The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History

by Mark P. Donnelly

  During the late tenth century, a bell maker from Winchester, England, named Teothic was arrested and convicted of what the church records (where the case is recorded) only refer to as ‘a slight offence’. Under the rules of Anglo-Saxon England – which was one of the more stable societies in northern Europe at the time – the wretched Teothic was shackled and hung up by his hands and feet. The following morning he was taken down long enough to be whipped unmercifully before again being hung up like a side of beef. How long this horrific punishment might have continued we do not know because somehow Teothic escaped captivity and took sanctuary at a local monastery.

  When the crime is more serious than the one poor Teothic was convicted of – serious enough to demand the death of the prisoner, and bear in mind that as late as the eighteenth century, stealing a loaf of bread was a capital offence – the most unspeakable tortures can be justified under the concept that once a person has committed a serious crime they surrender every protection and comfort society extends to its law-abiding citizens. Once publicly placed outside the parameters of society, the malefactor could be legally dealt with – either swiftly and cleanly or in the most unspeakable manner imaginable. If his end was to come swiftly – relatively speaking – the most popular form of execution has always been by hanging.

  This engraving of a public hanging serves to illustrate what public spectacles these executions grew to be. Though we might assume by the presence of the masked executioner with the axe on the right, that this was not going to be a simple death by strangulation, but was, more likely, to have been a case of hanging, drawing and quartering as described later in this book.

  Despite the fact that until well into the nineteenth century – when a trapdoor was installed in the scaffold allowing the condemned to be ‘dropped’ to a nearly instantaneous death – hangings were carried out by placing a noose around the prisoner’s neck and hoisting him into the air where he dangled, kicked and choked himself to death over the next ten to twenty minutes, hanging has never been considered torture. So if hanging was cheap, easy, relatively quick and never considered a form of torture, why were so many strange, bloody and painful executions devised for so many different crimes? Before answering this question, it might be well to recount the more popular forms of execution – and the concomitant crimes – still in use as late as the sixteenth century. The following list comes from 1578 when it was compiled by the English chronicler, Ralph Hollinshed.

  If a woman poisons her husband she is burned alive; if a servant kills his master he is to be executed for petty treason; he that poisons a man is to be boiled to death in water or [molten] lead, even if the party did not die from the attempted poisoning; in cases of murder all the accessories [before and after the fact] are to suffer the pain of death. Trespass is punished by the cutting [off] of one or both ears … Sheep thieves are to have both hands cut off. Heretics are burned alive [at the stake].

  Not included on this list are simple hangings; beheading in cases where noblemen were convicted of treason and hanging, drawing and quartering imposed on commoners found guilty of the same offence. Burning at the stake – that ever-popular horror – took several forms. When the person in question had been convicted of heresy, if they recanted their sin they were usually strangled to death, or hanged, before being consigned to the flames. If they clung to their heretical belief they were condemned to be slowly roasted alive. Simple cases of murder would lead a man to the gallows but a woman was more likely to be burnt. Why? Because the corpse was routinely stripped naked and left to twist in the wind after the execution and it was considered disgraceful to expose a woman’s bare body to the curious stares of the public.

  In this illustration by Francisco Goya we see an execution by garrotte. This method rose to popularity in Spain during the years of the Inquisition and continued in use as late as the eighteenth century. The condemned is sat in a chair with a strap about his neck. The executioner slowly tightens the strap by way of a mechanism on the back of the ‘chair’ and slowly strangles the condemned to death. In some versions we find the presence of a spike at the back of the neck designed to pierce and sever the cervical vertebra thereby paralyzing the victim through the process.

  Before we condemn all the long-lost kings, princes, judges and church-men who imposed such horrific tortures as barbarians, it is well to remember that, unless a nation had been overrun by a foreign power, governments generally keep their hold on power by pandering to the needs, beliefs and tastes of their people. Torture, at least when carried out in public, and public executions were not only accepted by the general populace but demanded by them. Any king who denied his subjects the thrill of an occasional flogging or hanging, risked being toppled from his throne by one of his fellow noblemen who knew how to keep the masses happy.

