ANOTHER CHAIN OF FACTS

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One fact leads to another, as in these facts about some torture devices

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The First Man in the Boston's Stocks Was the Man Who Built Them

The stocks are devices where a criminal has his feet and sometimes his hands and/or head bound between two boards that lock together. The stocks immobilised their prisoners and left them exposed to the elements and the scorn of passersby, who might taunt or throw garbage (or worse) at them. Not fun but a mild punishment compared to others of the day, like branding or cropping (the removal of an ear).

For a while, the government of colonial Boston doled out punishments with a set of iron leg shackles, called bilboes, imported from England. The bilboes eventually wore down, though, and when it came time to replace them, budget-conscious colonial officials opted for wood restraints over iron and ordered a set of wooden stocks from a local carpenter.

A man named Edward Palmer took the job and soon submitted a bill for parts and labor, totaling one pound, thirteen shillings and seven pence. The officials thought this was exorbitant, and decided to charge Palmer with extortion. He was fined five pounds and sentenced to “be sett an houre in the stocks,” and got to be the first person to enjoy the craftsmanship of his product.

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The man who invented the brazen bull was its first victim:

The brazen bull, also known as the bronze bull, Sicilian bull, or bull of Phalaris, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. The bull was said to have been hollow, and made entirely of bronze, with a door in one side. Allegedly, the condemned were locked inside the device (with their head aligned within the bull's head), and a fire was set beneath it, heating the metal to the extent that the person within died an agonising death. The bull was equipped with an internal acoustic apparatus that converted the screams of the dying into what sounded like the bellows of a bull. The bull's design was such that steam from the cooking flesh of the condemned exited the bull's nostrils; this effect—along with the bull's "bellows"—created the illusion that the bull came to life during every execution.

One of the surviving brazen bull

The creation of the device has been attributed to Perilaus of Athens, who presented it to Phalaris, the vicious ruler of the state of Akragas in modern day Sicily.

Phalaris's was renowned for his horrific cruelty, some accounts saying that Phalaris didn't commission the contraption, that Perilaus actually had the idea and gifting it to Phalaris to earn his favour. According to ancient accounts, Phalaris asked the inventor to demonstrate the machine, telling him to get inside so he could hear the bellowing bull sounds. Perilaus did so, believing that he was to be rewarded. Once he was inside, Phalaris ordered the door to ne locked and the fire to be lit.

Though he is considered its first victim, he didn't die inside the bull. Phalaris ordered he be removed before being totally cooked alive. Phalaris then ordered his guards to take him to the top of a hill and throw him off it.

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Scold's Bridle:

A scold's bridle, sometimes called a witch's bridle, a gossip's bridle, a brank's bridle, or simply branks, was an instrument of punishment, as a form of public humiliation (the word scold described women, and occasionally men, who engaged in such societally unacceptable behaviours as fighting, gossiping, and speaking out of turn

It was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head, a bridle-bit (or curb-plate), about 5 cm × 2.5 cm (2 in × 1 in) in size being slid into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue, often with a spike on the tongue, as a compress. It functioned to silence the wearer from speaking entirely, to prevent the women from nagging. The scold's bridle was used on women. This prevented speaking and resulted in many unpleasant side effects for the wearer, including excessive salivation and fatigue in the mouth. For extra humiliation, a bell could also be attached to draw in crowds. The wearer was then led around town by a leash.

16th century Scottish brank or scold's bridle, made of iron. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland.

First recorded in Scotland in 1567, the branks were also used in England and its colonies. The kirk-sessions and barony courts in Scotland inflicted the contraption mostly on female transgressors and women considered to be rude, nags, common scolds, or drunken.

Branking (in Scotland and the North of England) was designed as a mirror punishment for shrews or scolds—women of the lower classes whose speech was deemed riotous or troublesome[8]—by preventing them from speaking. This also gives it its other name, the Gossip's Bridle.

It was also used as corporal punishment for other offences, notably on female workhouse inmates. The person to be punished was placed in a public place for additional humiliation and sometimes beaten.

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Shrew’s Fiddle:

A shrew's fiddle or neck violin is a variation of the yoke, pillory or rigid irons whereby the wrists are locked in front of the bound person by a hinged board or steel bar. It was originally used in the Middle Ages as a way of punishing those who were caught bickering or fighting.

A shrew's fiddle at the torture museum in Freiburg im Breisgau

A shrew's fiddle being worn by a dummy

The shrew's fiddle was used in medieval Germany and Austria, where it was known as a Halsgeige, meaning "neck viola" or "neck violin". It was originally made out of two pieces of wood fitted with a hinge and a lock at the front. The shrew's fiddle consisted of three holes. One was a large hole for the neck and the other two were smaller holes which fastened the wrists in front of the face.

A bell was sometimes attached to this portable pillory, to alert townspeople that the victim was approaching so that they might be mocked and otherwise humiliated. Another version was a "double fiddle" by which two people could be attached together face-to-face, forcing them to talk to each other. They were not released until the argument had been resolved.

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Jougs:

The jougs, juggs, or joggs (Old French: joug, from Latin iugum, a yoke) is a metal collar formerly used as an instrument of punishment in Scotland, the Netherlands and other countries. When the soldiers of Cromwell's army occupied Scotland they were horrified at the church using such a punishment and many were removed from church walls and destroyed.

The jougs was an iron collar fastened by a short chain to a wall, often of the parish church, or to a tree or mercat cross.

A mercat cross is the Scots name for the market cross found frequently in Scottish cities, towns and villages where historically the right to hold a regular market or fair was granted by the monarch, a bishop or a baron. It therefore served a secular purpose as a symbol of authority, and was an indication of a burgh's relative prosperity.

Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.

It is topped with a unicorn, the national animal of Scotland.

The jougs collar was placed round the offender's neck and fastened by a padlock. Time spent in the jougs was intended to shame an offender publicly. Jougs were used for ecclesiastical as well as civil offences. Some surviving examples can still be seen in their original locations in Scottish towns and villages.

Jougs may be the origin of the later slang word "jug", meaning prison.

The 'jougs' at Ceres

On the wall of the Weigh House at Ceres. Used for punishment for petty crime - the ring was locked around the offender's neck.

Jougs and a Pictish Stone, attached to the Round Tower in Abernethy.

A Pictish stone is a type of monumental stele (wooden or stone slab), generally carved or incised with symbols or designs. Located in Scotland, these stones are the most visible remaining evidence of the Picts and are thought to date from the 6th to 9th century, a period during which the Picts became Christianised. About 350 objects classified as Pictish stones have survived.

Jougs hanging on the wall of Sorn Church, Ayreshire

Old photograph of the Jougs in Meikleour in Perthshire, Scotland. A Joug was an iron ring, fastened by a chain to a wall, post, or tree, in which an offender was held by the neck: common in Scotland from the 16th to 18th century. The tron, to which jougs are still attached, stands in the centre of Meikleour. The tron is a rusticated obelisk with a hole near its pointed top, surmounted by a tall spike usually with a weather vane. The jougs are attached to its South face. The obelisk stands on a flat-topped mound.

Duddingston Parish Church Jougs

A Scottish Act of Parliament issued in 1593 pronounced that prisons, stocks and jougs (irons) were to be provided at every Parish Kirk, so that idle beggers and wrongdoers could be placed in penitence, and so that those attending Sunday services could see them in their place of shame.

The jougs by which people were clamped to the kirkyard wall by the neck are still in place at Duddingston Village on the outskirts of Edinburgh.