The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History (48 page)

It would seem that MP Davis belatedly learned a lesson in propaganda techniques that was already well known during the Middle Ages and has been employed by despots ever since: identify an enemy, demonise him until people accept him as something less than human and torture is no longer objectionable.

As Professor Milgram discovered at the conclusion of his 1963 Yale experiment; given the right instruction and the correct circumstances almost anyone can be induced to cooperate in, participate in, and even enjoy the destruction of other human beings, even if only vicariously.

Of course, normal people in the normal circumstances of their daily lives would never enjoy seeing other people abused and humiliated. Or would they? Every day millions of people gloat over copies of tawdry ‘fan magazines’ that fill their pages with lurid accounts of movie stars’ dissolving lives, drug problems and marital infidelities. Every evening tens of millions of viewers glue themselves to their television sets staring at ‘reality’ programs like
Big Brother, Survivor, Fear Factor, Jerry Springer
and dozens of similar shows around the world that focus on the ever-increasing levels of humiliation and degradation to which the contestants or participants subject each other. The readership and viewing audience has become the leering, jeering crowd gathered around Tyburn Tree and Madame Guillotine and the sanctioning authority has become the networks and sponsors. Like Pontius Pilate we wash our hands of the blood of the innocent and sit back and watch events follow their horrible course to an inevitable end. We are not the guilty party because someone else is sanctioning our actions. But then, how many people through history have ever accepted that they were the guilty party?

Let us leave you, then, with one final thought. Does turning a blind eye to the horrors and injustices of the world help perpetuate the inhumanity? Can it be interpreted as a sort of tacit approval or acceptance? Was Edmund Burke correct in his assessment that: ‘All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’? If this is indeed so, dear reader (who has stayed by our side though every page of this gruesome topic), you have to ask yourself which side of the equation you wish to be on. You have to ask yourself, ‘what sort of world do you want to live in?’ And then, most difficultly, you have to ask yourself, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Abbott, Geoffrey,
Lords of the Scaffold: A History of Execution
, Headline, 1991.

Abbott, Geoffrey,
Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers: A History of Torture and Its Instruments
, Headline Books, 1993.

Abbott, Geoffrey,
The Book of Execution: An encyclopedia of methods of Judicial Executions
, Headline, 1994.

Abbott, Geoffrey,
The Who’s Who of British Beheadings
, Andre Deutsch, 2000.

Andrews, William,
Old Time Punishments
, William Andrews and Co., 1890.

Andrews, William,
Bygone Punishments
, William Andrews and Co., 1899.

Anonymous,
Torture, Inquisition, and the Crime of Capital Punishment: An exhibition presented in various European and American cities since 1983
, Avon and Arno Publishers, 2001.

Burford, E.J. and Shulman, Sandra,
Of Bridles and Burnings, The Punishment of Women
, Robert Hale Ltd., 1992.

Byrne, Richard,
The London Dungeon Book of Crime and Punishment
, Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

Cameron, Joy,
Prisons and Punishment in Scotland from the Middle Ages to the Present
, Canongate Publishing Ltd., 1983.

Dawson, Ian,
Crime and Punishment Through Time
, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 1999.

Duff, Charles,
A Handbook on Hanging – the fine art of Execution
, The Bodley Head, 1928.

Earle, Alice Morse,
Curious Punishments of Bygone Days
, Loompanics Limited, Port Townsend Washington, 1896.

Hibbert, Christopher,
The Roots of Evil: A Social History of Crime and Punishment
, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1963.

Hroch, Miroslav/Skybova, Anna,
Ecclesia Militans: The Inquisition
, Dorset Press, 1988.

Hurwood, Bernhardt J.,
Torture through the Ages
, Paperback Library, 1969.

Farrington, Karen,
Hamlyn History of Punishment and Torture: a journey through the dark side of justice
, Hamlyn, 1996.

