Steps of Torture
in Witchcraft Trials
I. Preparatory Torture,
To force a confession of guilt.
Methods: stripping, threatening, binding, whipping, thumbscrews, stretching on rack or ladder. (In court records, this torture was often not reported, and the accused was said to confess voluntarily.)
II. Final Torture.
To force confession in cases of taciturnity, and to force naming of accomplices, who, having been defamed, could then be tortured.
A. Ordinary Torture.
Method: strappado.
B. Extraordinary Torture.
Method: squassation.
(Torture could be applied up to three times without new evidence introduced. Refinements could be
added to these basic methods, such as flogging, application of fire, thumbscrews, etc.)
III. Additional Tortures for special offenses.
To cause agony in retribution.
Methods: cutting off hands or legs; tearing of flesh with red-hot pincers.
IV. Occasional Tortures used at individual prisons.
To satisfy sadism of judges or hangmen.
Methods: no limit fixed to barbarity, e.g., pressed to spiked chair with fire underneath; scalding water baths, etc
V. Execution,
Methods: Burning by fire. Possibility of strangulation before burning if accused did not recant; otherwise burning alive. According to region, accused tied to stake, placed in straw hut, or set on
barrel of pitch. Green wood used for slow burning for impenitent witches. Occasionally, desecration of body before burning by smashing on wheel or hacking of limbs.
Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology ... Rossell Hope Robbins (1959)