The victim is literally stretched by force of the winch with various old sources testify to increases of twelve inches that comes from the dislocation and extrusion of every joint in the arms and legs, of the dismemberment of the spinal column, and of course the ripping and detachment of the muscles of limbs, thorax and abdomen.

But long before the victim is brought to the final undoing, he or she, even in the initial phases of the enquiry (in the J ‘Question of the first degree”), suffers dislocation of the shoulders because his arms are pulled up behind his back, as well as the agony of muscles ripping like any fiber subjected to excessive stress. In the Question of the second degree the knee, hip and elbow joints begin to be forced out of their sockets; with the third degree they separate, very audibly. After only the second degree the interrogatee is maimed for life; after the third he is dismembered and paralyzed, and gradually over hours and days the life functions cease one by one.

The Stocks

The victim with his or her hands and feet locked into the pertinent holes with bracket irons was then  set out in the square where the mob in the mildest of cases poked him, slapped him, and besmirched him with feces and urine or substances supplied by the ubiquitous chamber pots or open jakes.  All of these were smeared into the mouth, ears, nose, and hair. Only the most innocuous transgressors could hope to get away with no more than a few black-and-blue marks and a couple of bumps.

Children’s books, cinema, and television generally portray the stock in humorous colors centered on a grumpy victim being cajoled and reviled by an always benevolent rough-and-tumble crowd. Reality was very different.

 

 

 

With their feet in the stocks, two pieces of timber clamped together, over and under, both across each leg above the ankles. The soles of their feet then having been greased with lard, a blazing brazier was applied to them, and they were first blistered and then fried. At intervals a board was interposed between the fire and their feet and removed once they disobeyed the command to confess themselves of guilt for which they had been charged.

Being more painful, but less fatal than racking, this was the torture most in vogue when the subject chanced to be of the female sex. It was also favored in cases where children were to be persuaded to testify against their parents. Slighter tortures consisted of binding a piece of iron to a limb and putting a twister mark to force it inwards, as was pressing the fingers with rods between them, or removing a nail from fingers or toes, which were all highly practiced upon persons of not sufficient strength to survive the pulley, rack, or fire.

The Barrel Pillory

Inflicted for the most part on chronic drunkards who were exposed to public ridicule in this fashion. The barrels could be either of two kinds: those closed on the bottom with the victim immersed in feces and urine or merely putrid water, or open so that the victim could walk and be led about the town with the enormous and very painful weight on thier shoulders.

 

 

Water Torture
The victim’s nostrils were pinched shut, and eight quarts of fluid were poured down the victim’s throat through a funnel. Other techniques included forcing a cloth down the throat, while pouring water, which made a swallowing reflex pushing it further down into the stomach producing all the agonies of suffocation by drowning until the victim lost consciousness. Instead of water, the torture was sometimes conducted with boiling water or vinegar.

 

 

 

The victim did not die quickly from the rupturing of the stomach but very slowly from Peritonitis. This happens when the unclean contents of the stomach combine with the clean organs of the abdominal cavity.

 

The Heretics Fork

This instrument consisted of two little forks one set against the other, with the four prongs plunged into the flesh, under the chin and above the chest, with hands secured firmly behind their backs. A small collar supported the instrument in such a manner that the victims were usually forced to hold their head erect, thus preventing any movement.

 

 

 

The forks did not penetrate any vital points, and thus suffering was prolonged and death was always nearly avoided. The pointed prongs on each end to crane the persons head made speech or movement near impossible. The Heretics Fork was very common during the height of the

 

Spanish Inquisition.
The Pear

 

 

These instruments were used in oral and rectal formats, like the present specimen, and in the larger vaginal one. They are forced into the mouth, rectum or vagina of the victim and there expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture of the segments. The inside of the cavity in question is irremediably mutilated, nearly always fatally so. The pointed prongs at the end of the segments serve better to rip into the throat, the intestines or the cervix.

