It happened but wasn't all that common as can be read in the actual diary of a Public Executioner, see "A Hangman's Diary: The Journal of Master Franz Schmidt, Public Executioner of Nuremberg, 1573-1617". "A Hangman’s Diary is not only a collection of detailed writings by Schmidt about his work, but also an account of criminal procedure in Germany during the Middle Ages. With analysis and explanation, editor Albrecht Keller and translators C. Calvert and A. W. Gruner have put together a masterful tome that sets the scene of execution day and puts you in Master Franz Schmidt’s shoes as he does his duty for his country.".
True. The executioner that wrote the diary was literally a logger. He was ordered to "do the choppin" when they couldn't find an executioner. He was ALSO immediately thrown out of all his social connections. No one wanted to befriend someone who's job it is to punish / kill. It was devastating for his and his family's standing.
It's a bit of a contrast to the Game of Thrones style of fantasy, where macho leaders do public executions as if it wasn't a big deal.
Even pagans were reluctant to do such things. They were terrified of curses, magic, the hidden strengths in apparent weakness: not powers suited to rule with, but very well suited for destructive revenge.
One of the oldest of the old Norse stories we know, the story of Wayland, is basically a revenge flick. There's also:
"The twelfth I know
When in the tree
I see a dead man dangling:
Then I the runes
Carve and draw
So he who there hangs
Walks and talks with me."
That is from Hávamal, the final part, where Odin lists the spells he knows. It sounds like a warning to me: are you sure you want your enemy to become Odin's companion?
What’s a little strange, however, is how little archaeological evidence of torture in the past has been found so far. Archaeologists have found evidence of violence between humans dating back to the Paleolithic, but the Milanese wheel victim is one of very few clear cases of actual torture, despite how often torture is mentioned in historical records beginning in ancient times.
Perhaps extreme torture wasn't all that common after all, and was applied only in exceptional circumstances. Literature mentioning torture often could be attributed to people's morbid fascination with subject, just like society is right now.
Nah, it was totally common, at least in Europe - and way past medieval ages. Come to Czechia and visit literally any random castle - there's archeological evidence of brutal torture at practically every single one (and there are dozens/hundreds). There are rooms and rooms full of original torture instruments as well as marks of usage on them. Every castle has at least the "hladomorna" - a deep pit where they threw a person and then forgot about them until they died of starvation. Very extensive torture dungeons with elaborate machinery are usual too. And the books that mention it are less literature and more administrative records.
Even during the late 1700s the enlightened Habsburgs were still using breaking on the wheel for some of their public executions. Case in point the Romanian revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan [1], in 1784-85.
Indeed - even the late 18th century national revival romanticists thought it's important to create a special word in the language for each of the hundreds of different kinds of torture instruments and ways of torture.
That is what found. It seems it is only a part as FSB widely practices electric shock torture for example, so not many traces left on otherwise reasonably looking bodies (also mobile crematoriums are in use there, so not much is going to be found in many cases at all, especially after Bucha as they know that Ukraine may take the territories back - the option the Russians in Bucha and everywhere else seem to have been dismissing back then in March).
Well, the 20th century communist torture chambers are a sight in its own class. The Nazi ones too, of course - but the communists had 40 years to do their shit.
The executed people, especially when brutally for supposedly very serious crimes, would frequently not get a proper burial. Their bodies or various pieces of them were put on pikes and into cages for display (and consumption by birds, etc.), burnt (all the "witches" after extreme torture they were subjected to), sent to different places as a message, etc.
" It is estimated that during his 36 years of rule over England he executed up to 57,000 people, many of whom were either members of the clergy or ordinary citizens and nobles who had taken part in uprisings and protests up and down the country."
And those crimes above sound like high treason (many of those uprisings/protests were about that English church split and Henry treated wrong position on it as a treason against him) which back then was "hang, drawn and quarter" punishable crime.
"What’s a little strange, however, is how little archaeological evidence of torture in the past has been found so far. Archaeologists have found evidence of violence between humans dating back to the Paleolithic, but the Milanese wheel victim is one of very few clear cases of actual torture, despite how often torture is mentioned in historical records beginning in ancient times."
My first hypothesis would be that mentioning torture far more often than using it proved effective? Make loud examples.
For me, my first hypothesis would be that they never gave torture victims nice burials where their skeleton would be preserved for future archaeologists. Maybe they were left in a field for vultures and wild animals to get at, or thrown in a midden.
In the article they theorize that he might have been considered a plague spreader. A burial would be a much better way to contain further spread compared to many of the other alternatives (though one might wonder why they didn't just burn the body).
