In the middle ages, torture was used to extract information, force confessions, punish suspects, frighten opponents, and satisfy personal hatred.
The Norman-French who came to England with William the Conqueror used torture to extract treasure from the Anglo-Saxons in their new kingdom. During the Anarchy, the Norman supporters of both of the claimants to the throne practiced torture to extract gold and silver from the peasantry. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1139 puts it:
They hanged them by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung fires on their feet; they put knotted strings about their heads and writhed them so that it went to the brain ... Some they put in a chest that was short, and narrow, and shallow, and put sharp stones therein, and pressed the man therein so that they broke all his limbs ... I neither can nor may tell all the wounds or all the tortures which they inflicted on wretched men in this land.
Torture was used almost exclusively for the crime of treason. In civil society, this meant in practice that it was generally restricted to monarchs and the highest nobles. In the Church, matters were different. The Church taught that any deviation from orthodoxy amounted to lèse majesté against God, and therefore treason again the King of Kings. This meant that in contrast to civil society, treason and therefore torture was common in the Church. It was not only the Inquisition that practiced torture but it is the Inquisition that has lodged in the popular mind as masters of the trade.
As many historians have noted, the most vicious procedures in Medieval times were inflicted on devout Christians by even more devout Christians.
Beheading was a form of execution rather than a form of torture, but it could form part of a program of torture. For example, beheading was a part of the process of drawing, hanging, and quartering.
Decapitation has been used as a form of capital punishment for millennia. The terms "capital offense", "capital crime", "capital punishment," derive from the word caput, Latin for "head", referring to the punishment for serious offenses involving the forfeiture of the head.
Decapitation by sword or axe was considered the "honorable" way to die for a noble, who, being a warrior, could often expect to die by the sword in any event. In England, it was considered a privilege of noblemen and noblewomen to be beheaded. Others suffered a dishonorable death on the gallows or through burning at the stake. In medieval England, the penalty for treason by men was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. The penalty for women traitors was to be burned at the stake. In practice sentences of nobles were almost always commuted to beheading. In legends of Christian martyrdom, the fictitious saints withstood all attempts to execute them, until the wicked heathens finally beheaded them.
To ensure that the blow would be fatal, executioners' swords were usually blade-heavy two-handed swords. If an axe was used, it almost invariably would be wielded with both hands. In England, a special form of axe was used for beheadings, with the blade's edge extending downwards from the tip of the shaft. The ways to torture a man were numerous and people back then didn't lack imagination in that field.
Torture Chambers
The torture chamber was specifically designed to evoke fear in the victims. It was usually built underground and only dimly lit. Inside the chamber waited the executioner, his face covered and wearing a black hood. When the sight of the chamber, the torture instruments, and the executioner did not cause the victim to confess, a full-scale torture session was initiated. If the prisoner did not co-operate, the next step in the detention process was the dungeon. The dungeon had walls 1.5 metres (five feet) thick, double doors and was in complete darkness. No conversation of any type was allowed in the dungeon. The food allowance for prisoners was less than a penny a day including the profit of the warden while any human refuse was removed every four days.
After a stay in the dungeon, uncooperative prisoners were moved to the torture chamber.
Effects of torture
For survivors, torture often leads to lasting mental and physical health problems. Victims were permanently mutilated, crippled or disfigured. Prolonged confinement in a scavenger's daughter would render the victim permanently unable to stand up.
The consequences of torture reach far beyond immediate pain. Victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, with symptoms such as flashbacks or intrusive thoughts, severe anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, depression and memory lapses. Torture victims often feel guilt and shame, triggered by the humiliation they have endured. Many feel that they have betrayed themselves or their friends and family. Such symptoms are normal human responses to abnormal and inhuman treatment.
Physical problems can be wide-ranging and include sexually transmitted diseases, musculoskeletal problems, brain injury, post-traumatic epilepsy, and dementia or chronic pain syndromes. Mental health problems are equally wide-ranging. Common are post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorder.