Back by popular demand, we are once again going to talk about some of the most brutal
things humans have done to each other in the name of punishment.
It’s quite hard to believe that in the past we sawed our prisoners in half, crushed their
heads, removed their internal organs, burned them at the stake and sometimes just strapped
them to a wheel and pulverized them until they were broken beyond repair.
These specters of violence, as some writers have called them, were not only there to deter
crime and punish crime, but served as a reminder that the public should stay in its place.
In the end, such cruel and inhumane acts just turned the people against the establishment
and gradually things changed.
12.
The Scavenger's Daughter This was also sometimes called Skevington's
Daughter, named after a British man called Sir William Skeffington.
It was basically an A-frame device made out of iron.
It had hinges so the frame could be moved around.
The victim’s head was fastened to the top part of the A, with his arms and legs being
fastened to the bottom parts.
The torturer could then bend the person into an excruciatingly painful position, breaking
the body.
Some say it was like the rack in reverse, as the rack pulled the person apart this device
crushed the person.
It was created during the reign of Henry VIII but there are also documented cases of it
being used during the reign of Elizabeth I.
11.
Flaying with a difference We’ve talked about flaying before, which
is having your skin peeled off.
This horrific form of torture was seen all over the world, from Europe, to China to Africa
to the Aztec Empire.
But according to the website Medieval Times and Castles, this practise was performed in
various ways.
We are told that sometimes people would be left out in the sun for a very long time until
the meat on their bodies was burned and tenderized.
This way the flaying could be done with ease.
In other cultures people would be lightly boiled first, then taken out of the pot and
peeled.
One source tells us that the torturers would often try and remove the skin in large sheets.
This was so it could later be displayed as a warning to others.
You can still see a preserved skin at Worchester Cathedral in the UK.
This was the skin of a Viking who had tried to steal the church bell.
It’s hard to believe humans could do such a thing, but as you’ll see, we’ve done
worse.
10.
Stoning to death This is what you might call an execution by
torture, and it differs from most other forms of brutal execution as the public can get
in on the horror.
Stoning goes back ages and takes its roots in Judeo-Christianity, but unfortunately for
some individuals the practice can be found in parts of the world today.
This brutal practice usually meant burying a person up to their head in the ground, and
then stones would be thrown at the victim until they died.
It is still legal in some countries today, mostly in parts of the Muslim world.
In Iran, for instance, Sharia Law states what size the stones must be so the execution doesn’t
go on for too long.
NBC tells us that stoning as a punishment is still a thing in the countries of Iran,
Afghanistan, parts of Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.
What also occasionally happens around some parts of the world is people are stoned to
death as part of tribal justice.
We can hardly imagine what it must be like to leave this life surrounded by an angry
mob throwing stones at your head, and to some extent we can say humanity hasn’t fully
extricated itself from its brutal past.
Perhaps even worse, is stoning often comes after what most of us rational and compassionate
people might see as paltry crimes – or not even a crime at all.
Take the stoning to death of a man in the USA in 2011.
Yep, that happened.
A 28-year old stoned a 70-year old to death because he said the Old Testament demanded
that was the punishment for homosexual men.
Such gruesome punishments don’t happen often these days, but in the past as you will see,
such a thing wasn’t thought of as being utterly horrific.
9.
The Stretching Ladder This form of punishment in medieval Europe
was quite similar to the rack.
As you might know, rack 1.0 usually consisted of tying a person to a rack with a bunch of
ropes attached to pulleys.
The person would then slowly be pulled apart, or at least have their joints busted, as someone
stretched them by turning a wheel attached to this contraption.
But it seems this wasn’t painful enough for some sadistic creatures of Europe, and
so a similar machine was invented in which the person would be laid on spikes and then
pulled apart.
You can actually see this spiked-rack at the Medieval Crime Museum (the Kriminalmuseum)
in Germany.
8.
The knee splitter “Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it,” the thinker and philosopher George Santayana once said.
We must stay close to our misdemeanors, even recent ones.
And so, it’s a good thing we have the Medieval Criminal Museum in San Gimignano, Italy.
On its website it writes, “Our commitment, which we share with all who are interested
in combating violence, is to show how throughout the centuries human beings have been tortured.”
If you visit that website you can find a lot of information and pictures on evil medieval
contraptions.
We chose the knee splitter for you, as just the name is enough to make you grimace.
Imagine two blocks of wood lying horizontal to each other, attached to two vertical iron
bars.
The pieces of wood have huge spikes sticking out of them, so the entire thing looks something
like a rather dangerous mouth.
A person’s legs would be put into this mouth, with the knees positioned where the teeth
are.
The mouth is then slowly closed, and it’s goodbye knees.
What you must remember, too, is in those days such a grievous injury would almost always
lead to a slow, painful death.
People were not exactly rushed to ER and then operated on under a haze of opiates and anesthetic.
7.
The Branks Unlike the knee splitter, branks is a name
that doesn’t exactly describe the punishment.
It has gone by other names, though, such as Scold’s Bridle and Witches Bridle.
It was basically an iron muzzle that would be fastened to a person’s head, usually
a woman.
