9 Most Cruel Tortures In The Middle Ages (Part I)

Throughout the history, there have been several means of torture assigned with particular eras, but perhaps the ones practiced during the Middle Ages, or Medieval Era, are the most notorious. Devices such as the Judas cradle, pear of anguish, and Spanish donkey have left convicts, hostages and enemies with extreme anguish.
Named horrific forms of torture by historical documents, these sorts of treatments might be the least that people want to apply on enemies. Check out the list below and maybe you will feel pleased that they were practice centuries before you were born.

9. The Judas Cradle

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During the Spanish Inquisition of the 1600s, the Judas Cradle, also known as the Judas Chair or the Guided Chair became mostly well-known as a device where the victim would be placed on top of a wooden pyramid with the triangular end pressed onto the victim’s anus or vagina.
The victims’ arms and feet would be tied or weighted to make sure they endured extreme agony as they were slowly pulled downward by gravity.

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Adopted to extract intelligence from the victims, the addition of weights used with the Judas Cradle would increase the anguish even more, and the torture could last from a few hours to a full day, depending on the speed of pulling the victims downward.
Though the method rarely meant to be fatal, it usually did, as the device was never cleaned, leaving the tortured with a high chance of becoming infected, and at the times that there were no antibiotics, this would be no less than a death sentence.

8. The Breast Ripper

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The device gives out its purpose right from its name: to cause women to suffer. Before being attached to the victim’s exposed chests, the claws were often heat up. Women were strapped to a table or wall while the torturers pulled the device away.
Another device, named the Iron Spider, was attached to walls, operated in the same method as the Breast Ripper. However, the difference is that this time, women were the ones to be pulled away from the wall.
If they survived, the tortured women would be maimed and crippled for the rest of her life. This means of torture was conducted upon accused adulterers, unwed mothers, witches and heretics.

7. Flaying

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Initially believed to stemmed from the Assyrians, this term broadly depicts an ancient practice that was most popular in multiple regions in the Middle East and Africa approximately 1 millennium ago. In the Middle Ages, it was often inflicted on criminals, captured soldiers and charged witches.
The victims were often tied to a pole in a public square or high-traffic area of the community. The executioners would use a small but very sharp knife to methodically peel off the victims’ skin, stripping the outer to reveal the musculature inside.

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Usually, the slow process began with the victims’ face and proceeded down towards their feet, which often killed them through shock or blood loss before reaching their hips. Sometimes, the remaining skin would then be publicly exhibited as a warning for those with the intentions of law violation or witchcraft conduct.

6. The Brazen Bull

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The brazen bull unleashed endless horror and extreme agony on the victims in ancient Greece, and was regarded as the most imaginative means of sadistic torment. The bull was first invented and brought to use under the reign of the tyrant Phalaris of Akragas, Sicily, as a means of testing his sadistic nature.
The bull was designed to be hollow, made entirely out of bronze with a door in one side, in the form and size of an actual bull. A series of pipes on the inside acted as an acoustic apparatus that converted victims’ screams into the sound of an actual bull. The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death.

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Thought the method reached its popularity during the Greek and Roman eras, it was alleged still used in Central Europe, though not very commonly. Scholars compared the torture with death by boiling alive, just without the water.

5. The Crocodile Tube

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This wasn't a common device, only used occasionally to extract confessions from accused infidels and torture captured thieves. The victim was fixed inside a tube just big enough for the victim's entrance. The tube, having crocodile teeth-like spikes, was slowly compressed leaving the victim totally immobilized. The torturer could only see his face and feet.
With the help of carbon and fire underneath the tube, the torturer gradually heated the tube until he extracted a confession or killed the victim. The former was most common, as this is one of the cruelest and most painful tortures ever used on human beings.
With the face and feet exposed, the torturer was able to inflict painful wounds on the victim. Facial mutilation and toe ripping were preferred choices.
H/T: Ranker