Medieval Torture Essay

Submitted By soulsurfer101
Words: 458
Pages: 2

Medieval Torture
By Bridget Crowley
B5
November 2014

The following paper consists of information on
Torture during the Middle Ages. This paper observes torture methods and the way it affected people in this time period. The information also includes the Public Humiliation of torture methods, physical damage to the body, and murder caused by torture. The document includes general information about
Trials by ordeal, Inquisition, and Trial by jury.
Finally, the paper reveals the effects of these tortuous doings upon the Medieval people.

I. Beginning of Torture
A. Lex Talionis
1.Law of retaliation
B. Inquisition
C. Catholic Church
1. Heresy Claims
II. Torture Methods
A. Public Humiliation
1. Drunkards’ Cloak
2. Pillory
3. Tarring and Feathering
B. Physical damage- Mutilation
1. Denailing Devices
2. Flaying knives
3. Mutilation tools
C. Murder Torture
1. Intestinal Crank
2. Sawing
3. Burning alive
III. Ending of Torture
A. Trial by Jury
1. Regularize system of Judicial torture
B. Early Modern Period Torture
C. Decline of Routine Torture
1. Abolished in England around 1640

Table of Contents
Introduction to Medieval torture .............5
Beginning of Torture ……………………….…….6
Torture Methods …………………………….…….7
Humiliation …………………………………………..8
Mutilation …………………………………………….9
Murder…………………………………………….….10
Reason for Torture……………………………....11
Abolishment of Torture…………….………….12
Works Cited ……………………………………..….13

Torture
The act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological pain and possibly injury to a person, usually to one who is physically restrained or otherwise under the torturer's control or custody and unable to defend against what is being done to them.

Beginning of Torture
• During this time period the Inquisition was underway, torture was a tool of both the church and state.
• The Inquisition began in 1184, it was a movement directed at those who went against the Roman Catholic
Church. Many people believed that the Cathar movement was the reason for the Inquisition.
• The Cathar Heresy rejected the