  So far we have only considered torture as a means of punishment, or coercion, judicially inflicted by governments on their more disobedient subjects or hapless victims. Before moving on to a more complete history of torture we should look at another aspect which sometimes creeps into the already horrific annals of torture; the overall mind-set of those involved in the process at whatever remove. That is to say, the preconceptions and expectations of the individual being tortured, the person or persons inflicting the torture and, finally, on the public, which so often gathered to enjoy the spectacle of another human being subjected to unimaginable torment.

  Since humanity’s earliest realization that there are greater powers in the universe than our own little selves, humans have had the sneaking suspicion that the gods – and later even God, Himself – demanded sacrifices in the form of human suffering. At first it was a way to make the gods take away the thunder. Next it was a way to ensure that the crops grew, or the upcoming battle was won and last of all it just became a way to make the gods happy. In many primitive societies, this sacrificial suffering took the form of human sacrifice – the Aztecs ripped out the hearts of prisoners of war by the thousands. In more advanced societies the sacrificial pain became a more personal matter: ‘If I have committed a wrong, then I must be the one to pay for it’. This concept of accepting personal responsibility may have originated among the ancient Egyptians. Records show that Egyptian priests in the service of the goddess Isis flagellated themselves during specific festivals. Similarly painful self-punishments have been practiced by Hindu holy men who inflict a staggering array of painful experiences on themselves as a demonstration of their faith in their gods and control over their own bodies. It is not surprising then, to find that early Christians engaged in a variety of spiritually cleansing acts; all of which were designed to show the penitent’s remorse, their desire for forgiveness and submission to the power of God.

  This is a European depiction of methods of execution among tribes in Guinea. The kneeling victim is presumably a prisoner of war and is either going to be dispatched by the spear or the primitive axe/sword/club held by the second tribesman. In the background we can see a decapitated body, but it is uncertain whether this was the means of execution or a result of butchering. You may note that the decapitated man’s legs are missing and are being carried away by two other tribesmen – presumably for dinner.

  In the early Christian Church the only universal punishment was excommunication – that is to say being expelled from the body of the Church. Slowly, an elaborate system of penances was devised so as to allow a person to cleanse themselves of their sin while remaining a member of the Church. Among the more common methods of penance was fasting, prayer and going on pilgrimage to some holy place. The length and severity of the penance naturally depended on the severity of the transgression. There was yet another form of penance which rapidly became the most common form of punishment among those in ecclesiastic orders (monks, priests and nuns) who ran afoul of the rules of their order or the precepts of Holy Mother Church – flogging. By the end of the ninth century the practice of flagellation had become such a common means of atoning for sins and transgressions that rules had been laid
down as to precisely how a monk, or nun, was to be whipped, how many lashes were appropriate for which transgression and what other penances might go along with the flogging. When flagellation was to take place, the penitent was to remove all of their clothes prior to being disciplined, and the punishment was to be carried out before the entire assembled company of their house. The severity of the punishment varied vastly depending upon the seriousness of the offence, but the intent behind ritualizing the punishment was the same in all cases – by witnessing the suffering of their fellow cleric, the other members of the community would be taught a lesson in humility and discipline and, unless they were complete dullards, understood the fact that life is filled with suffering, most of which we have brought upon ourselves through our sinful ways. Medieval Christian clerics also tended to view everything in life as an allegory for something else. Hence, when they witnessed one of their brothers or sisters being whipped they were likely to think about the pain Jesus suffered on the cross and how much He sacrificed to save the souls of a sinful humanity. Being reminded of such a thing was good even if a member of the community had to suffer to make the point clear.