 

 

 

The oral pear was often inflicted on heretical preachers, but also on lay persons guilty of unorthodox tendencies; This item became extensively applied throughout the Spanish Inquisition to force confessions from those accused of Witchcraft.

 

 

 

 

 

The Wheel

The wheel was one of the most popular and insidious methods of torture and execution practiced. The giant spiked wheel was able to break bodies as it rolled forward, causing the most agonizing and drawn-out death. Other forms include the “braided” wheel, where the victim would be tied to the execution dock or platform. Their limbs were spread and tied to stakes or iron rings on the ground. Slices of wood were placed under the main joints, wrists, ankles, knees, hips, and elbows. The executioner would then smash every joint with the iron-tyred edge of the wheel–however the executioner would avoid fatal blows to give the victim a painful death.

 

 

 

 

 

According to a German chronicler, the victim was transformed into a huge screaming puppet writhing in their own blood. It looked like a sea monster with four tentacles, and raw slimy shapeless flesh, mixed with splinters of bone. After the smashing had taken place the victim would literally be “braided” into the wheel and hung horizontally at the top of the pole.
The Breast Ripper

The name of this device speaks for itself. Cold or red-hot the four claws slowly ripped to formless masses the breasts of countless women.

 

 

 

 

This device was highly put into service during the massacre of the Danes.

 

Hanging cages

 

These cages were usually hung around the outsides of town halls and ducal palaces, they were also near the town’s hall of justice and surprisingly cathedrals. The victim, naked and exposed, would slowly wither from hunger and thirst. The weather would second the victims death by heat stroke and sunburn in the summer and cold in the winter.

 

 

 

 

The victims and corpses were usually previously mutilated before being put in the cages to make a more edifying example of the punishment. The cadavers were left in the cages until the bones literally fell apart.

 

The Garotte

Originally, the

 

garotte was simply hanging by another name. However, during Medieval times, executioners began to refine the use of rope until it became as feared and as vile as any serious punishments. Executioners first used the garotte to end the suffering of heretics broken on the wheel, but by the turn of the 18th century the seed of an idea involving slow strangulation was planted in the minds of lawmakers.

 

 

 

 

At first, garottes were nothing more than an upright post with a hole bored through. The victim would stand or sit on a seat in front of the post and chanting crowd, and a rope was looped around his or her neck. The ends of the cords were fed through the hole in the post. The executioner would then pull on both ends of the cord, or twist them tourniquet-styled, slowly strangling the victim. Later modifications included a spike fixed into the wood frame at the back of the victim’s neck, parting the vertebrae as the rope tighten.

 

The Head Crusher

 

With the victim’s chin placed on the lower bar, a screw then forces the cap down on the victims cranium. The recipients teeth are crushed and forced into the sockets to smash the surrounding bone. The eyes are compressed from their sockets and brain from the fractured skull.

 

 

 

 

This device, although not a form of capital punishment, is still used for interrogational purposes. It was to inflict extreme agony and shock and leave the victim in its grasp for hours. Other methods included the head screw (below) which was placed around the forehead and tighten. The accused became so frantic by the extreme panic of having their head crushed that they confessed to anything.
Burnt at the Stake

 

If the Inquisitor wanted to be sure no relics were left behind by an accused and convicted heretic, he would select death by burning at the stake as the preferred method of execution. With few exceptions, death came from being burned alive. Frequently, burning a victim at the stake was cause for a crowd. Not content to merely learn about the spectacle after it was over, the masses wanted to be entertained.

 

 

 

 

Reflecting on those facts, and understanding such events occurred “under the law,” one can clearly understand how Thomas Hobbes (this is a contemporary biography) came to the conclusions he did about man in a state of nature.

If man is capable of such violence and inhumanity in a state of civilization, of what is he capable when there are no laws and there is no society?

