Crime And Punishment

Crime and punishment in the Middle Ages and the differences from that era to nowadays, is a definitely shock to modern day society. Many crimes were crazy and are most certainly not considered crimes today. Some include caught not working hard enough, bakers making faulty bread, drunkenness, swearing, telling lies, nagging ones husband and breaking curfews. Likewise, there were also a fair amount of crimes that are still crimes today such as stealing, murder, etc, although the way they were dealt with was quite horrific.

To prevent people from doing these offences people were often punished in ways of torture. A few examples of the devices they used include:

·      Stocks & pillories – held in ankles, hands and wrists with nowhere to go. Mainly a form of humiliation.

·      Brank – forced over the face of a women who gossips, not allowing any movement on the mouth.

·      Drunkards cloak – also a form a humiliation, where a drunkard must wear a barrel for being drunk.

·      Head crusher – similar to a helmet shape, placed on the victims head which is then screwed until the actual skull gets crushed, literally!

·      Iron boots – where the criminal is tied down securely while their legs are being smashed and crushed up by someone with a weapon (most likely metal/hammer-like object).

·      Gibbet – iron cages that are held up displaying the bodies of executed people.

Fines, shaming, mutation (cutting off a part of the body) or death was the most common form of punishment. People were often tortured in ways, which were not intentionally meant to kill them, however this was also often the case.

Ordeals were also a common in the middle ages, used to determine if a person was innocent or guilty. They were mostly unimaginable loads of garbage such as:

·      Ordeal by fire – the accused had to pick up red hot iron bars and hold them in their hands for a certain amount of paces then let out. After two to three days they would return to the court and if the burn had started healing, they were innocent. If not, you were guilty and most likely killed.

·      Ordeal by water – suspect was tied up and thrown into water and if they were to float they were innocent, once again if they drowned, they were guilty and we most likely killed.

·      Ordeal by combat – simply accused noblemen were forced to fight to the death, the winner was innocent.