Imposing castles, walled cities, kings and knights  in shining armor would sound like a good place to  

live to anyone today who did not know how hard  life was in the Middle Ages. The unhealthiness,  

ignorance and hostility of the environment  combined with the barbarity of the punishments  

you could get for even the slightest offense  would make today's problems seem insignificant.

Practiced for several centuries as  a method to purify or simply punish  

the accused by means of pain and  suffering, these ingenious methods  

of chastisement were a favorite of the Holy  Inquisition to exercise its divine justice,  

often deliberately causing the  death of thousands of people.

Today we will share a little of  the agony that these terrible  

punishments caused in those unfortunate  people, Welcome to Copernicus’s Galaxy.

The Garrote

Although you may not believe it, this  type of execution was the most humane  

and benevolent way someone sentenced  to death could die in the Middle Ages,  

since according to King Ferdinand VII,  they lost their lives sitting comfortably.

The apparatus was simple, the garrote was a  chair with an iron collar installed at neck level  

which held the victim and kept him upright, behind  his neck was a piece of metal with a pointed end  

attached to a spiral screw and two handles  so that the executioner could hold it.

This method of execution was supposed to be fast  and induce a coma as the pointed object penetrated  

the skin and destroyed the cervical vertebrae  and spinal cord with each turn of the screw that  

the executioner gave, thus ending his suffering.  But this was far from the truth, because it only  

happened if all the conditions were ideal,  being many times that the device pierced  

the neck without being lethal causing immense  pain and causing death due to lack of oxygen.

Rat Torture

Rat torture dates back to ancient China and was  brought to Europe by the Dutchman Ditriku Sonoyu.  

Those suspected of conspiracy would be brought  before the executioner for interrogation,  

but, if he was unable to extract a confession  from them, he would give way to the rats.

A cage modified to have an opening on one side  would be placed on the abdomen of the immobilized  

accused with at least one hungry rat inside.  Burning embers would be poured over it so that  

the heat would force the rat to look for a way  out. Caged and unable to quickly gnaw through the  

metal, its best option would be to dig a tunnel  of flesh and guts to preserve its life. This way,  

those who refused to confess would  end up being slowly eaten by a rat,  

suffering unimaginable agony. Iron Spider

Among the numerous, varied tortures and  executions dedicated especially to women,  

was the "Iron Spider" with which they  tore the mammary glands from the body,  

destroying all the adjacent tissues  in the most painful way imaginable.

It was used cold or red-hot, placing it on  the mammary tissues and turning slowly as  

the executioner pulled them forcefully  until they were torn from the body.  

In case you survived the torment  and they decided not to execute you,  

you would live marked for life and without the  possibility of breastfeeding your future children.

The most shocking and grotesque  case was that of Ana Pappenheimer,  

a German woman accused of witchcraft in 1600,  

who was subjected to punishment and then had  her flesh flayed. And to finish the show,  

her children, now of age, were forced to feed  on the mammary glands of their own mother.

The bronze bull One of the best known  

is this beautiful statue commonly  known as "The Bull of Falaris",  

a legendary torture device that was also  intended to be a terrifying spectacle.

The tyrant of Agrigento Falaris was a  cruel and ruthless King of ancient Greece  

who enjoyed torturing his enemies, so he  was always looking for new ways to make them  

suffer. Seeing this, Perillos of Athens, a  bronze worker, devised a method of torture  

that at first glance seemed like a work of art,  and sold it to Falaris for a good sum of money.

It was a beautiful bronze  bull that hid a dark secret.  

Its totally hollow interior could house a person  to be cooked alive by embers that were placed  

under the statue and which heated the interior  up to 400 degrees. As if this were not enough,  

to the delight of the tyrant, the orifices  of both the nose and the snout were open.  

This way, the gasses produced from the person’s  scorched skin would come out through the nose  

and the screams of the victim would give  life to the bellows and sounds of the bull.

Legend has it that the first victim of  this atrocious machine was its creator,  

who was forced into it by Falaris  himself to test its effectiveness.

The iron chair

In short, a chair full of spikes... this  method of punishment was intended for the  

crimes of adultery, witchcraft and  mainly murder. It may remind you  

of the bed of nails on which you can lie  safely thanks to the uniform distribution  

of your weight, but unfortunately  here different factors are at play.

The iron chair offered a slow and painful  agony where the prisoner was forced to sit  

down and then restrained with metal straps  and rods. As the interrogation progressed,  

the executioner would tighten the latches more  and more, exerting greater pressure that would  

drive the spikes deep into your skin. And  as an extra point, burning coals could be  

placed under the chair to heat the metal and  cause severe burns... this could last for days  

and death rarely came until you were released,  when the infections claimed your life.

