Between a Rock and a Hard Place —- The Pressing of Giles Corey, Salem Witch Trials, 1692

Until around the 1700’s many common law systems in European courts had no jurisdiction over defendants until the defendant entered a plea.  In essence a court could only try an accused person if they voluntarily allowed themselves to be tried in court.  Naturally very few criminals would volunteer to be tried in a court of law when there was a good chance of being found guilty and it was not uncommon for people to neither plead “guilty” or “innocent” in hope of escaping prosecution.

Thus the courts began to impose a very brutal method to coerce the accused into entering a plea.  Called peine forte et dure (hard and forceful punishment) or “pressing”, the accused would be seized and placed under a large flat board or platform.  Then weights or large stones would slowly be placed on top of the platform until he or she entered a plea.  The accused was left with a the choice of either entering a plea or being crushed to death.  Most entered a plea.

The most famous case of pressing in America occurred in Massachusetts in 1692.  There in the town of Salem hysteria was rampant as many of the townspeople were accused, tried, and hanged for witchcraft.  One colonist named Giles Corey was accused of being a warlock and was ordered to stand trial in Essex.  Like many before him Corey refused to enter a plea.  On September 17th, 1692 the pressing of Corey began under the supervision of Sheriff George Corwin.  Corey was stripped naked and laid in a small ditch with large wooden planks placed on his body.  Then several large rocks were placed on his stomach and chest.  Corey neither cried out or entered a plea, but only replied “more weight” with each round of stones.  He endured this torture for two days until he took his last labored breath on Sept. 19th 1692.  According to legend his last words were, “more weight”.

Today in a court of law not entering a plea is legally considered the same a pleading “not guilty”.

Chinese punishments, Punishment of the wooden collar; 1801-1910

Pretty medieval manuscript of the day is a hellish scene from the Hortus delicarum, a twelfth century illuminated book. According to Wikipedia:

Sadly the manuscript was destroyed in a fire in the nineteenth century, but many of the illustrations, including this one of hell, had been copied. This is, as far as we can tell, a faithful reproduction of the original illumination from the twelfth century.

A PDF version of the book’s text (in German) is freely available.

Image source: Image declared as public domain on Wikimedia Commons because its copyright has expired.

This is an amazing work, but…doesn’t everyone look a little too cheerful, considering?

Visions of Hell.

From the top, paintings by The Limbourg Brothers, Frans Floris, Dieric Bouts the Elder, and Hans Memling.

An iron ‘scold’s bridle’ or ‘brank’. Early 17th century

A scold’s bridle, sometimes called “the branks”, as well as “brank’s bridle” was a punishment device used primarily on women, as a form of torture and public humiliation. It was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head. The bridle-bit (or curb-plate) was about 2 inches long and 1 inch broad, projected into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue. The “curb-plate” was frequently studded with spikes, so that if the tongue moved, it inflicted pain and made speaking impossible. Wives that were seen as witches, shrews and scolds, were forced to wear a brank’s bridle, which had been locked on the head of the woman and sometimes had a ring and chain attached to it so her husband could parade her around town and the town’s people could scold her and treat her with contempt; at times smearing excrement on her and beating her, sometimes to death.

La Roue

Planche n° 14 de la suite “Les Grandes Misères de la guerre”, Paris, Israël Henriet éditeur, 1633

Callot Jacques (1592-1635), Henriet Israël (actif au 17e siècle)

@credits

The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment by bludgeoning to death.

The Nazi Experiments

There’s a reason the Nazi’s are such effective villains in so much of our culture. It’s very easy to forget some of the shit they did, which was downright torture, in the name of science. The experiments they ran on the people in concentration camps are terrifying and disturbing. Prisoners were dunked in ice water for hours, to see how long downed pilots would survive in the North Atlantic. Decompression chambers were used to test the effects of high altitude, usually followed by live brain dissections to see what happened; they were forced to drink salt water as their only source of fluids; war wounds were inflicted and deliberately infected in order to test new treatments; and TB was brought into the population. These people died under horrific circumstances. Yet these are the only clinical information we have about certain conditions. The hypothermia data in particular is far beyond any other study that could be attempted, which puts researchers in a dilemma. Is it ethical to use data gathered by such disgusting means in order to work on treatments that may save lives? (via)