Medieval Torture & Anglo Law (Mutiliation): License to Torture
Book details
- Title
- Medieval Torture & Anglo Law (Mutiliation): License to Torture
- Publication year listed
- 1897
- Format
- Public domain eBook
- Reading access
- Free online reader; no registration required
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- View on Archive.org
About this book
Medieval Torture & Anglo Law (Mutiliation): License to Torture
Author: John McGuffin
Year: 1897
"Torture, and horrific bodily mutilation as a living testimony to royal power, and the futility of rebellion," ---- Barron, William RJ. "The penalties for treason in medieval life and literature." Journal of medieval history 7.2 (1981): 187-202. [ "Treason appears to have fascinated the Middle Ages. At the most fundamental felony, it struck at the roots of feudal society through a complex of crimes: compassing or plotting the death of the sovereign, betraying his realm to an enemy, counterfeiting his coinage, or falsifying his signature, seducing his wife or the wife of his son and heir. The basis of the felony was the same — betrayal of trust by an attack on the security of the state, its administrative or economic validity, or the legitimacy of the succession. Whether directed against the king or some lesser liege lord, the law made no absolute distinction between high and petty treason. Both demanded exemplary punishment, with methods such as drawing, hanging, emasculation, disemboweling, beheading, and quartering employed in various combinations. In rare and aggravated cases, flaying alive seems to have been included. This paper, though surveying the legal, moral, and symbolic