Drunkard's cloak

This one, unlike the others, stands out for  being more funny than shocking and painful,  

humiliating perhaps, but it would not go beyond  public embarrassment and possibly some sniffles.

Some drunks and rioters in medieval  times who caused continuous disturbances  

would probably wake up inside the same  barrel from which they drank all night,  

with a terrible hangover and in the middle of  the crowd, because in these times a punishment  

was established to raise awareness  of the consequences of alcohol abuse.  

This consisted in forcing the drunkard to  wear a modified barrel as clothing for hours  

or even the whole day, having to parade through  the streets enduring the taunts, insults and  

rotten tomatoes that the citizens threw at  them, not to mention that on certain occasions,  

people would throw buckets of ice water at them...  you would surely consider drinking less next time.

Caterina's wheel

The wheel, as a method of punishment and  execution was used from ancient times until  

the beginning of the modern age for thieves,  murderers and arsonists who had caused deaths.

The method they most commonly used was one where  the prisoner was fastened to a wheel in the middle  

of a public square and his bones were broken with  heavy mallets or metal rods. Since the first phase  

was intended to provoke the greatest possible  agony and the entertainment of the masses,  

they began by first destroying the legs, followed  by the arms, and finally breaking the back.

In case the above did not end your life,  you would be intertwined with the same wheel  

thanks to your broken limbs and hung from  a wooden pole as if it were a crucifixion,  

death coming after a few hours or even days.

Pillory

The pillory consisted of a post attached  to two independent wooden planks with  

slots that held the arms and head of the  culprit immobilizing him when closed,  

commonly used to punish dishonest  merchants, slanderers and liars.

The mechanism was usually located in the middle  of frequented public spaces, such as markets  

and squares so that everyone could see. A sign  was hung on the prisoner explaining the crime  

committed and he was left there for the crowd to  mock him, or throw rotten food at him. Sometimes  

the tempers among the crowds heated up, which  ended up causing the man to be stoned to death.  

Depending on the seriousness of the crime,  the guards themselves whipped the prisoner  

or even punished him by cutting off  his limbs while he was restrained.

The iron maiden

Being the inspiration for many films  of reference in the medieval times,  

this mechanism of punishment is one  of the cruelest that was conceived  

to punish those sinners by the inquisition.

Its appearance was that of a large iron cabinet,  

at least two meters tall with a woman's face on  top, which sometimes resembled the Virgin Mary.  

Two doors opened wide, revealing a series  of sharp spikes inside arranged in such a  

way that when it was time to put the person in  and close the doors, they would stick into his  

flesh avoiding vital organs to cause a slow and  painful death that would take up to 2 or 3 days.

The saw

All torture from the Spanish Inquisition  was terrifying and often ended  

in "involuntary" death, since its main  objective was to obtain a confession...  

but this time we’re faced with a  grotesque and brutal execution,  

that, with no intention of achieving anything,  causes a suffering of which we can only speculate.

With the intention of putting an end to an  alleged demonic spawn with which the accused  

woman had been impregnated, the inquisitors  hung her upside down, with her legs wide open,  

so that two executioners could reach  inside the womb. The woman had to go  

through all of this while unable to faint from  the intense pain or quickly bleeding to death,  

thanks to the position in which she was  hung, which kept her brain oxygenated.

The Witch Hunt and the Punishment of Water

As a preemptive measure on the part of the church  to maintain its status as the sole intervenor  

between God and mankind, massive witch hunts were  organized all over Europe from the 13th century  

onwards, where accusations of witchcraft, mainly  against women, were the daily bread and butter.

The inquisitors relied on any  

accusation to sentence alleged  witches to be burned at the stake. 

Meaning that anyone could be a candidate to be  burned just for reasons of envy or jealousy.

Without the possibility of defending themselves,  since anything said in court would be taken as an  

attempt by the devil to persuade the court, the  accused women were sometimes judged by means of  

divine rituals, where supposedly a higher power  would decide whether she was guilty or innocent.

One of the most used was the water test, where  it was believed that witches and warlocks,  

not having souls, weighed less than the  rest of the mortals. So when they were  

put into a lake and completely immobilized,  they would float if they were followers of  

Satan. If they sank in the water, it was  confirmed that they were normal people,  

but it would be too late to get them out of the  lake, as most of them would die from drowning.

The horrors of humanity never seem to end,  although many of these punishments and tortures  

have ceased to be used, at least publicly. The  ingenuity of human beings has only evolved to more  

sophisticated methods, but no matter what these  new methods are or what we have yet to unearth,  

we will be here to tell you about  them, at Copernicus's Galaxy.