The Shin-Vice


The Shin-Vice

[From Hermann Loher's 'Hochnotige unterthanige wemutige Klage der frommen Unschultigen' (1676)]

According to Spee,

There is a frequent phrase used by judges, that the accused has confessed without torture and thus in undeniably guilty. I wondered at this and made inquiry and learned that in reality they were tortured, but only in an iron press with sharp-edged channels over the shins, in which they are pressed like a cake, bringing blood and causing intolerable pain, and this is technically called without torture, deceiving those who do not understand the phrases of the inquisitors (Sidky 144).

[Shin-vice from 'Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana' (1769)][Shin-vice from 'Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana' (1769)]



Lost?

[Torture]

The Shin-Vice copyrighted 1998 to Shantell Powell.

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