(Carole D. Bos)

The Iron Maiden

The Iron Maiden or

 

Virgin of Nuremberg was a tomb-sized container with folding doors. The object was to inflict punishment, then death. Upon the inside of the door were vicious spikes. As the prisoner was shut inside he or she would be pierced along the length of their body. The talons were not designed to kill outright.

 

 

 

 

The pinioned prisoner was left to slowly perish in the utmost pain. Some models included two spikes that were driven into the eyes causing blindness. One of these diabolical machines was exhibited in 1892.
The Strappado

One of the most common torture techniques. All one needed to set up a

 

strappado was a sturdy rafter and a rope. The victim’s wrists were bound behind their back, and the rope would be tossed over the beam.

 

 

 

 

The victim was repeatedly dropped from a height, so that their arms and shoulders would dislocate. This was a punishment of the Secret Tribunal until 1820.

The Boots

Also known as the

 

bootikens. The legs of the patient were usually placed between two planks of wood, which they binded with cords and wedges. The torturer used a large, heavy hammer to pound the wedges, driving them closer together.

 

 

 

 

Forceful blows were used to squeeze the legs to jelly, lacerating flesh, protruding the shins, and crushing the bones; sometimes so that marrow gushed out. Once unloosed the bones fall to pieces, rendering the legs useless. This torture was most overwhelming, as one can imagine.
Judas Cradle

The victim was stripped, hoisted and hung over this pointed pyramid with iron belts. Their legs were stretched out frontwards, or their ankles pulled down by weights. The tormentor would then drop the accused onto the pyramid penetrating both orifices. With their muscles contracted, they were usually unable to relax and fall asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

The Guillotine

 

 

It was the French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, born in Saintes in 1738 and elected to the National Assembly in 1789 who first promoted a law that required that all executions even those of commoners, be carried out by means of a “machine that beheads painlessly”. An easy death was no longer to be the prerogative of nobles.  Consciousness survives long enough for the victim to perceive the beheading even when removed by the swift slash of an axe or guillotine.

 

 

 

 

After the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette on 21 January 1793, the I ‘machine’ ” called only thus until these two events became known also as “lila louisette” or “le loui son”, only after 1800 did the term “la guillotine” become established. As such it remained in use in many countries, including the Papal States and the kingdoms of Piedmont and Bourbon Naples until 1860.

 

Papal Inquisition (1233)

 

At the close of the 12th century, heresy was spreading rapidly in Southern France. Papal legates were sent by Pope Innocent III into the disaffected district to increase the severity of repressive measures against the Waldenses. In 1200, Peter of Castelnau was made associate inquisitor for Southern France. The powers of the papal legates were increased so as to bring non-compliant bishops within the net. Diego, bishops of Osma, and Dominec came onto the scene. In 1206, Peter and Raoul went as spies among the Albigenses.

 

Count Raymond of Toulouse abased himself in 1207, before Peter promised to extirpate the heretics he had defended. Dominec advised a crusade against the Albigenses. The pope’s inquisitors tried, condemned, and punished offenders inflicting the death penalty itself with the concurrence of the civil powers.
The Inquisition was also destined to become a permanent institution. The vigor and success of the Papal Legatine Inquisition assured this. The Fourth Lateran Council took the initial steps withPope Innocent III presiding. The synodal courts were given something of the character of inquisitorial tribunals. Synods were to be held in each province annually, and violations of the Lateran canons rigorously punished.

 

The condemned were to be left in the hands of the secular power, and their goods were to be confiscated. The secular powers were to be admonished and induced, and, should it prove necessary, were to be compelled to the utmost of their power to exterminate all who were pointed out as heretics by the church. Any prince declining not to purge his land of heresy was to be excommunicated. If he persisted, complaint was to be made to the pope, who was then to absolve his vassals from allegiance and allow the country to be seized by Catholics who should exterminate the heretics. Those who joined in the crusade for the extermination of heretics were to have the some indulgence as the crusaders who went to the Holy Land.
In the face of this inexpugnable record, how futile it is for modern church apologists to pretend that Rome did not shed blood, and was not responsible for the atrocities of the Inquisition. The Council of Toulouse in 1229 adopted a number of canons tending to give permanent character to the Inquisition as an institution.

