Torture in the Middle Ages
Torture in the Middle Ages and After
Introduction to Torture in the Middle Ages
In the early Middle Ages, torture was used as a means of ordeal-usually as part of a religious initiation rite-and to punish captured enemies. Examination by torture, often called the “question,” was used in many countries as a judicial method. It involved using instruments to extort evidence from unwilling witnesses. The techniques were usually crude and involved inflicting intense physical pain.
During the later Middle Ages, torture was usually reserved for heresy, which undermined the theocratic foundations of society. Until the 1200s torture was apparently not sanctioned by the canon law of the Christian church. About that time, however, the Roman treason law began to be adapted to heresy as crimen laesae majestatis Divinae (“crime of injury to Divine majesty”). Soon after the Inquisition was instituted, Pope Innocent IV, influenced by the revival of Roman law, issued a decree in 1252 that called on civil magistrates to have persons accused of heresy tortured to elicit confessions against themselves and others. This decree was probably the earliest instance of ecclesiastical sanction of this mode of examination.
The influence of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages contributed to the adoption of torture by civil tribunals. The Italian municipalities adopted torture early, but it did not appear in other European countries until France legalized its use in the 1200s. Ultimately, torture became part of the legal system of every European nation except England. Although torture was never recognized in the common law of England, it was practiced by exercise of the royal prerogative.
The horrors of the Inquisition and the excessive use of judicial torture from the 1300s to the 1500s brought about a progressive change of sentiment, which eventually led to the abolition of torture in all European countries. Judicial use of “the question” to compel a confession of treason was halted in England in 1640, but flogging as punishment continued into the 1800s. By the middle of the 1700s, legal torture had been abolished in France, Prussia, Saxony, and Austria.
Torture was not legally sanctioned in the American colonies. However, the use of stocks, pillory, ducking, and branding were imported from England. Americans invented and exported a device called the head cage that caused sleep deprivation. There was also a colonial practice of hanging sex offenders by their genitals. Judicial opposition to torture arose in the 1700s in all parts of the colonies except the South.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Torture in the Middle Ages in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
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