The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, used during the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

and

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

periods for

punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a deterrent to a particular action or beh ...

public humiliation Public humiliation or public shaming is a form of punishment whose main feature is dishonoring or disgracing a person, usually an offender or a prisoner, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of judicially sanctioned puni ...

and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the

stocks Stocks are feet and hand restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law de ...

Etymology

The word is documented in English since 1274 (attested in Anglo-Latin from ), and stems from

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th

modern French French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...

, see below), itself from medieval Latin , of uncertain origin, perhaps a diminutive of Latin 'pillar, stone barrier'.

Description

Rather like the lesser punishment called the

, the pillory consisted of hinged wooden boards forming holes through which the head or various limbs were inserted; then the boards were locked together to secure the captive. Pillories were set up to hold people in marketplaces, crossroads, and other public places. They were often placed on platforms to increase public visibility of the person; often a placard detailing the crime was placed nearby. These punishments generally lasted only a few hours. In being forced to bend forward and stick their head and hands out in front of them, offenders in the pillory would have been extremely uncomfortable during their punishment. However, the main purpose in putting criminals in the pillory was to humiliate them publicly. On discovering that the pillory was occupied, people would excitedly gather in the marketplace to taunt, tease and laugh at the offender on display. Those who gathered to watch the punishment typically wanted to make the offender's experience as unpleasant as possible. In addition to being jeered and mocked, the criminal might be pelted with rotten food, mud, offal, dead animals, and animal excrement. Sometimes people were killed or maimed in the pillory because crowds could get too violent and pelt the offender with stones, bricks and other dangerous objects. However, when

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; 1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, merchant and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translati ...

was sentenced to the pillory in 1703 for

seditious libel Seditious libel is a criminal offence under common law of printing written material with seditious purposethat is, the purpose of bringing contempt upon a political authority. It remains an offence in Canada but has been abolished in England and ...

, he was regarded as a hero by the crowd and was pelted with flowers. The criminal could also be sentenced to further punishments while in the pillory: humiliation by shaving off some or all hair or regular

corporal punishment A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on Minor (law), minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or Padd ...

(s), notably

flagellation Flagellation (Latin , 'whip'), flogging or whipping is the act of beating the human body with special implements such as whips, Birching, rods, Switch (rod), switches, the cat o' nine tails, the sjambok, the knout, etc. Typically, floggin ...

or even permanent mutilation such as

branding Branding may refer to: Physical markings * Making a mark, typically by charring: ** Wood branding, permanently marking, by way of heat, typically of wood (also applied to plastic, cork, leather, etc.) ** Livestock branding, the marking of animals ...

or having an ear cut off ( cropping), as in the case of John Bastwick. In Protestant cultures (such as in the

Scandinavian countries Scandinavia is a subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer to the Scan ...

), the pillory would be the worldly part of a church punishment. The delinquent would therefore first serve the ecclesiastical part of his punishment on the pillory bench in the church itself, and then be handed to the worldly authorities to be bound to the Skampåle (literally: "Shame Pole") for public humiliation.

Uses

In 1816, use of the pillory was restricted in England as punishment for

perjury Perjury (also known as forswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an insta ...

or subornation. The pillory was formally abolished as a form of punishment in England and Wales in 1837, after

Lord John Russell John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and again from 1865 to 186 ...

had said "I shall likewise propose to bring in a Bill to abolish the punishment of the pillory—a punishment which is never inflicted." However, the stocks remained in use, though extremely infrequently, until 1872. The last person to be pilloried in England was Peter James Bossy, who was convicted of "wilful and corrupt perjury" in 1830. He was sentenced to seven years

penal transportation Penal transportation (or simply transportation) was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies bec ...

, six months in prison at Newgate and one hour in the pillory in the Old Bailey. In France, time in the "" was usually limited to two hours. It was replaced in 1789 by "exposition", and abolished in 1832. Two types of devices were used: * The ' (literally: "post" or "pole") was a simple post, often with a board around only the neck, and was synonymous with the mode of punishment. This was the same as the ' ("shamepole") in Dutch. The ', an iron ring around the neck to tie a prisoner to such a post, was the name of a similar punishment that was abolished in 1832. A criminal convicted to serve time in a prison or galleys would, prior to his incarceration, be attached for two to six hours (depending on whether he was convicted to prison or the galleys) to the ', with his name, crime and sentence written on a board over his head. * A permanent small tower, the upper floor of which had a ring made of wood or iron with holes for the victim's head and arms, which was often on a turntable to expose the condemned to all parts of the crowd. Like other permanent apparatus for physical punishment, the pillory was often placed prominently and constructed more elaborately than necessary. It served as a symbol of the power of the judicial authorities, and its continual presence was seen as a deterrent, like permanent

gallows A gallows (or less precisely scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sa ...

for authorities endowed with

high justice High, middle and low justices are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judicial power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents. The scale ...

