Punishments have evolved
in many ways during the past four centuries. During the Elizabethan
time, crimes of treason and offenses against the state were treated
with the same severity that murder and rape are today. During the
sixteenth century, certain nicknames were placed upon offenders.
Priggers of prancers was a code name for horse thieves, for example.
An outlaw was often taken to jail (or to his hanging, for that matter) by being strapped to the saddle of a rider, which him to run at full speed the entire trip (with occasional cantering to catch his breath). In common English towns, people would pay the turnkey two pence for a chance to jeer at whoever was on display. Often, a victim would be in the audience to identify him. On the other side of the spectrum, however, clergymen often were present to pray with the accused.
The punishment depended on the crime committed, and the price was usually a painful one. Offenses such as manslaughter, robbery, rape, piracy, and capital crimes entitled one to hanging, usually in the town square. Shockingly enough, if one dared to commit a crime against the state, he would be taken from prison on a sled or hurdle, hanged until half-dead, then taken down and quartered alive.
Nobility found guilty of treason by their peers lost their heads over it, literally. A woman found guilty of poisoning her husband was burned alive. A cook who poisoned his customers was boiled to death in a cauldron of water or lead. Further more, a servant who killed his master would surely be executed for petty treason.
The interesting thing about punishments in the Elizabethan days was that all crimes were specifically punished. For example, a correcting scold or ducking stool, invented around 1597 , was generally used for women of bad repute as a cleansing process. It consisted of a chair attached to a pole, like a teeter totter, and hung over a body of water. The criminal would sit on the chair and be dunked into the water repeatedly.
The Brank, also known
as the gossip's bridle, was a metal mask placed on a woman's head.
Attached to it was a sharpened mouthpiece, sometimes covered with
spikes, placed on the inside of her mouth. If the woman attempted to
speak she would receive a painful repercussion on the tongue.
The pillory, usually placed in the middle of the market, was a T shaped contraption with holes for the hands in the crossbar of the T. The person being punished would have to stand in the device in the middle of the market to be ridiculed by passersby. A baker guilty of default of weight , a butcher guilty of exposing unwholesome meat, and forgerers got the pillory.
Perhaps the worst thing about the punishments in the Elizabethan days were the physical and social conditions. When a person was being punished, it usually entailed an immense amount of embarrassment. Criminals weren't dealt with in private, they were displayed in the middle of the marketplace for all the townspeople to see. Instead of the juries, lawyers, and partisan judges of today, those convicted of crimes were subject to "no holds barred" consequences. Criminals were kept in jail for extended periods of time, and conditions inside were horrendous, with mice and rats becoming the prisoner's roommates. Overall, conditions during modern times are very humane when compared to those of the Elizabethan days
*Andrews, William. Old Time Punishments. Detroit: Singing Trees Press,1970.
This book is very informative and has graphic pictures to go along with the stories of horrible punishments. The chapter entitled "Gibbert Lore" is especially interesting.
Barsis, Max. The Common Man through the Centuries. New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Company, 1973.
The information found in this book gives a lifelike account of how it felt to be a criminal in the Elizabethan days. Despicable prison conditions are clearly depicted in this selection.
Byrne, M. St. Clare. Elizabethan Life in Town and Country. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1925.
Accounts of what happened to those who aided vagabonds and other ruffians are given in this book. The chapters, "Master and Man" and "Masterless Men," were extremely helpful.
Davis, Willam Stearns. Life in Elizabethan Days. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1930.
Though the information is complex, the book gives insight to the strictpunishments of the time. It also gives helpful definitions of special names given to specific kinds of criminals.
Scott, A. F. The Tudor Age. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1975.
This book gives eyewitness accounts of actual punishments in the Elizabethan Age. In the chapter, "Law and Crime," vagabonds are described as the chief target of the law-abiding citizens. Crimes of treason and offenses against the estate were unmercifully punished.
*Source for visuals.
Punishment in England during the Elizabethan ages was harsh, and by today's standards, cruel. There was no due process and no trial by peers.
The pillory was one of the most widely used
punishments. It often could be seen in the town market. Authors whose
work conflicted with the state's interests were sometimes punished by
being put in a pillory and being forced to watch as their work was
burned . Sometimes the ears of these writers were nailed to the
pillory and then cut off and left as a warning. Other offenders
sent to the pillory were dishonest butchers (whose unwholesome meat
was burned under their noses), adulterers and forestallers, dice
coggers, forgers, cutpurses, liars, libelers, and "passers-off of
latten rings for gold."
A finger pillory is similar to the standard pillory, except it encloses one's fingers in a block of wood, bent at the middle joint, so as to be very painful if left in for any length of time. Finger pillories often went by the name of finger stocks and were routinely used in upper class halls to punish the disorderly during social gatherings.
The stocks were similar to the pillory in that an
offender was put on display in a public area with his arms or legs fixed in
place by two pieces of wood. The stocks were usually placed at the
entrance to a town or by the side of a road where all could see and
publicly ridicule or taunt the offender. The stocks were also used as
a means of holding prisoners temporarily.
Drowning and burning were all-purpose executionary measures, but burning was popular for executing witches and for dealing with religious heretics. Boiling to death was less frequently used. Beheading, which remained popular through the Elizabethan era, was considered an honorable way to die and was usually reserved for those in the upper classes of society.
Hanging, perhaps one of the most well-known methods of execution (often associated with the settling of the U.S. frontier), was used as a method of punishment in Elizabethan times. Offenders sometimes were hanged by chains alongside a road as an example to others.
When the accused refused to confess to a crime, he or she was sometimes "pressed" to death by placing weight on his chest until he suffocated. This torture, which replaced the earlier practice of deliberate starvation, was sometimes used to "persuade" the prisoner to confess, whether or not he was guilty.
See also "Bloody Painful" and "Torture and Punishment in Elizabethan Times"
*Andrews, William. Old Time Punishments. Detroit: Singing Trees Press,1970.
*Source for visuals.