#MEDIEVAL TIMES TORTURE MUSEUM SKIN#

After a few hours spent on the rack, any man would remain crippled for life.Īn interesting fact: Originally, ancient Russians called this instrument of punishment the “shoe”, to which the guilty were tied (“placed in the rack”). The tension could be increased, attenuated, and then enhanced by twisting the victim’s joints, and eventually, tearing the muscles and the nerves apart. The advantage to this torture method was its extremely precise control over the impact of pain. After such a verdict, they were laid on the table, wrists and ankles bound with ropes, and slowly stretched in opposing directions.

#MEDIEVAL TIMES TORTURE MUSEUM SKIN#

Later on, the French would slightly modify the rack’s appearance, adding an additional mechanism - metal rollers with spikes that sliced into the skin and muscles of the victim’s back.Īny criminal or deviant could could be sentenced to torture via the rack. It consisted of a wooden table with rollers at either end to which ropes were tied. The accuracy and ease of the rack’s design made it the most commonly-used instrument of torture of its day. The operating principles of this sinister mechanism centers on the torque that stretches the joints and tears muscle ligaments.

The advent of the rack comes from British Constable John Exeter who invented the device in 1447 for the torture of prisoners of the Tower of London (initially it was called the “Duke of Exeter’s Daughter”.

Medieval times torture museum