Pecked rabbit
The spiked hare , sometimes referred to as a spiked roller , is a late medieval - early modern torture instrument . The torture device was used in various forms and styles. It consisted either of a pointed (“spiked”) head section or a roller or roller (“spiked roller”) provided with points or spikes. It was used both as a "mobile" torture instrument and as a stationary device for stretching benches and stretching ladders.
The instrument of torture
history
The spiked hare was used in so-called embarrassing surveys in the late Middle Ages and early modern times . The torture device was used to obtain confessions and was one of the common means of “finding the truth” in the case law of that time , especially in witch trials . The use of the spiked hare during the torture was one of the "basic knowledge" and tasks of executioners , whose rights and duties were first recorded in writing in Augsburg's city law of 1276.
After there were virtually no more witch trials in Prussia from 1708, Frederick the Great had the torture there expressly abolished in 1740. Other German territories followed him a few decades later with the abolition or substantial restriction of torture. In the new edition of the General Lexicon of Arts and Sciences by Jablonski , Schwabe u. a. The following description of the torture instrument is also contained: “Pecked hare, a piece of the sharp question, and to the same second degree. It is a roller with small pointed pegs knocked around it. This is placed under the patient's back when he is stretched out on the bench and pulled back and forth. "
designation
The name spiked hare refers to the similar appearance of the torture instrument with a hare (or rabbit ) prepared for roasting , which was studded with strips of bacon that protruded slightly at both ends . The (more neutral) term spiked roll can be found as an additional designation, sometimes also as a catalog keyword, in some earlier museum publications and inventories, such as in a memorandum of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg that appeared in 1856 . Who also used some English term Spanish tickler actually referred to another torture device, consisting of a - attached to a wooden handle - "Fleshripper" with very long and sharp iron claws of like a cat's paw with extended claws looks and English as a cat's paw referred becomes.
In a critical essay on earlier witch trials in Braunsberg , East Prussia , which was published in a follow-up volume to the Neue Preussische Provinzial-Blätter , the author JA Lilienthal commented on the designation as follows: “Leave Spanish boots, spiked rabbits and similar designations of the tools of torture, if not on mockery, but on a cruel joke that was allowed against the unfortunate victims. "
Formings, use
Initially, the torture instrument was made entirely of wood , as can be seen from the description under the keyword "Spicken" in the Economic Encyclopedia von Krünitz u. a. In the encyclopedia volume 157 published in 1833 results: "A spiked hare, a kind of torture, which is inflicted by means of a piece of wood shod with pointed stakes." Later, iron parts were also used in the production , especially for the points or prongs as well as for fastening straps and - brackets. The torture device was then usually formed with rollers or cylinders made of wood, which were all around with iron points or spikes.
A distinction must be made between spiked rabbits as mobile "single marting devices" that had a wooden handle, as well as stationary shapes in the form of spiked rollers or cylinders, which were mostly built into stretching benches , sometimes also into stretching ladders. In the case of stretch bench fixtures, the rollers or cylinders were partly made entirely of iron.
Some of the torture victims were tied to a pole or something similar, a large wooden cross or an extension ladder and then the executioner punished them with the (mobile) pecked hare , which was mostly done on the victim's back , sometimes on the limbs and the Chest . The torture device equipped with a spiked roller was pulled on and off. Most of the torture victims, however, were tortured on a stretch bench or a stretching board, on which the victims were then mostly pulled back and forth on stationary pecked rabbits and stretched over them. In some cases there were also stretching benches with a heavy overhead roller fitted with steel spikes (see the following figures), as well as stretching ladders, which were also equipped with a roller fitted with pointed thorns.
Licked rabbit , here designed as a mobile torture instrument with a wooden handle .
Partial view of the head part with the wooden roll with sharp iron pins .
Stretching bench with several spiked hares , on the right the hand lever wheel for stretching the torture victims.
Detail: below three smaller, pointed cylinders, above a larger one with a hand crank .