Getting into wild speculation, one interpretation of the "Miasma Theory" could go like this: "Diseases comes from bad vapours. Very nasty disease is in this body. Therefore if we burn this body, miasmic smoke could come out of it."
my first thought when seeing the pictures in the article is someone took care of reassembling and burying the body correctly, so it must be an important person
The "third degree" of interrogation is actual torture. The less well known first degree was being shown the implements of torture, and the second degree was being made to watch somebody else get tortured.
Could have sworn there was a thread on this a while back on how most of these torture devices were not used a lot and many are exaggerations for the sake of being dramatic.
"See that nice device? you're going in there next if you don't spill the beans" could be quite convincing, especially if told to someone already being tortured in milder ways.
I think in those times torture was more common as a punishment or a way to force a desired confession before execution, rather than an extraction of valuable information.
I mean it seems like in the vast majority of cases torture wouldn’t leave a lot of marks at the bone level, which means skeletons of tortured people don’t really look all that different.
You're right to call out an assumption that torture methods always leave behind clear skeletal forensics. I think some of us might have read that into the article. In this case if the article is correct, the wheel did leave clear evidence, which I interpret to suggest that the wheel was less popular than more commonplace methods of torture, or that the wheel was popular and remains are undiscoverable to us today due to "disgraceful burial".
I visited a museum exhibit once in Amsterdam called, "Torture Instruments Throughout the Ages". It's unbelievable what human beings can do to each other. The "Wheel" was one. Most were fairly simple: being locked in a cage, or pushed down a hole, until you died of starvation and thirst.
They had a similar museum in Bangkok which has since shut down. One method of death was being put in a wicker ball and being kicked around by an elephant.
The problem with many of these museums and even the medieval sources they're based on is that there's a strong incentive to make things as gruesome as possible, including just making shit up. For example, everybody's heard of the Iron Maiden, but all existing devices appear to be "replicas" and there's no properly documented case of such a device actually being used for execution.
Dan Carlin did an history podcast on punishment and the spectacle of punishment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oRv4NZzBKw
He described a medieval central Europe scene where being broken on the wheel was punishment for some crime. The watchers were singing hymns and crying the condemned would sing along in a quiet broken voice and occasionally request a certain hymn, even after limbs had been shattered and broken. Somehow it was seen as necessary to save the persons soul.
I love the fact that they've shoved a completely unrelated auto-playing video about a "solar car" into the middle of the article. Do these people even visit their own sites?
> In medieval Northern Italy, the wheel was mostly a tool for public executions, especially for men accused of spreading the plague. Based on the details of the wheel victim’s skeleton, his appearance might have caused his medieval neighbors to view him with suspicion, especially if they were already fearful of a plague outbreak.
Well if anyone had doubts, it’s better to be a different looking person now than during medieval times. That is even scarier than the torture itself to me.
While I’m usually a great proponent of moral relativism, the whole point of Abrahamic religion is that there is a book that expresses an absolute moral standard.
Considering the manner of Jesus’s own death I think we can safely state that he would not have approved of torturing people to death, and the people of the Middle Ages (or the Bush administration) were deluded in their understanding of their religion. What’s tragic is how little progress has been made in the last 2000 years.
> Considering the manner of Jesus’s own death I think we can safely state
What I really dislike about Christianity is that there's a book with "absolute moral code" but it's written in stories and riddles so the absolute rules are interpreted differently by every single person, while all of them claim that the book (and thus the God) fully supports their position. There are people who abuse women and keep saying it's because Jesus said that's right, and at the same time there are people claiming that behavior is clearly forbidden by Jesus so Christianity must be good.
How are people saying Jesus said it's OK for people to abuse women? I don't think there's anything like that. Also Jesus gave plenty of advice in non-parables, e.g John 13:34:
>A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
The new testament is fairly consistent and I don't think any modern human right activist will have any issue with a single line (not the least because human rights are largely the secular transcription of christian principles). But I never understood why christianity never ditched the old testament which is full of stories that directly contradicts the said principles.
> I don't think any modern human right activist will have any issue with a single line
Maybe a few would take issue with: "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. "
No. The Christian churches of various denominations have "marriage classes" where they teach how a woman must be an obedient servant to the man and never ever think of leaving him, for example - any abuse must be a fault of the woman, they said. Also, you could read up on the rejection of contraconception - of course, a woman must give him a child whenever God pleases, right?
They also teach that it's best to beat up children if they don't listen to "commands", they call it "training" as if it was a dog and not a little powerless human. There are entire books on the subject sold right in the churches (pretty expensive too - but God recommends it so what can you do).
