Death by Pressing and Crushing: A Medieval Punishment You'd Want To Avoid... - Двуязычные субтитры
Warning, this video is detailed, gruesome and graphic.
Enjoy.
Death by pressing or crushing has been around for centuries, although the method used has varied greatly from place to place.
In general, it meant that some form of heavy weight would be placed on top of a person, with the intention of causing their death.
It's in the name really.
In today's episode,
we're going to be looking at what it's like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, death by pressing and crushing.
Welcome to Medieval Madness.
In England, it referred to as pin-footed duer, which translates from the French as strong and hard pain or forceful and hard punishment.
It was implemented as a suitable sentence for any person who refused to plead or would In not speak after being arrested.
It was substituted in about 1406 for the former method of simply starving a person to death.
At that time the change was seen as more merciful and humane,
because it meant that the prisoner would die quite quickly rather than being subjected to a long drawn out death from hunger.
Although sadly this turned out to be untrue.
true as some pressings could take several days, especially if the load was not increased regularly.
The Medivals believed that a person was more likely to admit the truth when they were under an immense amount of pain and suffering,
so usually a heavier and heavier weight would be placed on top of the victim until they either confessed or died.
Many defendants who were accused of a capital offense would refuse to plead, that way they could avoid forefooting their property.
If the suspect pleaded guilty or not guilty and was executed anyway,
then their family would be left with nothing, because everything they owned would be transferred to the crown.
But, if they refused to say anything, then their property would be inherited to by their heirs, even if they died.
The crushing was just one of many medieval torture methods that was meant to coerce a confession,
but inevitably led to most victims dying during the process.
The torture was inflicted in the following way.
Quote,
That's the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came,
and put in some room and they're laid on his back, without any manner of covering except a cloth around his middle.
And that as many weights shall be laid upon him as he can bear, and more.
And that he shall have no more sustenance, but of the worst bread and water.
And that he shall not eat on the same day as which he drinks, nor drink on the same day.
day as which he eats, and he shall continue till he die.
Cracking, weights were slowly stacked on top of a victim until they slowly suffocated.
Sometimes bones would be broken during the ordeal and they would burst through the skin.
But for many, submission was not an option.
Many rather die than plead to a crime that they had not committed.
The Pearl of
York It was after the Reformation and the Elizabethan religious settlement was an attempt to end the religious divide between Catholics and Protestants.
Even though an act of 1581 banned all religious services and made harbouring a priest punishable by death,
a minority of residents still remained devoted to Catholicism.
One of the most infamous cases of death by pressing was that of Margaret Clithrow of York, England.
Margaret was the wife of an affluent butcher who she married at the age of 15, and they lived with their three children.
Margaret had converted to Catholicism and was arrested and imprisoned for failing to go to church in 1577.
Instead, she would hold masses at her home.
Two more detentions at York Castle Prison followed.
The last one lasting for over a year and a half.
She learned to read while she was in jail.
Margaret also built a new a secret room at her home as a shelter for Catholic priests,
and this was her downfall, as the Heidi Hall was discovered in a house raid in 1586.
Margaret to plead because she wanted to protect her children and servants from having to testify in front of a jury, and thereby implicate themselves.
This led to an automatic sentence of death by pressing, even thought that Margaret was pregnant at the time.
Two officials were given the task of carrying out the sentence, but obviously reluctant they employed some beggars to perform the charge instead.
Margaret was taken to the toll booth on the U's bridge,
and in an act of humiliation she was stripped naked, and a handkerchief was tied over her eyes as a blindfold.
Then she was made to lie down and a stone about the size of a fist was placed under her back.
The idea being that the rock would break her back as the weight was piled on top of her.
Some victims were even made to lie down on a bed of spikes before the pressing began.
After death, they probably would have ended up looking like a sieve.
The lungs and diaphragm of a human being need rooms.
be able to expand and contract.
Placing elements weight on the chest prevents the normal function of breathing.
A lack of oxygen supply to the body will cause a rise in heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature.
A flushing of the skin and perspiration,
confusion, a loss of vision, and an overpowering sense of panic as your body desperately fights to get oxygen to the brain.
On top of this, it would also be excruciatingly painful, as you can imagine.
As the weight continues to crush the body,
the ribs will break, possibly puncturing the lungs and a person's organs would begin to compress, causing internal bleeding.
The finally broken by the force of the crushing load.
A large panel of wood was put on top of Margaret's body and loaded up with between 700 to 800 pounds of rocks.
Many accused her of being mad and her stepfather Henry May, who was the Lord Mayor of York, accused her of committing suicide.