. The pillory was also in common use in other western countries and colonies, and similar devices were used in other, non-Western cultures. According to one source, the pillory was abolished as a form of punishment in the United States in 1839, but this cannot be entirely true because it was clearly in use in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

as recently as 1901. Governor Preston Lea finally signed a bill to abolish the pillory in Delaware in March 1905. Punishment by whipping-post remained on the books in Delaware until 1972, when it became the last state to abolish it. Delaware was the last state to sentence someone to whipping in 1963; however, the sentence was commuted. The last whipping in Delaware was in 1952. In

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

today pillory has a different meaning. The Portuguese word is ', and there are examples which are monuments of great importance, in a tradition dating back to Roman times, when criminals were chained to them. They are stone columns with carved capitals, and they are usually located on the main square of the town, and/or in front of a major church or palace, or town hall: they symbolize local power and authority. are considered major local monuments, several clearly bearing the coat of arms of a king or queen. The same is true of its former colonies, notably in Brazil (in its former capital, Salvador, the whole old quarter is known as ) and Africa (e.g. Cape Verde's old capital,

Cidade Velha Cidade Velha (, Portuguese for "old city", also: ''Santiago de Cabo Verde'') is a city File:Microcosm of London Plate 062 - Pillory, Charing Cross edited.jpg, The pillory at

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has been the notional "centre of London" and became the point from which distances from London are measured. ...

in London, File:John Waller in pillory.JPG, Eighteenth-century illustration of perjurer John Waller, who was killed while being pilloried in London in 1732 File:The Vere Street Gang at the pillory in 1810.png, The Vere Street Coterie at the pillory in 1810

Similar humiliation devices

There was a variant (rather of the stocks type), called a barrel pillory, or Spanish mantle, used to punish drunks, which is reported in England and among its troops. It fitted over the entire body, with the head sticking out from a hole in the top. The criminal is put in either an enclosed barrel, forcing him to kneel in his own filth, or an open barrel, also known as "barrel shirt" or "drunkards collar" after the punishable crime, leaving him to roam about town or military camp and be ridiculed and scorned. Although a pillory, by its physical nature, could double as a whipping post to tie a criminal down for public flagellation (as used to be the case in many German sentences to ''staupenschlag''), the two as such are separate punishments: the pillory is a sentence to

, whipping is essentially a painful corporal punishment. The combination of the pillory and the whipping post was one of the various punishments the

Puritans The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...

applied to enforce religious and intellectual conformity on the whole community. Sometimes a single structure was built with separate locations for the two punishments, with a whipping post on the lower level and a pillory above (see image at right). When permanently present in sight of prisoners, whipping posts were thought to act as a deterrent against bad behaviour, especially when each prisoner had been subjected to a "welcome beating" on arrival, as in 18th-century Waldheim in Saxony (12, 18 or 24 whip lashes on the bare posterior tied to a pole in the castle courtyard, or by

birch rod Birching is a form of corporal punishment with a birch rod, typically used to strike the recipient's bare buttocks, although occasionally the back and/or shoulders. Implement A birch rod (often shortened to "birch") is a bundle of leafless t ...

over the "''bock''", a bench in the corner). Still a different penal use of such constructions is to tie the criminal down, possibly after a beating, to expose him for a long time to the elements, usually without food and drink, even to the point of starvation. Finger-pillories were at one time in common use as instruments of domestic punishment. Two stout pieces of oak, the top being hinged to the bottom or fixed piece, formed when closed a number of holes sufficiently deep to admit the finger to the second joint, holding the hand imprisoned. A finger-pillory is preserved in the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire.

Notable cases

* Peter Annet *

Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (14 December 1775 – 31 October 1860), styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a British naval officer, politician and mercenary. Serving during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic ...

* James Nayler *

Elizabeth Needham Elizabeth Needham (died 3 May 1731), also known as Mother Needham, was an English procuress and brothel-keeper of 18th-century London, who has been identified as the bawd greeting Moll Hackabout in the first plate of William Hogarth's series of ...

* Titus Oates

Legacy

Girls in stocks at Turku Medieval market 2015

While the pillory has left common use, the image remains preserved in the figurative use, which has become the dominant one, of the verb "to pillory" (attested in English since 1699),

Richard Bentley Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenis ...

, ''Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris''; cited in the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' meaning "to expose to public ridicule, scorn and abuse", or more generally to humiliate before witnesses. Corresponding expressions exist in other languages, e.g., ' "to nail to the pillory" in French, ' in Italian, or ' in Spanish. In Dutch it is ' (nailing to the pole of shame) or ', placing even greater emphasis on the predominantly humiliating character as the Dutch word for pillory, ', literally meaning "pole of shame".

Notes

References

Citations

General and cited references

* *

External links

Examples of Pillories
from the UK and Ireland on geograph.org.uk
Debate in the House of Commons on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 6 April 1815

Debate in the House of Lords on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 5 July 1815
an
10 July 1815

Debate in the House of Commons on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 22 February 1816

Debate in the House of Lords on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 26 February 1816
{{Authority control European instruments of torture Medieval instruments of torture Modern instruments of torture Physical restraint Punishment