A piece of metal in the bridle would also force the tongue down, so that person couldn’t
speak.
Ok, so it was uncomfortable, but it doesn’t sound too bad.
Maybe some parents out there wouldn’t mind using a branks on their kids.
But the thing was, if you were wearing one of these things it gave the public impunity
to do what they wanted to you.
This meant people would often be urinated on, covered in feces, and sometimes just beaten
to death.
You could see these things from around 1500 to 1800 in Europe.
You can probably guess that this punishment was usually a result of a commoner speaking
out of turn.
There are some cases of these being used as a punishment to women for gossiping.
It was to some extent the medieval version of having your social media account suspended.
6.
Impaled People might have been impaled after they
were killed using other means, but that certainly wasn’t always the case.
The good news is, this punishment was fast and furious, rather than a long drawn-out
experience.
It was long enough, though.
Usually a large stick would be sharpened into a spike.
It would be put into the ground with the sharp side pointing up.
The pole was then greased.
After this, a person would be lowered onto this spike starting at the rectum.
They would be pulled down as the stick traveled through the body while hitting organs.
This usually killed the people fast, but if the pole didn’t hit any major organs people
would writhe and scream for hours.
The Washington Post and many other sources tell us people were impaled during the Armenian
Genocide which was as late as the early 20th century.
5.
Keelhauling This was one for the sailors, and it makes
the plank seem quite reasonable.
As the name suggests, people suffering this ignominy would be hauled under the ship’s
keel.
The keel is like the spine or backbone of the ship, the part that’s usually built
first.
As punishment, sailors would be tied to a rope while the ship was moving and lowered
into the water.
They would be dragged under the keel, which was always in those days covered with very
sharp barnacles.
On top of nearly drowning, the person’s skin and flesh would be ripped apart.
Some reports tell us sailors might even lose a body part.
The outcome was often death.
The modern equivalent of this could be a roasting in the comments section of YouTube when no
one agrees with you.
Be smart, don’t get keelhauled.
4.
Bamboo Torture People in parts of Asia love their bamboo.
How could they not, you can eat it, you can use it as a cup, it makes a great scaffold
and you can build lots of things out of it.
Add to this, that the stuff grows at an incredible speed – in some species almost 35 inches
(91 centimeters) a day.
It’s also very, very strong.
You know what’s coming next, don’t you?
Yes, it’s said sometimes people would be forced atop a growing plant and fastened rectum-first.
The thing would grow quickly and grow though the body of the victim.
It was a very slow form of execution.
Some reports state this might not have happened, but various media and other sources say the
Siamese (the Thais) executed their enemies this way in the 19th century.
3.
Animal stuff If you saw our show on the Roman Coliseum
of the past you’ll know all about “damnatio ad bestias.”
This was execution by animal, and it took various forms.
You might be sat on by a trained elephant, and the crowd would roar as your guts spilled.
You might be thrown to the lions or be pitted against a bear.
Later, over in China you might been torn into two parts by horses, while in the Middle East
one form of punishment was just being trampled to death by horses.
The absolute craziest of animal-related punishments was a Roman one called “Poena cullei.”
It sounds a bit like one of those old Japanese game shows where people had to endure some
nasty things to get a prize.
It was worse, though, as it ended with death.
The process was simple.
Put a person in a large leather sack.
Fill that sack with animals, such as a monkey, a snake, a dog, and maybe throw in a couple
of chickens to spice things up.
Tie the sack and throw it into the water.
Maybe the modern equivalent of this has to be arguing about politics on Facebook and
expecting a positive outcome.
2.
Crushing in general Countries all over the world, and well past
the days on the Roman Empire, would have a form of punishment called crushing.
If being drowned with animals is a strange concept, this one is as simple as it gets.
You get crushed by something, mainly stones.
In Britain and France people might be pressed to death for not pleading anything in court.
If you stood mute, you got pressed.
They basically just wanted you to admit your guilt, which in many courses would have been
untrue.
In Britain, one person described crushing like this, “He has a great Weight of Iron
and Stone laid upon him.
His Diet, till he dies, is of three Morsels of Barley bread without Drink the next Day;
and if he lives beyond it, he has nothing daily.”
It might take a week to crush the life out of someone.
Still, there were people that just wouldn’t enter a guilty plea.
1.
The Blood Eagle This has to go down as the most creative way
to die, a kind of macabre illustrated poem.
Many of you know what it is already because you watched the show Vikings, but we’ll
expand for those of you that have never heard of the glorious blood eagle.
This ritualistic form of execution takes the biscuit really, and we think we’d rather
take our chances with sack full of angry animals drowning in a lake.
This is how it is explained in the Viking Sagas.
“Earl Einar went to Halfdan and carved blood-eagle on his back in this wise, that he thrust a
sword into his trunk by the backbone and cut all the ribs away, from the backbone down
to the loins, and drew the lungs out there.”
Basically, your ribs are pulled through your back in the shape of wings, along with whatever
else, and you become a bloody eagle.
Which one of these is the worst?
If you had to die one way, what would it be and why?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other show Worst Punishments In The History of Mankind
Part 1 Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.