The Oubliette was a horrific form of torture and execution
in which a prisoner would be forced into a tiny cell with no hope of getting out.
The term oubliette comes from the French ‘to forget,’ and with this, the prisoner would
be thrown into a cell or prison usually found in the dungeon of a castle and would be left
to die.
It was incredibly cramped and small, and was so tight that a prisoner would be forced often
to spend all day in a crouched position, as they could not sit down or stand up, and this
would cause great strain and agony on their back.
It would also force them to go mad, being stuck in this excruciating position for 24
hours a day, 7 days a week.
Those who found themselves unfortunate enough to be imprisoned inside the oubliette were
starved to death and were given no or little food, with the intention of inflicting such
slow suffering onto the prisoner.
There was no way out, and some oubliettes were built with this in mind, with the dungeon
being a bottle shape, that they were literally thrown down and could not escape or climb
up the walls.
Also one the floor sometimes were devices such as spikes which would impale a prisoner,
but guards could make the ordeal inside the oubliette much worse.
One of these cells was so dark at Warwick Castle that during the medieval 100 years
wars, the enemy of the English, the French heard of the prison inside Warwick.
This even led to French soldiers refusing to be taken prisoner for fear of being sent
to the oubliette at Warwick.
They would throw dead animals, human waste and other dreadful things inside the cell
to cause horror to a prisoner.
The point of this was to try and get the prisoner to succumb to their death sooner with infection,
and often there would be vermin and rats living in the cell, feasting off the remains of the
prisoner who was once in their.
Many oubliettes have been found in castles with human remains inside of them, and it
was a horrific method of killing a prisoner.
They would be kept in complete darkness, and would send a prisoner mad by the conditions
that they were subject to.
Some even had sewers running into them, so the prisoner would have to content with human
waste flowing directly into the cell.
But there is a lost oubliette which can be found at one of England’s greatest and most
beautiful castles.
Corfe Castle is a spectacular ruin that is found in Dorset near the south coast of England.
It has a rich history as a settlement, and during the Anglo Saxon times it was the site
of a murder of one of England’s kings.
But the Castle which became huge began its construction following the Norman Invasion
of England after the Battle of Hastings.
Corfe Castle grew into a huge and colossal fortress, with a keep that stood high towering
over the landscape.
When you visit today, you can’t help but notice the dramatic ruins that overlook the
area around, and the castle has some incredibly stories to tell.
It became a royal prison very early on during it’s time.
The three sons of William the Conqueror did not get on, and they each wanted to become
the English King.
Henry eventually became King, and he spent a huge sum of money in turning Corfe Castle
into a huge prison and place where even Kings would be found incarcerated.
The Keep stood at 80 feet high, and the fortifications around it became inpenetrable.
Many other medieval kings such as King John carried out further improvements to the defences
and capabilities at Corfe, and this included building a state of the art gloriette, a huge
structure inside the Castle’s inner Bailey, where the King could live and entertain his
guests.
But Corfe as it stands today was slighted following the English Civil War.
It had been defended spectacularly by Lady Mary Bankes for years, who managed to repel
Parliaments forces, but eventually it was captured by Cromwell’s men who following
the execution of King Charles I decided to put the castle out of military use once and
for all.
Huge barrels of gunpowder were wheeled into Corfe, and were detonated to bring down many
parts of the castle, to ensure it could never be used again by an army.
The gatehouses were broken, the keep was battered and it left Corfe Castle a site which had
great importance for 600 years a shell of its former self, with very little use as a
residence.
But inside one of the Tower’s which sit on the curtain wall of Corfe is a very dark
secret, and a very dark dungeon that has a very interesting history.
The Butavant Tower can easily be missed at corfe, it’s found next to the Old Hall part
of the castle which is considered to have been the oldest, and it’s believed it was
possibly here where King Edward the Martyr was murdered.
The Butavant Tower sits looking at another hill, but at the bottom of this tower was
a dungeon which was incredibly feared.
Prisoners were thrown down through a trapdoor in the floor and were thrown into the oubliette
at Corfe Castle.
Once a prisoner was down here, there was absolutely no way of escaping, and they would not be
able to climb out through the steps.
The Butavant Tower today sits half derelict, and beyond a metal grill and door you cannot
see anything but a staircase that would have taken you up or down the Tower.
If you would have gone up, you would have got to the battlements, and would have been
able to access the curtain wall that guarded the Keep.
But further downstairs would have been Corfe Castles’ oubliette.
There are records of the horrific oubliette being used during the Medieval period in brutal
ways.
During the reign of King John, following his seizure of the throne after the death of his
brother Richard I, he faced great rivalry from his nephew Prince Arthur of Brittany.
England owned much of France at the time, and this land was claimed by Arthur.
King John took an army across and besieged a castle, and he captured Arthur and around
500 French Knights, and then these knights were sent to different prisons in France and
England.
King John took Arthur’s sister Eleanor of Britanny also captive, and she was prisoned
at Corfe Castle along with 24 of her knights.
Eleanor as a royal prisoner was kept inside Corfe in relative comfort inside the keep,
but 22 of her guards were thrown into the oubliette and its believed all succumbed to
starvation and dead in there.
With this, we must make some assumptions about the oubliette at Corfe.
Unlike a number of oubliettes, to fit 22 men inside of the dungeon it must have been rather
large, and each of the men would have been thrown inside the dungeon from the trapdoor
down into the oubliette.
The conditions inside here would have been very cramped, as the Butavant Tower itself
isn’t the biggest of towers, and this would have made things incredibly tough there with
overcrowding.
It would have most probably been very clammy and sweaty in there too, but the knights were
slowly starved to death.
This story its believed still haunts the castle, and some people say that they have heard the
ghostly screams of men echoing from the walls near to this tower.
The Oubliette of Corfe Castle today as been lost under the slighting and damage done during
the Civil War.
Interestingly in 1850, the top of the Butavant Tower fell down and the villagers said that
it sounded like the World Was ending, and this was the last part of the castle to collapse,
and none have fallen since.
Inside of the oubliette at Corfe it would have been terrible for those prisoners held
there, especially those knights imprisoned who had to contend with their ultimate demise.
Each one would have died one by one from starvation, and who knows the depths that these prisoners
went to to survive.
The Oubliette today sits under a mound of earth, and is not accessible.
You can see the stairs to the dungeon which show an eery tease of the horror that was
the oubliette.
Interestingly I wonder if the true story of the terror of the oubliette still remain in
the dungeon, with the remains of the humans still being stuck down there.
The forgotten oubliette of Corfe Castle is a remarkable story which today has been lost
to time along with the stories of great suffering that happened inside the tiny cell.
They were some of the worst torture and execution methods used during the medieval and Tudor
Period, and today lying under a hill at Corfe is one of the darkest dungeons in History.
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