 

It made or indicated the machinery for questioning, convicting, and punishing. Heretics were to be excluded from medical practice; the houses in which they were found to be razed to the ground; they were to be delivered to the archbishop, or local authorities; forfeiture or public rights could be removed only by a papal dispensation; any one who allowed a heretic to remain in his country, or who shielded him in the slightest degree, would lose his land, personal property, and official position; the local magistracy joined in the search for heretics; men from the ages of 14, and women from 12, were to make oath and renew it every two years, that they would inform on heretics.

 

This made every person above those ages a bloodhound to track to torture and kill. Local councils added to these regulations, always in the direction of severity and injustice. The organic development of the Papal Inquisition proceeded rapidly. It was found that bishops, for the various reasons, would not always enforce the cruel canons of the councils.

 

So Pope Gregory IX in August, 1231, put the Inquisition under the control of the Dominicans, and order especially created for the defense of the church against heresy. Dominican inquisitors were appointed for Aragon, Germany, Austria, Lombardy, and Southern France.
The chronicle of the inquisitor Guilhem Pelhisso shows the most tragic episodes of the reign of terror which wasted Languedoc in France for a century. Guillaume Arnaud, Peter Cella, Bernard of Caux, Jean de St Pierre, Nicholas of Abbeville, Foulques de St Georges, were all the chief inquisitors who played the part of absolute dictatorship, burning at the stake, attacking both the living and the dead.

 

One of the leading head Inquisitors of Germany was Conrad of Marburg. Stern in temper and narrow in mind, his bigotry was said to be ardent to the pitch of near insanity. Conrad was urged byPope Gregory IX as to “not to punish the wicked, but as to hurt the innocence with fear.” History shows us how far these Inquisitors answered to this ideal. Conrad murdered and terrified countless people in pursuit of his duties, regarding mental and physical torture as a rapid route to salvation. He was given full discretionary powers, and was not required to hear the cases, but to pronounce judgment, which was to be final and without appeal-justice to those suspect of heresy.

 

He was authorized to command the aid of the secular arm, to excommunicate protectors of heresy, and to lay interdict on whole districts. During his reign, he claimed to have uncovered nests of “Devil worshippers” and adopted the motto “I would gladly burn a hundred innocent if there was one guilty among them.” Stimulated by this shining example, many Dominicans and Franciscans merged with him, and became his eager assistants. He also sentenced the feline cat to be forever viewed as a tool of manifestation for witches and sorcerers.

 

During the persecution of heresy in the Rhineland’s by Conrad, one obstinate culprit actually refused to burn in spite of all the efforts of his zealous executioners. A thoughtful priest brought to the roaring pile a consecrated host. This at once dissolved the spell by a mightier magic, and the luckless heretic was speedily reduced to ashes.
Other inquisitors included Peter of Verona in Italy, Robert the Bulgar in northeast France, and Bernardus Guidonis in Toulouse. Guidonis, was considered the most experienced inquisitor of his day, condemning roughly 900 heretics, with recorded sentences pronounced after death against 89 persons during a period of 15 years. Not only was their property confiscated and their heirs disinherited, but they were subject to still further penalties. In the north of France, the Inquisition was marked by a series of melancholy events. Robert le Bougre, spent six years going through the Nivernais, Burgundy, Flanders and Champagne, burning at the stake in every place unfortunates whom he condemned without judgment.
Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834)

 

 

Tomas de Torquemada Pope Sixtus IV
Inquisitor-General of Spain                         Papacy began August 9, 1471
1420 – September 16, 1498                      Papacy ended August 12, 1484

 

 

In 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was established with the papal approval of Pope Sixtus IV. The reform and extension of the ancient tribunal which had existed from the thirteenth century was mainly to discover and eliminate Jews and Muslims secretly taking up their beliefs in private.

