1.
Heretic’s fork
One end of this device was pushed under the chin, the other into the sternum, with the strap securing this torture tool to the victim’s neck. Immobilized and in great pain, the victim will have to mouth off the Latin word “abiuro” (I recant), or they’ll end up being hanged or worse, burned at the stake.
2.
Lead sprinkler
This tool, which kinda reminds me of a holy water sprinkler, was filled with either molten lead, tar, boiling oil or boiling water, then used to bless, errr, torture its victims by dripping its contents on their stomach, back and other body parts. Sounds like standard S&M practice to me, only with a greater deal of pain.
3.
Thumbscrew
There are many variations on this torture device. Some were designed to slowly crush fingers, while others were built to do the same to toes, knees and elbows. Just a simple vise, really, but extremely painful.
4.
Tongue Tearer
Countless heretics and blasphemers had their tongues roughly torn out with this simple device. My, weren’t they the popular ones during those times.
5.
The Rack
The rack is a contraption designed to dislocate every single joint in its victim’s body. Tied across the device’s board by the ankles and wrists, the victim’s body is then pulled in opposite directions by turning rollers at either end of the board. Great way of relieving a bad back, if you ask me. Of course, the subsequent pain caused by the multiple dislocations is another story.
6.
Breast Ripper
This one is self-explanatory. Many women condemned as heretics, adulterers, blasphemers had their breasts ripped out using this device.
7.
Iron Maiden
Not the 80s heavy metal band, but the iron cabinet found in Nuremberg, Germany. The interior of this device is lined with strategically-placed sharp objects that is intended to torture a person unlucky enough to be put inside it. These spikes impaled the victim in the eyes, the chest and the back, but usually missed vital organs, so as to leave the victim bleeding profusely and in great pain, but still alive for a period of time.
8.
Crocodile shears
Had this device been still in use in the 20th century, people like Lee Harvey Oswald or John Hinckley, Jr. might have thought twice before doing the deeds they are infamous for. You see, captured assassins of kings in late medieval Europe often had a date with this device, which is actually an iron pincer with hemicylindrical blades that formed a long narrow tube when closed together. Teeth or spikes lined the inside of the blades, which are first heated until red-hot before being clamped on the victim’s penis. When his sex organ is “cooked” enough, it is then torn out from his body. Ouch.
9.
Judas Chair
The Spanish Inquisition was said to have made use of, among other things, the Judas Chair, also known as the Judas Cradle. Victims were hoisted up by rope or chain and then made to sit on the pointed tip of the pyramid shaped device. You get the picture.
10.
The Pear
Commit sodomy, adultery, incest, heresy, blasphemy or sexual union with Satan (!) in Medieval Europe, and chances are, you’ll get this intricately-decorated device inserted into your mouth, rectum or vagina. A screw mechanism then makes its pointed “leaves” expand while inside any of those orifices, resulting in severe internal mutilation. Yikes.
11.
The Wheel
This device is known by many names, such as breaking wheel and Catherine wheel, but it only means one thing to those who perished by this means: pure agony.The Wheel is more like an execution device, but the hours before actual death is excruciating. The victim is tied to the side of the wheel, then gets every bone in his body shattered one by one by an executioner using a hammer or an iron bar. Victims of this form of torture often took hours, or even days to die. Some were “fortunate” enough to be granted “mercy”, in the form of fatal blows to the chest or stomach.
12.
Brazen Bull
This is one particularly brutal torture/execution device.
"The brazen bull is an execution/torture device designed in ancient Greece. Perillos of Athens, a brass-founder proposed to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, the invention of a new means for executing criminals; accordingly, he cast a brazen bull, made totally of brass, hollow, with a door in the side. The condemned was shut up in the bull and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until it became "red hot" and causing the person inside to slowly roast to death. So that 'nothing unseemly might spoil his feasting', Phalaris commanded that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rose in spicy clouds of incense. The head of the ox was designed with a complex system of tubes and stops so that the prisoner's screams were converted into sounds like the bellowing of an infuriated bull. "
No way those who were roasted alive in this device looked anything like the serene faces in the above picture.
