![]() "The maiden was a tomb-sized container with folding doors. Punishments handed down from medieval times were to remain in legal force throughout the greater part of Catholic Europe until after the end of the Napoleonic era, especially in Austria, Bavaria, Italy (except Tuscany, Lucca and Parma), and of course in Spain. Nevertheless, in spite of this comment, even in 1788–a portentous year, at the apex of the Enlightenment, in France a time of revolutionary ferment, in England of well-advanced industrialism, in the New World of enthusiastic republicanism–sentences of drawing-and-quartering, of breaking on the wheel and of the cutting-off of tongues and hands were carried out in Nuremberg. Investigative torture fell slowly into disuse in Nuremberg with the passing of the eighteenth century, so that a tourist guide of 1784 speaks of "the Iron Maiden, that abominable work of horror ( dieses abscheuliche Greulwerk) that goes back to the times of Frederick Barbarossa", an error of almost four centuries but one that proves that the Maiden had already been relegated to the museum. Probably the spikes of that time were movable among various sockets drilled into different places on the inside, more or less lethal, more or less mutilating, according to the requirements of the sentence. That day a forger of coins was placed inside, and the doors shut "slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms, and his legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulders, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him and so he remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died". The first reference to an execution with the Maiden that has yet come to light stems from August 14, 1515, although the instrument had been in use for several decades by then. ![]() ![]() It is difficult to separate legend from fact concerning this contrivance because most published material is based on nineteenth century research distorted by romanticisms and by fanciful popular tradition. The most famous example has always been the so called "Iron Maiden of Nuremberg", destroyed in the air raids of 1944. The history of torture records many devices that worked on the principle of the anthropomorphic container with two doors, fitted with spikes on the inside that pierced the victim upon the doors being shut. The respective sources have been acknowledged. Note: This is a compilation of various articles concerning this infamous torture instrument. | The Iron Maiden Commentary | The Iron Maiden of Nuremberg |
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