Museum exhibits
Historical instruments of torture or replicas thereof are exhibited in various special museums in several countries, particularly in Central Europe . Pickled rabbits are often to be found as exhibits, mostly in connection with stretching benches and stretching ladders and sometimes also in other forms. This torture tool, for example, is part of the exhibition fund of what it claims to be the largest torture museum in Central Europe in Sommeregg Castle , which is located in the Austrian municipality of Seeboden on Lake Millstatt .
In addition, the torture instrument Spiked Hare is shown in the Polish Museum of the Lebuser Land in Grünberg in Silesia (Zielona Góra) , in the Medieval Torture Museum in Rüdesheim am Rhein in Hesse and in the Torture Museum in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, as well as in two originally preserved torture chambers : In Pöggstall Castle in the Lower Austrian municipality of Pöggstall and in the Fragstatt in the Old Town Hall in Regensburg in Bavaria and also in the Dithmarscher State Museum .
Representations
In addition to contemporary images in encyclopedias and museum guides, a depiction of a spiked hare can be seen in a copper engraving by Georg Paul Busch ; In his portrait of the Halle legal scholar Justus Henning Böhmer , created in 1733 , he depicted not only the Justitia but also various instruments of punishment and torture, including a pointed roller as part of a rack.
literature
- Horst Herrmann : The torture. An encyclopedia of horror . Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-8218-3951-1 .
- Peter Burschel (ed.): The torment of the body. A Historical Anthropology of Torture . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-412-06300-2 .
- Karl Bauer : Regensburg. Art, culture and everyday history . 5th, extended u. improved edition. Mittelbayerischer Verlag, Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-931904-19-9 , pp. 870-872.
Web links
(Note: In the fourth section of the book by Oskar von Wächter , published in 1882 by W. Spemann, Stuttgart, the torture instrument "Spickter Hase" is briefly described.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Spiked Hare - keyword in Pierer's Universal Lexicon , online at zeno.org . (Accessed October 23, 2010.)
- ^ Jutta Novosadtko: Executioner and skinner. The everyday life of two “dishonest professions” in the early modern period . Schöningh, Paderborn 1994, ISBN 3-506-76115-3 , p. 52. (Additional dissertation, University of Essen, 1993)
- ↑ Johann Theodor Jablonski u. a .: General Lexicon of Arts and Sciences . Revised, improved and greatly increased by Johann Joachim Schwabe , Zeisen and Hartung, Leipzig 1767, p. 630, keyword: Spiked Hare . ( Online excerpt from Google Books .)
- ^ Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg: Memoranda of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Organism and literary collections. 2. Art and antiquity collections, volume 1, part 2 . Publishing house of the lit.-artist. Establishment of the Germanisches Museum, Nuremberg 1856, p. 370, keyword: Stachelrolle . ( Online excerpt from Google Books .)
- ^ Jacob Aloys von Lilienthal: The witch trials of the two cities of Braunsberg, edited from the criminal files of the Braunsberg archive. (Continued from Vol. III, pp. 364-78) . In: New Prussian Provincial Papers. Third episode. Volume IV . Ed .: F. v. Hasenkamp, Theile's Buchhandlung, Königsberg 1859, p. 106, footnote. ( Online excerpt from Google Books .)
- ↑ Johann Georg Krünitz u. a .: Economic Encyclopedia. Volume 157: "Speckstrick bis Spiel (Imperial)" . Pauli, Berlin 1833, p. 280, keyword: "Spicken". ( Online excerpt from Google Books .)
- ^ The witch hunt in Freiburg. 4th episode: From the torture of torture to a valid confession . In: Zeitschrift FREIeBÜRGER , March 2007 edition, p. 27. (Accessed October 23, 2010; PDF file .; 170 kB)
- ↑ Stephan Buchholz u. a. (Ed.): Words of law - words of legal history. Festschrift for Dieter Werkmüller on his 70th birthday . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-503-09817-0 , pp. 164-165. ( Festschrift ; online excerpt from Google Books .)