| Revision as of 08:16, 26 February 2010 edit61.68.167.143 (talk)No edit summary← Previous edit | Revision as of 15:57, 26 February 2010 edit undoB0sh (talk | contribs)313 editsNo edit summaryNext edit → | ||
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
| Pilliwinks may also have been used to straighten girls' fingers in ] and ] ], similar to how braces are used to straighten teeth today. The pilliwinks used for this purpose probably differed from thumbscrews by squeezing the fingers. According to the Tudor historian Eric Ives, ] sent a pilliwinks to the nursemaid looking after her daughter, the future ]. | Pilliwinks may also have been used to straighten girls' fingers in ] and ] ], similar to how braces are used to straighten teeth today. The pilliwinks used for this purpose probably differed from thumbscrews by squeezing the fingers. According to the Tudor historian Eric Ives, ] sent a pilliwinks to the nursemaid looking after her daughter, the future ]. | ||
| THEY HURT REALLY BADLY! OUCH! | |||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
Revision as of 15:57, 26 February 2010
The thumbscrews or pilliwinks is a torture instrument which was first used in medieval Europe. It is a simple vice, sometimes with protruding studs on the interior surfaces. The victim's thumbs or fingers were placed in the vise and slowly crushed. The thumbscrew was also applied to crush prisoners' toes, while larger, heavier devices based on the same design principle were applied to crush knees and elbows.
This torture was extremely painful and usually forced out confessions of the victim .
As late as the mid-18th Century, the ex-slave Olaudah Equiano testified to having witnessed the use of thumbscrews to torture slaves on a Virginia plantation (included in his autobiography "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano").
Pilliwinks may also have been used to straighten girls' fingers in medieval and Renaissance England, similar to how braces are used to straighten teeth today. The pilliwinks used for this purpose probably differed from thumbscrews by squeezing the fingers. According to the Tudor historian Eric Ives, Anne Boleyn sent a pilliwinks to the nursemaid looking after her daughter, the future Elizabeth I.
External links
- http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/forgottendreams/thumbscrew.html
- http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/getent4.php?plen=1544&startset=48903703&query=Pilli-&fhit=Win&dregion=form&dtext=dost
 | This torture-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |