Medieval Torture

Medieval Torture Myths

While doing the research for this paper, I stumbled across a website that had an article called, "Medieval Torture's 10 Biggest Myths" (Whipps). This site was a wealth of information and I feel these myths are very important if someone wants to truly understand medieval torture.

1. People were sent directly to jail. This is false; they actually held trials back in the Medieval Times. The trails were short, but they were still there.

2. Medieval villages had no authority. Actually, if a person had been wronged, the whole town had to participate in process of finding evidence, going to the hearing, and convicting the criminal.

3. Churches only convicted felons. Sometimes criminals could seek sanctuary inside a church and avoid prosecution.

4. Criminals were given a life sentence, even for small offenses. Actually, if a criminal committed a small crime, three times, they were banished from the town/village.

5. All criminals were executed. Actually, medieval times were a lot like today. Execution was only carried out on the worst criminals.

6. Kings and queens were above prosecution. In movies, we see royalty doing as the please, but this wasn't the case. Commoners had laws in place that kept royalty from doing as they pleased.

7. People in medieval times went to beheadings every week. Beheadings were a privilege and commoners would not be murdered this way. Beheading rarely took place, most people were hung.

8. Medieval times were known as "The Burning Times". This is really big because of witchcraft, but the fact is, people were rarely burned at the stake. Hanging was the preferred method of execution.

9. Body parts were rarely cut off. Law enforcers would threaten to cut off the criminal's ear, but this was merely a threat.

10. The rack. When you think of medieval torture, you may think of the rack, but the rack wasn't used until the medieval period was almost over.

Reasons for Medieval Torture

According to Woodcock (1999) there were three reasons why people were tortured in medieval times: