1 - The drunk's cape

Shameful fashion

Who has never paid tamarin - or done something silly - after drinking a little too much? For during the 16th and 17th centuries, a very unusual punishment appeared for Europe for the troublemakers: the drunk's cape. The punishment consisted of having to use a barrel with head, leg and arm openings, and paying a fine, and was intended to "teach" the importance of drinking responsibly.

Ever wondered if this punishment was still applied?

In fact, the penalty was not intended to cause injury or physical harm to the offender unless “corrective” was applied in Spain! Ah, the medieval Spaniards and their fixation on the suffering of others ... There, the punishment was known as the Spanish robe and consisted of trapping the drunk inside the barrel, leaving only his head outside, and forcing him to kneel on his inside - about their own waste.

2 - Cangue

It was worse than it looks.

Yogurt emerged in China around the 17th century and basically consisted of placing a wooden sign around the punished neck. Sounds quiet, right? Well, not so much! The size of the plaque did not allow the punished to feed alone and forced him to depend on the goodwill of his community not to starve and thirst.

Gang version

In addition, the weight of the plaque varied with the severity of the crime, and there are records of offenders who had to carry pieces weighing about 90 pounds, and even people who died of exhaustion. Another curiosity about the cangue is that there were variants, such as wooden plates that allowed more than one person to be punished at the same time, as well as a version that, besides the neck frame, had a body cage.

3 - Treadmill

Free summer design!

Introduced in England in the Victorian Era, the treadmill was not intended to keep prisoners in shape! By the way, don't even think of it as those machines that are played in gyms these days. The devices of the past were a kind of giant cylinder and had steps - and inmates had to spend no less than eight exhausting hours a day climbing what looked like an endless ladder.

All fit

In some prisons - where the directors had more business acumen - the mats even served to drive mills for the production and sale of flour, so in some ways prisoners "paid" for their stays. The punishment, besides being strenuous, was incredibly monotonous and was intended to convince the offenders that the life of the crime was not worth it.

4 - Picquet

Between balance and pain

This type of punishment became very popular in Europe between the 16th and 17th centuries and consisted of suspending offenders with a rope and placing them barefoot on a wooden stake. The accused could be bound by fists or even toes, and the stakes were sharp so that they would not puncture the skin, but with the point narrow enough to make the experience very painful.

Think of the discomfort ...

Then the prisoner was pulled with the rope and forced to rest on the stake, and when the discomfort was too great, he could lighten his weight a little by pulling his body upward - which was also quite distressing as the pain it was simply transferred to the wrist.

5 - Ordal

Also known as the "Judgment of God, " the ordeal appeared millennia ago, and its oldest historical record is found in the Old Testament. More than a punishment itself, the ordinance was applied when there was no conclusive evidence against those accused of committing a crime, and the poor poor were subjected to a series of torments to prove their innocence - the result depended on a miracle of God.

May the innocent win!

Thus, the accused were, for example, obliged to duel, and if they survived the fight, it was proved that they had not committed any transgression. Other martyrdoms involved having to take a stone into a container filled with boiling water, and if after three days the defendant's arms showed signs of burns, his guilt was proven, and walking with an incandescent iron bar for a certain distance in the water. hands without releasing it.

Wow ...

However, the tests were not always so severe! Sometimes the accused had to stand in front of a cross beside the accusers with their arms outstretched, and lose whoever lowered their limbs first, or eat a whole pie without choking. Murder suspects, on the other hand, could be forced to stand in front of the corpse and face it for a certain period of time, and if the deceased bleed again, then the suspect became guilty.

Do you know more unusual punishment methods that have existed throughout history? Comment on the Mega Curious Forum