Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candide Giftson, joined by staff writer Jane mccrest
Speaker 1: and a pretty recent podcast we did about the Spanish Inquisition.
Speaker 1: I got really excited talking about blood and gore, and
Speaker 1: so we decided that, despite the fact I'm a pretty
Speaker 1: girly girl, we would devote a podcast today to torture.
Speaker 1: And not just any type of torture. It's a really, really,
Speaker 1: really grizzly kind medieval torture. Yeah, and uh, may I
Speaker 1: say you're a little bizarre for being so excited about this,
Speaker 1: but um, it is really interesting and a gruesome kind
Speaker 1: of way. Um speaking of the Inquisition when we were
Speaker 1: when I was reading for that podcast, I remember reading
Speaker 1: that people would see others getting tortured, and often that
Speaker 1: was just enough to get them to confess. I mean,
Speaker 1: reading about all these different kind of torture made me
Speaker 1: want to confess whatever it is anyone wanted to. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing. Sort of like watching American Idol tryouts, You're like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I feel so bad to stop right now. Um. So,
Speaker 1: before we get into with some of the devices that
Speaker 1: we're going to tell you guys about, and you'll be
Speaker 1: squirming in just a few minutes. Soon enough, hold onto
Speaker 1: your shorts. Let's just go over torture and a pretty
Speaker 1: broad definition of tortures that it's bodily or mental pain
Speaker 1: exactly for a specific reason. And three of these main
Speaker 1: reasons are for punishment, for getting information or for obtaining
Speaker 1: a confession. And torture is carried out by a figure
Speaker 1: of authority, So those are the parameters. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting. Um. Another side effect to torture, um
Speaker 1: a little plus for the authorities who are who are
Speaker 1: enacting it, is that it could be like a public
Speaker 1: display to deter others from committing such crimes. And that's
Speaker 1: the case, uh, for many of these And throughout history
Speaker 1: we've seen torture practiced and all different eras and through
Speaker 1: all different ways, and from the very beginning, I think
Speaker 1: it's had its opponents and defenders. And you may be
Speaker 1: surprised to know that torture has had its defenders and
Speaker 1: opponents throughout history. Aristotle was one of the earliest defenders
Speaker 1: of torture. I was a little surprised to find that
Speaker 1: because you know, you think of a philosopher, someone who's
Speaker 1: being introspective and really thinking about what you're doing to
Speaker 1: the human body and the separation of you know, like
Speaker 1: the mind and then the body itself. But now he
Speaker 1: was he was pretty much an advocate of it. And
Speaker 1: another was Sir Francis Bacon. But when you move on
Speaker 1: to the Enlightenment era and you have thinkers really being
Speaker 1: thoughtful about things and in life and the nature of
Speaker 1: being and crime and punishment, you see a lot more
Speaker 1: opponents coming into play for human rights. Exactly in our
Speaker 1: modern era, even around the nineteenth century, that was when
Speaker 1: you see people really turning away from torture, and um,
Speaker 1: it was a crime by then to hurt or to
Speaker 1: be violent toward a criminal suspect. And now we are
Speaker 1: very active in pursuing torture Regina calling out human rights violations.
Speaker 1: The United Nations has counsels that go and investigate, they
Speaker 1: follow tips, and with the war on terror today, so
Speaker 1: it's a very hot button topic exactly. So um, we
Speaker 1: we see that attitudes toward torture and political prisoners are
Speaker 1: a whole other kind of warm. So we're going to
Speaker 1: stick to the medieval era for right now. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting about the medieval era, almost like the Salem witchcraft
Speaker 1: trials that we say later on in early America, was
Speaker 1: that torture itself was a trial, and you could reveal
Speaker 1: your innocence or your guilt by how you responded to
Speaker 1: the pain. That's right. It's a little ironic if you
Speaker 1: go back to sort of the roots to a lot
Speaker 1: of these torture devices is that some of them were
Speaker 1: originally developed in Roman times and they were used often
Speaker 1: against Christians. And it's just very ironic because by the
Speaker 1: medieval era, in using inquisitions, uh and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: it was Christians were using it against Christian heretics, right.
Speaker 1: And the strange thing about these devices that with that
Speaker 1: people were very seriously contemplating how they could do the
Speaker 1: most bodily harmed people and not just kill them swiftly.
Speaker 1: Almost that would be too easy. That would be like
Speaker 1: the guillotine when we told you guys about the French
Speaker 1: Revolution and how the guillotine was intended to be a
Speaker 1: humanitarian death device. And you can see that by looking
Speaker 1: at all these exactly these wanted to kill you slowly
Speaker 1: and not softly. So without further ado, we shall take
Speaker 1: it away. Um. The first one I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about was the Brazen Bowl, which is really interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't know if like a Slice to Land movie, but
Speaker 1: it's not. I had never heard of this before looking
Speaker 1: into this. But um, it was a hollow brass statue basically,
Speaker 1: and brass was important because it could heat up quickly. Um.
