The Middle Ages were a terrible time: wherever they spit, witches were burned, people were tortured by Torquemada, and the Inquisition raged like never before. Then the Renaissance, enlightenment and New Time came, and it became quieter.
In fact, everything is just the opposite: in the Middle Ages, people were somehow not particularly up to witches and torture, and the Pope even recommended that the authorities not toil with nonsense and not be paranoid because of witchcraft. The witch hunt began with the crisis of the church, that is, just with the era of the great geographical discoveries, gunpowder, the rise of sciences and the Renaissance.
Another myth is related to the fact that while the European continent fiddled with fires and the Inquisition, Britain supposedly was quieter and did not go too far. In fact, there was plenty of game here too: the Puritans staged terrorist attacks with bombs and heads off, and the usual punishment for "minor offenses" was a mask of shame - a hideous and extremely humiliating practice. Here is more about her.
This device had many names: "the detractor's bridle", "the bridle of foul language", "the harness of gossips," but in Russian it was precisely the "mask of shame" that was fixed. The device was used to punish "language-related" crimes. Moreover, these violations were interpreted so broadly that, if desired, anyone could be put into a mask.
Promotional video:
The list of sins punishable by this torture included: slander, gossip, abuse, insults, rebellious speeches, and even "idle talk" and "disrespect for the husband." From the latter, it is easy to guess that for the most part, the mask of shame was worn on women.
Men were also subjected to this punishment, but much less often. The reason is quite obvious: a man was simply summoned to a duel and killed for slander, and for rebellious speeches he was simply executed out of harm's way.
"The curse of foul language" appeared in the 16th century in Britain - Scotland or Northern England, but over time it spread on the mainland, especially in Germany, where local craftsmen also came up with the idea of supplying it with a bell - for greater humiliation.
The mask of shame served not only for, in fact, shame. In many ways it was cruel torture. The bridle was inserted into the mouth of the tortured person and the metal tongue pressed the tongue to the palate, or, conversely, to the lower jaw. Moreover, the tongue was supplied with thorns, or a blade, so that the victim not only could not speak, but also risked injury to the tongue at the slightest attempt to move it.
Pay attention to the removable tongue: it could be with a spike or in the form of a blade:
The logic of punishment was clear: the guilty tongue was "punished" together with the mistress, as if it were an independent and evil-possessed part of the body. However, the meaning of torture was, first of all, not in pain, but in humiliation in front of neighbors. A victim in a mask of shame was led on a chain around the city, after which they were chained to a cross in the square, or to the building of the magistrate, where the punished stood for days on end.
The "foul-mouthed bridle" was both a cruel warning to the townspeople and a distraction. Often, different masks were used for punishment, depending on the offense.
Masks with a long tongue hinted at gossip, a "lop-eared" mask could hint at idle talk, and depicting an ugly grimace - at rebellious speeches or swearing in a public place.
Crowds of townspeople, in turn, played an impromptu quiz, trying to guess by the mask what exactly the person in front of them suffered for. So the victim gained dubious fame for a long time, which further aggravated the severity of the punishment.
Imagine what life was like for people with Tourette's syndrome in those years.
How common was the mask of shame? In fact, there are quite a few outside of Scotland, England and Wales. The woman was more likely to go to the fire (although this is so-so consolation).
The craziest thing about this whole story is that the mask of shame was used not only in the 16th century. It was actively used in England in the 18th century and even in the 19th!
Workhouse Lady, Victorian England.
In the 1850s, this punishment was the norm in Britain's workhouses, where "guests" could be punished in this way for gossip and idle talk in the workplace. The age of steam engines and the triumph of science sometimes had very strange dark sides.
Vladimir Brovin