  The problem with the practice of dwelling on the suffering of Jesus, and its concomitant reflection in inflicting pain on members of the religious community, was that pain itself – either inflicting it or experiencing it – eventually came to be seen as an act of faith. Suffering – as an act of redemption – became a religious act. While this fact may never have been actively understood, it became so tacitly accepted that even the most revered saints, such as St Francis of Assisi (now best remembered as a man so holy that he could communicate with animals) spent much of his time flogging himself to a bloody pulp and advocating the same act for others who would follow in his footsteps. Obviously, when men as revered as St Francis indulged in self-inflicted pain, others came to believe that whippings were good for the soul. The great mass of medieval people never joined monasteries or convents, but this was an age of faith and nearly everyone desired to be as pious as those who devoted their lives to God. Consequently, accepting a good flogging from the local priest, or inflicting self-flagellation, became nearly as common a means of expiating one’s sins as going on pilgrimage or fasting.

  Whips, flails, floggers, quirts, cat-o-nine tails, etc. all come in a variety of shapes, sizes, types and severities. This one, while it may have been intended for use as corporal or judicial punishment, is of a type which we would categorize as a ‘scourge’. This may well have been made by an overly devout flagellant for the purposes of self-mortification. It was believed that through their suffering they would find redemption – both for themselves and the rest of humanity.

  In 1424, an Englishman named John Florence was accused of heresy and given the choice of being excommunicated or to submit to an appro-priate punishment. A true heretic would undoubtedly have chosen excommunication but Florence presented himself for discipline. On three successive Sundays, he was whipped in front of his congregation at Norwich Parish Church and suffered the same punishment at a neighbouring church. Such punishment was not reserved for the common man; even the most exalted members of lay society were willing to suffer the pains of the lash if it would remove the stain of whatever sin they might have committed. The most famous case may well be that of England’s King Henry II. In the year 1170, Henry had, either by intent or by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, caused the murder of his good friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Outraged by Becket’s killing, the pope excommunicated King Henry and told him to think things over for a while and get back to him. Knowing that an excommunicated king could never hold the throne – and probably truly remorseful over Becket’s brutal death – Henry walked barefoot, in the middle of winter, from London to Canterbury. There, he submitted himself to a monumental flogging. Each of the five prelates of Canterbury Cathedral administered five lashes to the King’s bare back and then each of the eighty monks gave him three more lashes. After receiving 265 lashes, the King was dressed in sackcloth, anointed with ashes and led to the altar of Canterbury Cathedral (the place where Becket had been murdered) where he knelt in prayer for an entire day and night.

  Considering how socially acceptable and wide-spread the concept of flagellation as a means of penance had become, it is hardly surprising to learn that entire fraternities grew up to cater to those who chose this painful form of personal redemption.

  In 1259, a plague broke out in Italy. With the country already wracked by internal wars and political corruption, society nearly broke down and itinerant priests and monks began warning that the end of the world was coming and that the arrival of the Antichrist was nigh. Terrified, one of the flagellant fraternities, known as the ‘Disciplinarians of Jesus Christ’, began wandering across the countryside, whipping themselves to expiate the sins of the world, and picking up masses of followers in every town and village they passed through. Men, women and even children joined their ranks and within months, parades of up to 10,000 bleeding bodies were stumbling down the roadways of Italy; chanting hymns and canticles, their faces covered against the shame of the world and their backs bared to accommodate the self-administered floggings. The sight was so terrifying that entire warring armies laid down their weapons and stood aside to let the sad procession make its way unmolested.

  This might have been seen as an isolated incidence of mass hysteria except for the fact that almost 100 years later, in 1447, the Black Plague broke out in Europe. In a matter of two-and-a-half years it wiped out nearly one third of the population. As the plague spread – and with it the belief that the disease was God’s punishment for mankind’s sins – an army of flagellants reappeared. The events of a century earlier were repeated but this time the flagellants had assumed a truly militant attitude. Where priests spoke out against their self-abuse, they broke into church services. When they wandered through Jewish ghettos they persecuted the Jews. In a matter of months, the flagellants spread out of Italy and into Switzerland, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, the German states, Denmark, Holland and Flanders and the farther they spread the more aggressive they became. Terrified, in 1349, Pope Clement VI outlawed the flagellant sects, insisting that such extreme actions were nothing less than heresy.