Speaker 1: And the basically it was hollow and shaped like a bowl,
Speaker 1: and so it had a trap door for someone to
Speaker 1: climb inside. And often they would cut your tongue out
Speaker 1: even before you climbed in. Um, a little extra kick
Speaker 1: right there, and uh. And so you climb in and
Speaker 1: they'd shut the door behind you, and so you'd be
Speaker 1: trapped in this bowl and they would live a flight
Speaker 1: of fire underneath so that it would heat up and
Speaker 1: you basically you would you would slowly die in this
Speaker 1: agony of heat. And UM, it's an interesting story behind
Speaker 1: this too, because um, the inventor is a guy named
Speaker 1: Perilous according to the writings of Lucian. At least we
Speaker 1: don't know if this isn't just Leaden, but um, he
Speaker 1: invented this, and he was so proud of it. He
Speaker 1: actually stuck flutes in the nostrils of the brazen bull,
Speaker 1: so that people screaming when it came out could sound
Speaker 1: like a bowl's noise, and so people watching could get
Speaker 1: entertainment out of this. So he's showing this off. He's like,
Speaker 1: look at what I just invented. And he shows this
Speaker 1: this guy named Pharallas, who who is a famous tyrant
Speaker 1: at the time, and Pharrella says, oh, yeah, that's that's great, Um,
Speaker 1: but I don't think the flutes will actually work. One
Speaker 1: of you clumb inside and show me, and as you
Speaker 1: might expect, Fera lists close the door behind him, and
Speaker 1: the inventorants of being the first victim to this prisonable.
Speaker 1: Is it a success? Yes, he died in that. You
Speaker 1: call that a success, So so checked to that one. Okay,
Speaker 1: my turn. I think one of my favorites. If I
Speaker 1: can say that, that's sort of odds, so I retract
Speaker 1: that immediately. Okay. One of the most interesting ones I
Speaker 1: think is the rack. And it's a pretty simple concept.
Speaker 1: The suspect or criminal or heretic, etcetera, etcetera is tied
Speaker 1: down and a crank or a wheel tightens the ropes
Speaker 1: that are attached to his limbs and slowly stretches the body,
Speaker 1: and usually it stretches so tightly and so tautly to
Speaker 1: the point where limbs are dislocated and some can even
Speaker 1: be torn off. And um, if you were on the rack,
Speaker 1: it was called being racked or broken on the rack.
Speaker 1: And there were some very sans on the rack, one
Speaker 1: of which was called the horse, and the suspect was
Speaker 1: tied to a beam which looked almost like the horse's back,
Speaker 1: facing up, and pulleys down below pulled the limbs down,
Speaker 1: breaking them. And so you were lying, you know, supine
Speaker 1: and completely broken on the horse. And at that point
Speaker 1: you were meant to give your confession. And this one,
Speaker 1: I guess it could have killed you, and I guess
Speaker 1: some were designed to kill you. You probably would have
Speaker 1: been killed eventually from blood laws or agony or some
Speaker 1: sort of shock that you went into, but again dying
Speaker 1: very very slowly. And one of the funniest things to
Speaker 1: me about the rack is that, um, everything old is
Speaker 1: new again because there is a doctor at the Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Physical Medicine Center who has reinvented the rack, not
Speaker 1: the torture people, but actually to help them. And after
Speaker 1: about six years worth of tasks and trial he has
Speaker 1: He's created this controlled stretching device and you get a
Speaker 1: forty five minute session and it's to help lower back
Speaker 1: pain herniated disks or degenerated disks, And the concept is
Speaker 1: you lie down and h The stretching creates a vacuum
Speaker 1: between the vertebrae and your back, and whatever disk maybe
Speaker 1: herniated or giving you grief, actually gets sucked back into place.
Speaker 1: So again I think that that is kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: And this news comes courtesy to us through the comes
Speaker 1: courtesy to us through the Medical Devices and Surgical Technology
Speaker 1: Week publication. I was so excited to read about it.
Speaker 1: And this is published I think in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: so I'm not sure if it is still in years.
Speaker 1: But what a fanciful idea way. You sound like you
Speaker 1: want to try it. I do. My My back pain
Speaker 1: is mostly upper back pain. I just bring a marathon
Speaker 1: over the weekend and still carrying it. But we'll say, wow. Well,
Speaker 1: one one torture to device that I hope does not
Speaker 1: come back um is the wheel, which is it's a
Speaker 1: famous torture device that a body could be put on.
