R. S. Mannheim
Published: 2021-02-07
Total Pages: 227
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For more than a thousand years public humiliation has played a major role in the punishment of wrongdoers and the maintenance of law and order, both by the church and by the state.For these powerful entities, simply punishing the guilty was never enough. They felt a need to establish their supremacy by degrading those who dared to stand against them. Moreover, justice had to be seen to be done. In the Medieval town these punishments took place in public places so that the masses would be left in no doubt what sort of fate awaited anyone who dared to stand against the system.From the Middle Ages, through the Tudor period and the English Civil War. This use of public humiliation was employed at all levels of society, from the thrones of Europe to the meanest of city streets. Emperors, KIngs and their mistresses were required to perform shameful acts of public pennance for their misdeeds, while amongst the lower levels of society any vagrants, dishonest merchants, or immoral women were considered fair game for the magistrates who inflicted cruel punishments for quite minor crimes. This illustrated volume will investigate the history and usage of a wide range of punishments, which rely primarily on shame, rather than pain, including the pillory, the stocks, public scourgings, the ducking stool and other customs, less well known. There are over one hundred images, used to illustrate the technical details of the equipment used to inflict these cruel and ususual punishments on the men and women of years gone by.The studies shed fresh light on some issues which have previously been unclear, such as the difference between the ducking stool and the cucking stool, and the social isolation of criminals.There is also a study of the psychological issues involved in public humiliation, and an examination of how public humiliation has featured in modern times, from the atrocities of the Second World War to social shaming in the age of the internet.One additional bonus is to be found in the lists of stocks, pillories and other artefacts which have been preserved and can still be seen.