 

The conduct of this holy office greatly weakened the power and diminished the population of Spain. It was considered the most deadliest and notorious of all Inquisitions, as firstly being, it was the most highly organized and secondly, it was far more exposed and open with the death penalty than that of the papal Inquisition. This holy office became veiled by secrecy, unhesitatingly kept back, falsified, concealed, and forged the reports of thousands of trials.

The first two Inquisitors in the districts of Seville were appointed in 1480 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to round up the most wealthiest heretics; the reason for this, was that the property of those accused, were shared equally between the Catholic throne and the Dominicans.

 

 

 

The Catholic Spanish government also directly paid the expenses, and received the net income of the Inquisition itself from the accused. According to civil law, people convicted of religious treason were sentenced to death and their goods confiscated while the Catholic Church feasted on their estate. Additional Inquisitors were named, including Tomas Torquemada, who the following year was appointed Inquisitor General for all of Spain.

 

Tomas, who’s duty was to organize the rules of inquisitorial procedures in Seville, Castille and Aragon. He believed punishment of heretics, was the only way to achieve political and religious unity in Spain. Those refusing to accept Catholicism where lead to the stake and burnt alive in a procession and Catholic ceremony known as “auto-de-fe'” (act of faith).

 

 

Roman Inquisition (1542-1700)

 

In the early 1500’s and 1600’s, the Catholic Church went through a reformation. It consisted of two related movements:

 

 

(1) a defensive reaction against the Reformation, a movement begun by Martin Luther in 1517 that gave birth to Protestantism

(2) a Catholic reform which saw Protestants declare war on Catholics

 

The Roman Catholic Church called the Council of Trent partly as a defense against Protestantism. In 1542, Pope Paul III (1534-49) established the Holy Office as the final court of appeal in trials of heresy. The Church also published a list of books that were forbidden to read. Heretical books were outlawed, and searched out by domiciliary visits. Every book that came was scrutinized minutely with the express object of finding some passage which might be interpreted as being against the principles or interests of the Catholic faith.

 

The secular coadjutor were also not allowed to learn to read or write without permission. No man was able to aspire to any rank above that of which he already holded. The church insisted on this regulation as a means to obtaining a perfect knowledge of its subordinates.

 

The censorship of books took three forms:

 

 

(1) complete condemnation and suppression

(2) the expunging of certain objectionable passages or parts

(3) the correction of sentences or the deletion of specific words as mentioned

 

A list of the various books condemned upon any of these three heads was printed every year, after which anyone found to be in the possession of a volume coming under section (1) or an unexpurgated or uncorrected copy of a volume coming under section (2) or (3) was deemed guilty and liable to serve punishment. The author and the publisher of any such book often spent the remainder of their lives in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Its overall goal was to eradicate Protestant influences in Europe.

A number of wars resulting from religious conflicts broke out as well as the Catholic governments tried to stop the spread of Protestantism in the country. Such attempts led to the civil war in France from 1562 to 1598 and a rebellion in the Netherlands between 1565 and 1648. Religion was a major issue in the fighting between Spain and England from 1585 to 1604.

 

 

 

It was also a cause of the Thirty Years’ War 1618 to 1648, which centered in Germany, that eventually involved all of the great nations of Europe halving its population. The estimate of the death toll during the Inquisitions ranged worldwide from 600,000 to as high in the millions covering a span of almost six centuries.

 

Victor Hugo estimated the number of the victims of the Inquisition at five million, it is said, and certainly the number was much greater than that if we take into account, as we should, the wives and husbands, the parents and children, the brothers and sisters, and other relatives of those tortured and slaughtered by the priestly institution. To these millions should properly be added the others killed in the wars precipitated in the attempt to fasten the Inquisition upon the people of various countries, as the Netherlands and Germany.