Dr Kat and the Shaming Punishments of Medieval and Early Modern England

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm dr. Kat and the credit for the inspiration for today's video goes to Anisha I've really enjoyed our conversations in the comment section beneath my videos you have raised some incredibly interesting points and asked some great questions in particular you were interested by the notion of the stocks and pillories and I promised I'd make this video so here we are today we're going to look at shaming punishments which includes the stocks and pillories so that means we aren't going to be concerning ourselves with executions or widespread mutilation and dismemberment or fines or even the confinement of a person we are looking specifically at punishments that are intended to embarrass or shame a person publicly I think it's also worth mentioning that these punishments are meted out for a variety of crimes and to a variety of people that is of course excluding the nobility so with that in mind let's have a look at those shaming punishments [Music] I think it's appropriate that we start by looking at the reason this video is made in the first place the discussion between Anisha and I about stocks and pillory as punishments the stocks and pillory are related but divergent punishment forms they would be set up in a widely accessible place in a village town or city high footfall locations were preferable because visibility is the aim of the game the stocks are designed to hold only defeat usually the individual will sit with their legs straight out and their ankles trapped by the device conversely the pillory is in most cases designed to hold the neck and wrists this forces the individual to stand when receiving their punishment although I stated this video is not going to look at mutilation or dismemberment in the case of the pillory there are certain accounts that refer to people being nailed to pillories by their ears there are also references that seem to show that in the cases where is were nailed to pillories some of those people would then have their ears cut off before being released as public shame was one of the primary intended consequences of this punishment the offence the person had committed may have been nailed to the stocks or Puri or hung around their neck passes by and gathered crowds would be on hand to mock the person in the stocks or pillories and to throw things at them rotten food and human or animal excrement were among the suggested missiles the throwing of rocks and stones was theoretically banned however it has been suggested that in certain cases and perhaps for certain crimes the authorities may turn a blind eye on this matter what is certain is that people did die from being placed in the pillories or the stocks the costs of the violence of the mob the crimes which could see a person placed in the stocks or pillory included offending moral decency public drunkenness spreading sedition or libel and selling rotten food adulterated bread or putrid wine and ale for a person accused and found guilty of selling rotten food adulterated bread or putrid wine and ale it may well be the punishment would fit the crime while sat in the stocks or trapped in the pillory the person guilty of selling these products may find that they were the very missiles being launched at them however for the authorities that place someone in the stocks or pillory they were reliance on the mob seeing the justice of the punishment and that wasn't always the case indeed at the very end of July 17:03 Daniel Defoe was pilloried for one hour at a time on three consecutive days having pled guilty to spreading seditious libel through his anonymous satirical publication of the previous year called the shortest way with dissenters despite the authorities clear consternation with Defoe's publication it seems the general public were more able to see his satire for what it was and rather than Pelt him with rotten food or extra mint this mob decided the more fitting punishment would be to shower him with flowers additionally the spectators to Defoe's punishment bought copies of the offending text the shortest way of dissenters and a hymn to the pillory which Defoe had composed for the occasion these texts were being sold by Defoe's friends who would come out to support him for our next shaming punishment we're going to look at whipping or flagellation certain stocks and pillories were also designed to double as a whipping post however whipping could also be inflicted as a person walked through the streets in some cases tied at the back of a cart the person being whipped might be forced to be shirtless or completely naked perhaps as with the stalks and parries they would wear a sign barring their crime around their neck alternatively and this is perhaps just for those being walked through the streets and whipped there may be a person calling their crime out as they went it was frequently stated the person should be whipped until they were bloody and as with the stocks and pillories whipping could also prove fatal an overzealous hand on the whip or birch could cause fatal injuries equally whipping somebody hard enough that you break the skin and cause them to bleed in a time before proper antiseptics or antibiotics is a potential source of infection if the whipping itself doesn't kill you it's possible that you may die of a latter secondary infection the crimes punished by whipping were principally vagrancy poaching and blasphemy the next punishment I want to look at is arguably the longest lasting one because it's going to leave an indelible mark of shame on the person for the rest of their life detailing the offense they have committed and that is branding in branding red-hot irons they used to mark the skin of the face hand or arm of an offender in medieval and early modern England brand seen principally to have taken the form of a letter the letter V might denote a vagrant or vagabond while T might stand for thief or tie burn a mark of someone who has managed to circumvent a sentence of hanging which would have been carried out at that infamous location of Tyburn while an M might refer to a murderer or manslayer or even a malefactor an evildoer to see an example of the equipment used when branding a criminal you need to go to Lancaster Castle there they have a metal holdfast designed to keep a person's hand in place while they are being branded they also have a brand in the shape of the letter M on the 22nd of september 1598 the poet and playwright Ben Jonson fought a duel with the actor Gabriel Spencer Spencer was killed in the jewel and afterwards Johnson was accused and convicted of his manslaughter it might be expected that Johnson would therefore face death by hanging at Tyburn however he managed to escape this fate by making use of his literacy which enabled him to claim benefit of the clergy members of the clergy was subject to ecclesiastical law rather than the civil law of the King Johnson was not a cleric however he was literate and he was able to read Psalm 51 in Latin this became known as the so called neck verse because it was able to save your neck in English it reads have mercy upon me O God according to your loving-kindness according to the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions Johnson escaped hanging however he was still a felon and was branded on the thumb the letter used to brand him varies depending on the account you read some say he was branded with a t4 Tyburn the punishment he had escaped for manslaughter while others say he was branded with m4 manslayer for those found guilty of sexual offenses adultery fornication even