Queen Elizabeth herself condemned the killing,
telling the people of York that Margaret should have been spared the horrific punishment on account of her being a woman.
Margaret was later canonized as a saint in the 1970s,
a relic which is said to be her hand is preserved at the bar convent in York.
Margaret was lucky in that she died within about 15 agonizing minutes.
An accused man who was not so lucky was Giles Corey, who charged with witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.
He was pressed to death over two days for refusing to enter a plea.
His last words were to ask for more weight.
Sheriff Corwin,
who carried out the sentence,
even stood on the boards himself to make the load heavier,
a witness named Robert Caliph said that quote, in the pressing Giles Corey's tongue was pressed out of his mouth.
The sheriff, with his cane, forced it in again.
And there are other instances of witnesses who would sit or stand on the victims of
a pressing in an attempt to hasten death as an act of mercy.
Elephants are intelligent and easily domesticated, which makes them easier to train.
They have been used by humans to achieve many things,
such as the building of the legendary temple complex at Angawat,
Cambodia in the 12th century, or helping general Hannibal in battles and cross the alleys.
during the Second Punic War, but Elephants could also be taught to kill a person.
The real elephant in the global room was in southern Asia,
especially India, where crushing by elephant was used as a form of punishment for over 4,000 years.
Elephants could be taught to kill a person instantly by standing on the abdomen or head.
Both and Hindu rulers executed rebels, tax evaders, thieves and enemy soldiers by elephant crushing during the Middle Ages.
Death by elephant was called Gungarau in India,
and the elephant trainers,
or mahouts, could also train their beasts to torture and kill their victims more slowly by breaking their limbs before finishing their lives.
During the time of the Mughal Empire,
the elephants had pointed blades fitted to their tusks so that they could cut people open and make a public spectacle of the execution
and validate a ruler's power.
This form of punishment was performed in South Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka, right up until the late 19th century.
Head The skull crusher was used for both torture and execution during the Middle Ages.
The head of the accused was placed into a mechanical device,
the chin resting on the bottom,
and the head was held beneath a helmet's leg dome or metal cap which was attached to an iron bar above.
By rotating the screw bar, the helmet would be pushed down slowly to crush the top and sides of the head, eventually cracking the skull.
Just imagine the initial pain as the executioner begins to tighten the bar.
The excruciating pain in the head, neck and bones of the face affecting the whole of the body.
The torture might stop at a certain level.
level and release the pressure, hoping that the victim might plead or confess quickly.
Because the dome-like shape of the cap,
the pressure on the head is spread out over a wider surface area and the brain would not be badly damaged during the early stages of
the torture, which of course meant that the torment could go on for longer.
This time the tormentor would wind the bar just that little bit tighter and the jaw bones would begin to crunch.
Envisage the agony as the joint between the upper and lower jaw is shattered and the teeth splinter and break apart.
Even if the procedure is stopped at this point it would be too late for the poor victim and a slow
painful death would inevitably follow.
As more rotation of the bar are made, the eye sockets would begin to collapse.
With the pressure building, the eyeballs would begin to bulge, and would then be forced out of their sockets.
This was expected, and many of the head crushing machines would actually have special repositories in place to catch the eyeballs as they popped out.
In the final stage of the punishment,
with the skull crack open, the brain would become pulp and escape from any orifices that it could find.
And throughout the whole excruciating procedure, the poor victim could not even open their mouth to scream at the whole terror of it all.
Fingers, knees and toes Along with the skull crusher, these vices were another essential piece of medieval torture kit.
These torture tools were designed to clamp and crush onto any part of the body, be leg, hands or feet, and cause untold misery.
The of these devices is similar to that of a head crusher, comprising of two compressings.
rotating screw to apply pressure.
The knee chatterer was a press usually made from wood or metal that would have up to 20 iron spikes or claws to penetrate the skin and tear the ligaments.
A great deal of blood loss was prevented due to the constant pressure.
The iron jaws until the bones were fractured.
Similarly, the forearms could be shattered in a larger vice, and the foot press, or boot, would be tightened around the lower part
of the leg.
These types of torture were popular because they forced criminals to answer questions whilst enduring pain and suffering without actually dying from the procedure.
Astonishingly almost every country in the world is used crushing or pressing as a form of execution over the centuries.
And whether the weight was applied by an elephant or by other human beings, the result was still the same, excruciating pain followed by death.
Thank you for watching this cheery episode of medieval madness,
do you hope you've enjoyed it and please do subscribe if you enjoy the content as we do release videos weekly.
Cheers!
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