Punishments for 16th Century England

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on their back

with their head inclined downwards, and then slowing pouring gallons of water over

their face and into their breathing passages. The forced suffocation and inhalation of

water gives the subject the sensation that they are drowning. Waterboarding creates an

almost immediate gag reflex. It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, and damage to

lungs. It can also create brain damage from oxygen deprivation, and other physical

injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints. Adverse physical

consequences can start manifesting months after the event. In 2007, it was reported that

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was using waterboarding on extrajudicial

prisoners. In January 2009, United States President Barack Obama banned the use of

waterboarding.

Scaphism, also known as the boats, was an ancient Persian method of execution designed

to inflict torturous death. The naked victim was firmly fastened in a back-to-back pair

of narrow rowing boats or a hollowed-out tree trunk, with their head, hands, and feet

protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of

developing severe diarrhea, and more honey would be rubbed on their body in order to

attract insects to the exposed appendages. They would then be left to float on a stagnant

pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenseless individual's feces accumulated within

the container, attracting more insects, which would eat and breed within his or her

exposed and increasingly gangrenous flesh.

The feeding would be repeated each day in some cases to prolong the torture, so that

dehydration or starvation did not provide the victim with the release of death. Death,

when it eventually occurred, was most often due to a combination of dehydration,

starvation and septic shock. Delirium would typically set in after a few days.

Ancient Greece has been credited with developing numerous forms of elaborate torture

and execution. This includes the Brazen Bull, which was developed by Perillos of

Athens, a brass-founder, who proposed the idea to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily.

The Brazen Bull was a structure made entirely of brass. It was hollow with a door on

the side. The condemned were shut in the bull and a fire was set under it, heating the

metal until it became yellow hot causing the person inside to roast to death. It was

created strictly for the purpose of executing criminals of the state. Phalaris commanded

that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rose in spicy clouds of incense.

The head of the ox was designed with a complex system of tubes and stops so that the

prisoner's screams were converted into sounds like the bellowing of a bull.

The Romans were recorded as having used this torture device to kill some Christian

martyrs, notably Saint Eustace. The Brazen Bull was in use for many centuries.

Christian martyr, Saint Pelagia of Tarsus, is said to have been burned in one in 287 by

the Emperor Diocletian. Ironically Phalaris himself was killed in the brazen bull when

he was overthrown by Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron.

http://www.listzblog.com/top_ten_deadly_tools_methods_torture_list.html

The scold’s bridle is a torture device that was used in Scotland and England during the

middle ages. It resembles an iron muzzle or a cage for the head. The device has an iron

curb projecting into the mouth which rests on the top of the tongue. The curb was

frequently studded with spikes, so the individual would be tortured if they moved their

tongue. Branks were used predominantly on women to punish slander, cursing, or

irreligious speech. They were first recorded in Scotland in 1567, although the device

was also used in England, where it may not have been formally legalized as a

punishment. The scold’s bridle was originally designed as a mirror punishment for

women of lower classes whose speech was "riotous" or "troublesome.” It was intended

to prevent gossip. However, it was also used for corporal punishment. A brank is on

display in Walton on Thames, England.

The boot was an instrument of torture designed to crush the foot and leg. The boot has

taken many forms in various places and times. Common varieties include the Spanish

boot, the Malay boot, and the Instep borer. The device consisted of pieces of narrow

wooden board or iron nailed together. It was then measured to tightly fit the victim's

leg. Once the leg was enclosed, wedges would be hammered between the boards,

creating pressure, and crushing bones. The pressure would be increased until the victim

confessed or lost consciousness. The boot was widely used in the Middle Ages and was

an effective form of torture. The Spanish boot was an iron casing for the leg or foot

that used wood or iron wedges. A similar implement, the Malay boot, consisted of a

pair of horizontal iron plates tightened around the foot by means of a crank mechanism

to lacerate the flesh and crush the bones of the foot.

The instep borer was a medieval German instrument of torture that resembled an iron

boot. It was hinged to permit the removal of the bare foot. A crank with a long, thick,

serrated and grooved iron blade was used. As the crank slowly advanced the blade went

into the boot, punching a hole through the center of the instep

http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/death-by-hanging.htm

Punishments for 16th Century England

Pillory, a device formerly used for public punishment. It consisted of a wooden frame upon a platform, with openings through which a person's head and hands were thrust. A similar device called the stocks was used mainly to hold the feet and sometimes the feet and hands.

Exposing an offender to public ridicule was a common form of punishment in medieval Europe. In England the pillory was originally used for persons found guilty of perjury, forgery, or dishonest trading practices. It was customary to shave a man's head and beard, and to cut off a woman's hair. In 1637 the pillory became the punishment for those found guilty of libeling the government or publishing books without a license. Daniel Defoe was subjected to the pillory in 1703. In New England, the pillory was a common punishment for drunkenness or immorality.

Use of the pillory was abolished in France in 1832 and in England in 1837. By 1839 it had been abolished everywhere in the United States but Delaware, where authorization for its use was retained on the statute books until 1905.

In the final days of 2006, former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein was hanged for the 1982 murders of 148 people in Dujail, Iraq. While capital punishment is still on the books in many countries around the world, death by hanging has in many cases been replaced by more sterile killing methods like lethal injection, which some believe to be a more humane form of execution. Many people might be surprised to learn that hanging, when carried out with modern techniques, can be one of the quickest and most painless ways to be executed.

The modern method of judicial hanging is called the long drop. This is the method that Iraqi officials used to execute Saddam Hussein. In the long drop, those planning the execution calculate the drop distance required to break the subject's neck based on his or her weight, height and build. They typically aim to get the body moving quickly enough after the trap door opens to produce between 1,000 and 1,250 foot-pounds of torque on the neck when the noose jerks tight. This distance can be anywhere from 5 to 9 feet (1.5 to 2.7 meters). With the knot of the noose placed at the left side of the subject's neck, under the jaw, the jolt to the neck at the end of the drop is enough to break or dislocate a neck bone called the axis, which in turn should sever the spinal cord. In some cases, the hangman jerks up on the rope at the precise moment when the drop is ending in order to facilitate the breakage.

­This is the ideal situation in a long drop. When the neck breaks and severs the spine, blood pressure drops down to nothing in about a second, and the subject loses consciousness. Brain death then takes several minutes to occur, and complete death can take more than 15 or 20 minutes, but the person at the end of the rope most likely can't feel or experience any of it.