incest the punishment was known as carting this would involve being placed in an open wagon or cart and being led around the streets of your village town or city alternatively you might be placed on a horse seated backwards and led around in much the same way you may be forced to wear a sign bearing the details of the crime of which you had been accused and found guilty in a world where credit and Trust are the markers of how you move through society this makes your life incredibly difficult in fact so to all of the sharing punishments because the people that are watching you as you go along this shame parade are your neighbors friends family perhaps your customers maybe these are people that you have to trade with and deal with on a daily basis and they have seen you brought so low so it can make your life pretty difficult going forward so in terms of the shaving punishments that I've already talked about in this video what's quite interesting to me is it see a fairly broad Church in terms of who can be punished by these methods and for what crimes looking at each distinct method of punishment the crimes being punished by them are fairly broad in scope and there is overlap equally there doesn't seem to be any distinction between young or old male or female in terms of who can be punished by what method the only way you are exempted seemingly is if you are born noble but that isn't the case with all medieval and early modern punishments intended to shame and in fact the two I want to look at now are distinctly sex based and they have been designed especially for the ladies first up we have this particularly unpleasant looking device known as a scolds bridle it was intended for women who were accused of being libelous quarrelsome complaining or gossiping by members of their community there is some suggestion that these allegations might also have come from disgruntled husband's the woman's head would be encased in this iron cage the bridle also has a spike that would be forced into the woman's mouth it prevents speech and causes injury once they had been forced into this scolds bridle ropes and chains maybe in multiple forms would be attached to the cage around their head and they would be led around the streets of their village town or city by it the aim was that members of her community would come out in droves to witness her public shaming they would jeer her in the street from this it was intended that not only would she be shamed but she would also be reformed and learn her place one of silence obedience and Submission next up we have the ducking stool this contraption is used to deal with quarrelsome disorderly scolding and even promiscuous women it is placed by a body of water perhaps a pond perhaps a lake perhaps a river and it is a levered seat from the bank the people controlling the seat placed over the water Dunc a woman up and down into it so the offending female is strapped into the ducting store and thence one out over a body of presumably pretty cold water the members of her community will then watch as she is dunked or ducked up and down on this seat into this body of cold and perhaps also filthy water the submerging of these women in cold water could arguably be seen as fulfilling a medical need and viewed as a way of therefore reforming and rebalancing them this is based upon the medieval and early modern theory of the four humors which I have already made a video on and I will leave linked in a cart women who presented as quarrelsome disorderly scolding or promiscuous arguably were too hot in a humoral context they were socially unacceptable because they were in need of cooling and what better way to cool a hot female down than with a quick dunk in a pond lake or river ultimately this punishment was about public shaming and instilling fear being repeatedly dunked in a cold and perhaps filthy body of water by a mechanism that is controlled by somebody else makes catching your breath difficult the process would have been humiliating but as each submersion made it more difficult for you to catch your breath it would also have been absolutely terrifying although as I mentioned these shaming punishments taking place in public are not intended to be inflict upon members and ability there are occasions where people who sit in the very highest echelon of English society would submit themselves to humiliation and shame for reasons of political expediency and a case in point of this is the very public penance of Henry ii henry ii king of england had a best friend thomas becket and when the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury became available as far as Henry was concerned the logical choice was to put Thomas in the role for once and for all the church in England would listen to Henry of course it would because his best friend would always remember his loyalty wouldn't he unfortunately it seems that Henry had not taken the proper measure of his best friend Thomas and his new hair shirt wearing artificial canterbury was more driven by faith than personal loyalty henry ii was furious and one fateful night he was complaining about his former friend in front of a group of soldiers allegedly his ire reached such a pitch that the king was heard to say will no one rid me of this turbulent priest the soldiers hearing their king say this thought it was a command they went to canterbury and brutally murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket in the cathedral at Canterbury it wasn't long before word spread of this brutal murder of Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury and unsurprisingly all of Europe was scandalized Henry the second King of England now found himself in an unenviable and uncomfortable position both politically and religiously henry ii found himself backed into a corner and forced to admit that while he had never wanted Thomas Becket to be killed his words in front of those soldiers may have been the cause of it on the 12th of July 1170 for henry ii did public penance and was scourge dat the Archbishop's to the event was described by Jovi's a canterbury quote he henry ii set out with a sad heart to the tomb of st. thomas at canterbury he walked barefoot and clad in a woollen smock all the way to the martyrs tomb there he lay and of his free will was whipped by all the bishops and Abbot's their present and each individual monk of the Church of Canterbury no doubt henry ii would hope that through his public walk of shame and the mortification of his flesh before the tomb of the martyred sand thomas of canterbury he would find himself absolved and for one contemporary chronicler it would seem he had done enough Ralph dude Osito says quote there is no doubt that he had by now placated the martyr so I'd love to know your thoughts on this topic so please do put them in the comment section underneath the video or you can come find me over on my social media as always I'll be leaving links to my Instagram and Twitter in the description box so you can follow me there and we can continue this conversation I do hope you've enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe the channel and while you're there hit the notification bell that sits next subscribe button so that YouTube tells you and I've next uploaded I hope you're going to have a great day whatever you're doing and I look forward to speaking to you in my next video do take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 36,766

Rating: 4.9550781 out of 5

Keywords: Shame, Stocks, Pillory, English History, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance, Medieval

Id: dlSRcqy3qNo

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020