Foxe, John,
Foxe’s Booke of Martyrs
, Whitaker House, 1981.

Innes, Brian,
The History of Torture
, Brown Packaging Books, 1998.

Kerrigan, Michael,
The Instruments of Torture
, Spellmount, 2001.

Lane, Brian,
The Encyclopedia of Cruel and Unusual Punishment
, Virgin Publishing Ltd, 1993.

Laurence, John,
A History of Capital Punishment
, The Citadel Press, 1960.

Lee, Stephen,
Crime, Punishment and Protest 1450 to the Present Day
, Longman Group Limited, 1994.

Levinson, Sanford (ed.),
Torture: A Collection
, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Lyons, Lewis,
The History of Punishment
, Amber Books, 2003.

Mannix, Daniel P.,
The History of Torture
, Sutton Publishing, 1964.

Oakley, Gilbert,
The History of the Rod and other Corporal Punishments
, The Walton Press, 1964.

Peters, Edward,
Torture
, Basil Blackwell, 1985.

Pettifer, Ernest W.,
Punishments of Former Days
, Taylor and Colbridge, 1939.

Priestley, Philip,
Victorian Prison Lives
, Pimlico, 1999.

Ransford, Oliver,
The Slave Trade
, Readers Union, 1972.

Ruthven, Malise,
Torture: The Grand Conspiracy
, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.

Salgado, Gamini,
The Elizabethan Underworld
, JM Dent and Sons Ltd, 1977.

Scott, George Ryley,
The History of Capital Punishment
, Torchstream Books, 1950.

Scott, George Ryley,
The History of Corporal Punishment
, Torchstream Books, 1968.

Scott, George Ryley,
The History of Torture Through the Ages
, Torchstream Books, 1940.

Silverman, Lisa,
Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France
, University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Sprenger, Jacobus/Kramer, Heinrich (Summers, Montague, Trans.),
Malleus Maleficarum – The Hammer of Witchcraft
, The Folio Society, 1968.

Swain, John,
The Pleasures of the Torture Chamber
, Noel Douglas Ltd., 1931.

Swain, John,
A History of Torture,
Tandem, 1931.

Tyldesley, Joyce,
Judgement of the Pharaoh: Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt
, Phoenix, 2000.

Van Yelyr, R.G.,
The Whip and the Rod: An Account of Corporal Punishment among all Nations and for all Purposes
, Gerald G. Swan, 1942.

Walker, Peter N.,
Punishment: an Illustrated History
, David and Charles, 1972.

Whiting, Roger,
Crime and Punishment: A Study Across Time
, Stanley Thornes (Publishers) Ltd., 1986.

Wilkinson, George Theodore,
The Newgate Calendar (Book 1)
, Panther Books, 1962.

Zimbardo, Philip,
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
, Random House, 2007.

MAGAZINES AND JOURNALS

Brushfield, T.N., ‘Notes on the Punishment known as the Drunkard’s Cloak of Newcastle-on-Tyne’,
Journal of the British Archaeological Association
, September 1888.

Rushkoff, Douglas, ‘Peer Review: The reason we should loathe ourselves for watching reality TV’,
Discover
, May 2007.

PLATES 1

These interrogation chairs are basic to the art of the inquisitor. In the modern world updated versions are used, and have been made even more effective through the use of electricity.

The effect of the spikes – even non-electrified ones – on the victim, who is always naked, is obvious and requires no detailed explanation. He or she suffers horribly from the first instant of the questioning, a procedure that can be heightened by rocking them or striking the limbs or through the application of weight or pressure.

The image here on the right and the one on the preceding page depict acts of evisceration (disembowlment). The victim is staked out on his back alive and fully conscious. A small cut is then made in the lower abdomen or stomach and his entrails are wound up onto the windlass. This horrifying process would be done slowly and carefully so as to prolong the execution as long as possible before the victim eventually died. It is a type of punishment which seems to have been common to several early Christian Martyrs.