The Rack This is probably the most famous of torture instruments.
The victim was tied across a board by his ankles and wrists. Rollers at either end of the board were turned, pulling the body in opposite directions until dislocation of every joint occurred. Some racks were designed with spiked rollers positioned under the victim's back.
Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology ... Rossell Hope Robbins (1959)
The Ladder A method of torture employed throughout France and Germany generally in the preliminary stages of "questioning." It was followed by strappado and squassation.
The accused, garbed only in a shirt or underpants, was placed horizontally on his back, resting on the ladder or rack or on the ground between two fixed posts. His legs were fastened with ropes to one end, and his arms, bound together and extended over his head, were attached to the other end by a kind of tourniquet. When the tourniquet was tightened, the ropes contracted so that his body was suspended taut in the air.
A more severe use of the ladder involved twistings {tortillons}of the rope to increase the pain. The prisoner, man or woman, was bound to the two uprights of the ladder by relatively thin ropes from his shoulders, arms, and fingers down to his toes. The ropes were wound round and round the limbs and the uprights. By this means, little sticks could be inserted into the ropes and rotated as in a tourniquet. The cords were twisted and tightened so that the limbs and joints were squeezed in many places, and the knots in the ropes forced into the flesh.
With the inclined ladder rack the victim was stretched up until his shoulders dislocated.
Stretched in this position he could be whipped, prodded, disembowelled or burnt with torches.