Speaker 1: This It's just a giant wheel. Basically, you're stretched over
Speaker 1: the wheel and UM, you could do a couple of
Speaker 1: different things. They're very creative about this. UM. They could
Speaker 1: just roll the wheel down a rocky hill, which is
Speaker 1: my favorite. UM. Or they could mount it so that
Speaker 1: it could swing or turn on an axle basically, and
Speaker 1: they could put whatever they want to roll your body over,
Speaker 1: whether it's hot coals or spikes or whatever. UM. And
Speaker 1: often after they put you on the wheel, they would
Speaker 1: put the wheel UM on a pole high up out
Speaker 1: in daytime for the hot sun to basically bake you. UM.
Speaker 1: And also you'd have to fight back the crows that
Speaker 1: were and not my favorite. These people are wrath. Okay,
Speaker 1: are you guys still let us? Can you handle this?
Speaker 1: Hop out the steak. The steak a pretty straightforward concept.
Speaker 1: And what's distinctive about the steak in the midst of
Speaker 1: these others that we've been discussing is that it was
Speaker 1: definitely fatal and um, you would die pretty much guaranteed
Speaker 1: within about half an hour. That's when you would start
Speaker 1: to lose consciousness. And if you've been I don't know
Speaker 1: under a rock on the steak is basically it's an
Speaker 1: upright pull, usually made of wood, and you're tied to it,
Speaker 1: and underneath is a pile of very very dry wood
Speaker 1: and a fire, so you become a human bonfire essentially.
Speaker 1: So even though you lose consciousness within about half an hour,
Speaker 1: it could take two hours before the victim completely burned
Speaker 1: to death. That was something that I didn't know before.
Speaker 1: I just thought, um, you're you know, someone burning at
Speaker 1: the steak wouldn't be too long, you know, But to
Speaker 1: hear that it could take up to two hours, that's
Speaker 1: it's just wild. And during the inquisition, uh, the inquisitors,
Speaker 1: I guess they thought they were doing the confessors of
Speaker 1: favor when they would strangle them before they were burned
Speaker 1: to spare them the agony. But the heretics they would
Speaker 1: allow to be consumed by fire. And if you were
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands and you were being burned at the steak,
Speaker 1: you had a really awful fate awaiting you because they
Speaker 1: had a little premptive measure that they took to muffle
Speaker 1: the victim's screen aimes, and that was smashing the tongue
Speaker 1: between two plates of hot iron. Yeah, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read that this sort of these sort of things
Speaker 1: added to the entertainment of people watching and that's the
Speaker 1: most gruesome part of about this. I mean I've said
Speaker 1: that over and over again this but I keep the
Speaker 1: gruesome and I'm being just as much it for a
Speaker 1: year as they are so right now. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that people got entertainment out of this is
Speaker 1: very horrifying. Another one, uh that's infamous uh for terrible
Speaker 1: tortures Iron Maid, and you probably heard of it. Um.
Speaker 1: It's basically this upgrade casing for a victim to step into.
Speaker 1: And um, people actually didn't think it actually existed. It
Speaker 1: was sort of a legend for a little while until
Speaker 1: they finally found one in Germany in the twentieth century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people really did think it was fictional, and they found
Speaker 1: it in Nuremberg, and so sometimes it's actually called the
Speaker 1: Iron Maiden of Nuremberg. And like Jane was saying, it
Speaker 1: it has these spikes inside of it, so once you're
Speaker 1: lead inside the casing and the doors shut, the spikes
Speaker 1: are designed to pierce your organs. But like we were saying,
Speaker 1: killing me slowly, remember the mantra of all medieval torture devices.
Speaker 1: The spikes weren't long enough to go completely through your organs,
Speaker 1: so they would prick them and then you would very
Speaker 1: very slowly bleed to death. In the worst part, I
Speaker 1: think this is the two spikes that I meant for
Speaker 1: your eyes as well. Oh my gosh, I can't even
Speaker 1: handle it. So I'm going to tell you guys about
Speaker 1: a special version of the Iron Maiden that was modeled
Speaker 1: after a religious figure in Spain, and that was the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary. And it was designed so that it looked
Speaker 1: like the Virgin Mary was hugging the victim, but when
Speaker 1: the door was closed, she had spikes within her embrace
Speaker 1: that would pierce into your body. No, definitely not, definitely
Speaker 1: not in the introm If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about the devil torture devices, or if you need a
Speaker 1: break from all of that and just want to read
Speaker 1: about the Royalty of Deevil, England, we won't blame you,
Speaker 1: but just be sure to visit our website at how
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