We could also talk about transphobia and homophobia, about the "reeducation" camps, about the torture they make these people go through - mentally as well as physically.
And they make old sick poor people donate the few coins they saved up - in a damn building with more gold on it than the local bank has in its treasury. Wtf.
Don't get me started on how they encourage parents and other family members to disown and discommunicate the members of their families who break these """principles""". Several of my friends eventually bowed down to this pressure even though they fucking hate every single thing about it.
The saddest thing I ever encountered was a nice young woman who was raised (indoctrinated and groomed) in this hell and believed it was all right - and tried to get me to behave this way, took me to the fucking marriage classes. They had to call the police on me, I nearly burned that place down. I'm getting so angry I'm shaking just by remembering the terrible shit they said there.
Of course now there's also the whole thing about abortions in Poland, some US states etc - women are dying senselessly because of this - or being sent to prison. Every month I make a point of donating to the nonprofits that are trafficking women hidden in fucking windowless vans as if they were criminals running away to my state for abortions - and then they can't ever return home in many cases, because now they make doctors register pregnant women in a damn central database.
This is literally Nazi-esque shit, sponsored and encouraged by the damn churches. There already were border police chases, and it's only a question of time when somebody crashes and dies - or they start shooting. The "funny" thing is, our local police protects these vans - I wouldn't be surprised if there was a major diplomatic incident (as in cops shooting at each other) soon.
It's all horrible. Excuse me, I need to go throw up.
(yeah sure I know, this is not the true Christianity, right?)
I am referring to the new testament. Please point me to a line in the new testament which you think is objectionable, even by the wokest modern standard. I did the exercise to read it with this lens and the only thing I could find is a reference to women not asking questions when in church (something like that).
I don't care. Every """good Christian""" says this same sentence and then goes on to do (turning a blind eye is just as bad as doing) all this horrible shit because God/Jesus/somebody who speaks for them/whoever the fuck else said it's alright somewhere or else. One would think the absolute and universally understood rules of the New Testament would prevent all this?
At this point I don't believe any Christian a word out of their mouth unless they show me how they're trying to make this shit right - and I mean receipts of donations to all the nonprofits dedicated to the cause.
A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man
> A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Then again he also said:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
Jesus wasn't speaking English. They had different idioms back then. The way I understand it is that "hate" in this context means "love less". You need to love God so much that in comparison to that love, your love for your family and friends and yourself is essentially non-existent. If they in any way would lead you away from God, you need to reject that inclination completely.
The translations include changes to modern words, don't they? Don't tell me you can't see the craziness you're leading yourself into here. And don't tell me you don't see any room for misinterpretation if you are even correct - which you aren't as the other commenter has shown.
From another commenter:
> A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man
And also:
> A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
Tell us please how we just misunderstood the context of these two. Or were we supposed to begin reading between the lines now that it doesn't sound so positive?
The translations change the individual words, and move words around to fit grammatically, but they tend to be fairly literal. See this literal word by word translation from the original Greek, and see how it's basically the same as the translation previously quoted:
Neither of those other quotes were from Jesus, they were from Paul. Neither of them say abusing women is ok. I agree that parts of the new testament sound off to modern ears. If you're interested in how those quotes can be interpreted, one example is
I guess this depends on if you think it is abuse to treat women as subservient beings and deny them their voice. But you must really fear smart women to think this is good thing.
> The way I understand it is that "hate" in this context means "love less"
It means "treat like shit and abandon". You can see this from other examples:
> He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
> Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
> He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
That man's father is still alive. When he says "bury my father" he means continue living with his father until his father dies and he then becomes fully independent and can have time to follow Jesus. Jesus says don't wait for some long future day, follow me right now. The guy isn't literally walking to the cemetery at that moment to bury his father.
> Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus isn't saying we shouldn't have ties to our family. Jesus goes with Peter to visit Peter's mother in law for example, and Jesus keeps in touch with his own mother. In this instance, Jesus sees this guy is making excuses and says we need to stop making excuses. Following God is more important than anything else and if we put off God in favor of family, that's wrong. We should still love our family and treat them with respect, but don't use them as an excuse to avoid following God.
> We should still love our family and treat them with respect,
That may be what you believe, which is great, but that is just not what Jesus is saying. Leaving your family without saying goodbye is just a really horrible thing to do.
Ok, looking into it more, it looks like it's not a completely agreed upon point on whether the father is alive or dead[1]. The thing is, you and I, being so far removed and thus unfamiliar with the culture and idioms of the time, don't have a real basis to claim one way or the other whether the father is alive.
>Leaving your family without saying goodbye is just a really horrible thing to do.
