Thursday, January 25, 2007

Infernal Devices

My uncle sent me the link to this fascinating page on devices of torture and execution, complete with pictures and descriptions.

UPDATE: With the Judas Cradle, someone could literally get medieval on your ass.

1 comment:

David Friedman said...

I checked the entry for something I know a little about, the chastity belt. It's wildly inaccurate.

For instance:

"The actual device was in existence before the rise of Christianity, but its use peaked during medieval times. The scene of the lord going off to crusade while locking his lady into a chastity belt was a staple of romantic literature"

To the best of my knowledge, and I have looked fairly hard in the past, there is no evidence that chastity belts existed in the medieval period and not a single incident in medieval literature of "the lord going off ... ." As best I recall, the earliest evidence, a drawing in a German book, is c. 1400-1500, but that's by memory so not precise.

Hence my conclusion is that, however entertaining the site may be, it should not be regarded as a reliable source of information.