Rack (torture)
The rack (also called torture bench ) is an instrument of torture . It was part of the embarrassing questioning and was seen as a means of “establishing the truth” of the case law. The rack was in use in Europe from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 19th century. In German-speaking areas, the term “torture” mostly meant the torture bench.
The torture victim, lying on a long table, was handcuffed by the arms and legs. At one end, a hand lever wheel was used to slowly pull the rope, with which the arms were usually tied in a noose, so that the joints were stretched or the bones of the victims were loosened from the joints. The other end, however, in which the legs were tied to the feet, remained motionless, or parts of the bench could be cranked apart. Sometimes fire or other tools such as glowing tongs or coals were used at the same time . A similar instrument to the stretching bench is the stretching ladder .
Stretching benches were often supplemented with the torture instrument Spiked Hare ("spiked reel"), which were mostly built into these in a stationary manner. The spikes or thorns on which the torture victim was pulled back and forth slit open the back or chest. Sometimes there were also stretching benches with a heavy overhead roller fitted with steel spikes, as well as stretching ladders, which were additionally equipped with a roller fitted with pointed thorns.
Use in colloquial language
The phrase someone in suspense tension means "someone withheld information, thereby increasing his impatience."
literature
- Wolfgang Schild: "From embarrassing questions". Torture as legal evidence. (= Series of publications of the Medieval Crime Museum Rothenburg od Tauber, No. 4). Rothenburg o. J.
- Peter Burschel (ed.): The torment of the body. A Historical Anthropology of Torture. Böhlau, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-412-06300-2 .
- Karl Bauer : Regensburg. Art, culture and everyday history. 5th edition. Mittelbayerischer Verlag, Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-931904-19-9 , pp. 870-872.