Jesus can see into the man's heart and knows he's making excuses. We don't really know anything about this man, but Jesus was with him frequently, and knows him well. Maybe he doesn't have any close family and is referring to distant cousins. Jesus knows that and we don't. Jesus' disciples don't abandon their family, because we're told of Jesus visiting their families with them.
There are plenty of absolute rules spelled out perfectly in black and white with zero room for interpretation that explicitly state such, the trouble is that if you follow them you end up with something that looks pretty much like Saudi Arabia.
Of course- but consider that many of the torturers would be able to rationalize what they were doing. Kings were seen as the protectors of the nation via divine appointment, and the church acted with the authority to rival what is written in the Bible- a Bible that most Christians could not even read.
The main culprit of torture and executions was that human life was cheap and more or less trivial. A person was born and left to survive by their own devices, each rascal being replaceable by the next. Death was abundant: plague, famine, war, diseases by the bunch. In the back of the minds of the people that watched the grisly slaughter of this boy was perhaps the thought that they would face an even longer and more agonizing demise by any of those natural causes.
Christianity does not condone today acts of barefaced cruelty. But it says that our world was created by God. Thus, either the natural order must be perfect and natural cruelty must be part of it, or He created an imperfect world for us to suffer in it. I don't suppose any loving human being would be okay with either of those statements.
God created a perfect world in the Garden of Eden. He created humans with freewill and they chose to rebel against God. Things went downhill from there.
Here is another idea no loving human being should like: humans are guilty of everything bad in the world. Last thought of a dying zebra in the maws of the lion: "damn humans."
If not everything, then quite a lot. One only has to look at history and current events or even just drive on the freeway to see that humans are the cause of a lot of misery.
From observation and experience, I'd say the world, with facets of beauty and love notwithstanding, is a rather corrupt and messed up place. I'd say the same about the human heart and condition. I'd also say the former proceeds from the latter.
"Corrupt" is a human notion, nature doesn't exist by our concepts. One has to look at history to learn that albeit the human condition is messed up, it is less so these days of what it used to be. And no, the faults of the world are not ours; thinking otherwise is dearth of humility.
What does that mean? Everything is a human notion.
Are you saying corruption doesn't really exist because it's merely a human notion?
Whatever, but sex trafficking, Uighur concentration camps, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, these are all evil, corrupt, wrong, bad, choose your terminology.
> the faults of the world are not ours; thinking otherwise is dearth of humility.
You're saying humankind taking responsibility for the evil we've committed is an example of lack of humility? I would think quite the opposite.
The Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church (the Eastern Orthodox Church is also Catholic, just not Roman-Catholic!) was more creative than pre-Christian Roman Empire's cross used for crucifiction! The witch-hunts and burning women alive was not less painful than crucifiction either. I mean, they are all terrible, but Christ did not turn all animals into humans, obviously - most brutal and creative killers even claimed they killed in the name of Christ!
The popular image of the inquisition is mostly untrue.
While they did use torture (but keep in mind that torture was practically the standard way of obtaining a confession or validating a witness’ statement, both in roman and in later trials) and sentence people to death, the great majority of the Inquisition’s sentences were not of this kind.
Ok, let's reverse it: most "courts" in medieval/renaissance times were at least as brutal (but possibly more) as the inquisition*. This is purely based on (non-Christian) historians' views, not mine. See for example [1,2]
So I guess we can say that "the popular image that the medieval/renaissance trials is mostly untrue", then? I assumed not everyone knew/thought that these two things were mostly on par, but maybe it's just my ignorance.
For sure I met people that thought that Galileo was burned at the stake, or at least tortured, when neither of that has happened.
Were the other secret police services as brutally murderous as the NKVD? Maybe yes, then I'd argue that the popular image of the other secret police services are mostly untrue.
Funny enough, you named this "Christian whitewashing" but historically the violence of the Inquisition was also exaggerated by protestants, who are also Christians, so... a case of Christian blackwashing? :)
* as the comment from Bayart points out, I was referring (like the OP) to the medieval/Roman Inquisition, which is a different entity from the Spanish one
The Roman Inquisition is (it stills exists) a judicial body created with the explicit intent to prevent summary justice and its side-effects, as well as to stop superstitious practices (in particular relative to « witches », which the Church never accepted as real and saw as a manifestation of paganism). It was a considerably progressive institution if you consider the state of the rule of law and religious orthodoxy at the time.
As a result, witch-hunting is a practice that blossomed in areas where Catholic institutions lost power during the Reform era.
Your perception might be coloured by the Spanish Inquisition, which was under the command of the Spanish crown and was thus a civil institution first.