  Eventually the Black Death died out and with it so did the flagellants. What no one at the time could have understood is that pain, like drugs or alcohol, can become addictive; particularly when imposed under conditions of great emotional excitement or stress. The more troubled the times, the greater the need for demonstrative emotional release. Amid the terror of war and plagues, the flagellants, who purportedly sought to mitigate mankind’s sin, had embraced a new sin – sado-masochism (though that was a term which would not come in to existence for centuries). The same condition existed where corporal floggings were administered in the sexually repressed atmosphere of monasteries and convents; the whippings – either administering them or accepting them – became a substitute for sexual gratification.

  This particular aspect of punishment and torture – the concept of inflicting, or accepting, pain because it provided emotional or sexual gratification is too intimately involved with the overall concept of this book not to bear at least a brief investigation. In the instances described above – that of corporal punishment in the form of religious scourging – it is self-evident that the pleasure/pain syndrome could, and undoubtedly often did, become confused. In a more general context, the infliction of pain on a helpless victim may not have been intended to be a sexually or emotionally exciting experience, but torture master is precisely the type of job that would appeal to someone of a depraved disposition. Likewise, those who oversaw the administration of such torture, be they judges, clerics or other authority figures, were in a perfect position to experience vicarious thrills by watching someone have the flesh flayed from their back or their arms and legs ripped from their sockets. Examples of men who quite obviously enjoyed their work will not be difficult to find in the next section of this book. As
is true with most addictions, those who become addicted to inflicting – or in the case of the flagellants, receiving – pain, eventually develop a tolerance to their accustomed jolt and require ever stronger doses of the medicine. This may well account for the increasing levels of terror imposed by particular kings, dictators, jurists, or clerics, particularly those like Thomas de Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.

  Evidence that the Spanish Inquisition attracted far more sadists than religious fanatics is evident when we look at the latitude which the Inquisition allowed the guards in administering whippings to prisoners, even when they were not immediately being subjected to torture. If a prisoner was heard to speak (unless they were at prayer) they were whipped; if they sang they were whipped; if they spoke to their guards they were whipped, and so on and so on. Considering such draconian rules, and the associated opportunities for sadists to indulge their whims, it would stretch credulity to breaking point not to suggest that many of the daily practices of the Spanish Inquisition were more about the emotional high seemingly brought on by crushing the spirit and body of powerless human beings than about routing out heretics and suspected enemies of the state. There has never been anything in the history of mankind more terrifying than self-righteous fanatics, convinced of their own infallibility, and with the power and authority to exercise their will.

  This same principal of sadism in ever-increasing doses applies equally to the mob as it does to torture masters and Inquisitors General. From civilization’s earliest hangings through the mass executions of the Spanish Inquisition to the chop, chop, chop of the guillotine during the French Revolution and the cheering, jeering, heaving crowds who brought picnic lunches to see the hangings at London’s Tyburn Tree, crowds love a good display of power and ‘justice’. Satisfying the desire of the masses to see social misfits strung-up or dismembered was the motivating factor in making executions public in the first place – if ‘the people’ didn’t want to witness these things they would have been carried out in private. But the fact is, the multitudes are at least as barbaric as the torture masters, the judges, the Inquisitors and the criminals. The sight of watching people choke on the end of a rope or have their entrails ripped out excites people. When the Duke of Monmouth was beheaded in 1685 for plotting to overthrow his tyrannical uncle, England’s King James II, a crowd of thousands shrieked, screamed and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood as though he were a holy martyr. They did this because they loved him. Slightly over a century later, when the French Reign of Terror ordered that King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette be led to the guillotine, the reaction was almost identical, but for precisely the opposite reason – Louis they hated, Monmouth they loved, but both executions sent the mob into an ecstatic fervour. Why? For exactly the same reason that torture masters enjoyed their job – pain is both exciting and addictive, and it is this specific aspect of torture and punishment that makes it both so dangerous and so prevalent throughout history. No matter how much societies and governments insist that torture is a legitimate tool for discovering the truth, or for exacting retribution from convicted criminals or imposing the law of God on religious transgressors, the fact remains that it makes both individuals and the state feel good to exercise the ultimate power over those who do not quite fit into society’s accepted mould.