Page 68 - All About History - Issue 29-15

Through History

PUNISHMENTS Frenchmen described

19th-century
caning as ‘the English
vice’ due to its
Pain, humiliation and rehabilitation: authorities have tried many widespread use in
English schools
techniques over the cen

Pillories, which trap
the head and arms,
are often referred
STOCKS/ to as stocks SCHOOL
PILLORY CANE
The criminal’s name
and crime was usually 6TH CENTURY 19TH CENTURY
written on the cangue for
passers-by to read The stocks comprised two Most famously used in
hinged wooden boards with English schools but widespread
throughout Europe and North
CANGUE 2ND CENTURY BCE holes in – offenders put their feet America, the cane was used to strike
through the holes and were left
The cangue was a Chinese punishment immobilised (boards that trapped unruly students on the hand or
designed to inflict both hardship and the head and arms were pillories). backside. Sometimes the caning was
humiliation. A large wooden board was fixed Both were a form of social Hongwu carried out by the head teacher,
around the neck of an offender for a set period humiliation and popular in Emperor but often schools allowed pupil
of time – usually weeks or months – and the Medieval Europe. Usually in 1328-98, CHINESE prefects to administer it too.
The first emperor of the Ming
wearer had to stand in a public place during a town centre, they allowed dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor In Scotland, the cane was
daylight hours. Because it restricted a person’s an offender to be heckled codified Chinese law. Although it did not substituted for the tawse, a
movements and could stop them feeding and pelted with rotten food. invent the cangue, the new code made strap of leather. Both cane and
themselves, some cangue wearers starved A long spell in the stocks its use consistent, specifying that the tawse fell out of use in the UK
to death. The cangue remained in use until during inclement weather boards must weigh 12.5, ten or 7.5 during the 20th century and
kilograms depending on the type
the end of the imperial period in 1912, finally could even lead to death. of crime and be made of were outlawed in 1999, but it still
revoked by the new republic. seasoned wood. remains legal in some countries.

BRANDING IRON DRUNKARD’S CLOAK
1ST CENTURY BCE 16TH CENTURY
Brand marks have been
The drunkard’s cloak was a beer barrel
used as a punishment for
with a hole for the offender’s head and
centuries. It combines the
two smaller holes in the sides
pain of physical punishment
for the arms. Once suitably
with the permanent public
attired, the miscreant was
humiliation of being
paraded through the town.
identified as a criminal.
Not surprisingly, this was
Thieves and runaway slaves
a punishment for those
were marked by the Romans,
convicted of drunkenness,
and English Medieval courts
something Puritans were
used a number of different
keen to address during the
marks: V for vagrants, S
Commonwealth. Newcastle
for runaway slaves, B for
must have had a particular
blasphemers and F for affray
problem, as the drunkard’s
(fraymakers). Branding was
outlawed in Britain in 1829 Tattooing was sometimes cloak was often linked to that
used as a substitute for area – some sources describe The drunkard’s cloak was
and has mostly died out branding, another way of common in the Netherlands
across the world. creating a permanent mark it as the ‘Newcastle cloak’. and Germany
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