Most horrendous medieval torture device?

I think the "rack" where they very slowly stretched someone's limbs was pretty horrendous.
There is a museum somewhere in Europe that has rooms full of this type of thing, and I was horrified that they even existed.

by Finy

I'd rather not speculate too much about it. Though I will say that it's a pity people don't take modern torture methods like playing loud music at victims seriously. The book The Men Who Stared at Goats covers a few of these supposedly less nasty methods and how horrible they actually are.

by Jennifer Muirhead

Torture across all times is horrendous, that's what it's called torture! The same physical and mental pains exist no matter the torture tool.
I think that being a woman would have been torturous in medieval times.

by May Hyde

The mind of (man)... evil and corrupt.
Makes me sick just thinking about torture.

by jonaja

Let's not go there shall we.

by Vee

I was going to write the very same words!!!
Gee Vee we think alike :)

Great minds often do jonaj! ;)

A lot of the torture today is mental torture, which can be just as agonising as physical torture. Today, torture is illegal, and used by people to get information or just break someone down to conform to their ways. A lot of torture in the past was a legal form of punishment, for a crime or believed witchcraft. I'm not sure which is worse to be honest.

by Bryony Harrison

The one where rats are put in a bucket and held to a persons stomach, then the bucket is heated and the rats burrow into the persons insides trying and escape.

by no3go

There've been many tortuous implements used through the Ages, but to me the 'Iron Maiden' would have to be at the top!

Being thrown from a Trebouchet wouldn't have been fun, either!

'Man's inhumanity to man', has NO bounds, even in this day & age!

by donjo

I agree with donjo - the Iron Maiden sounds absolutely horrific and, by all accounts, was!

by norma

I think hung, drawn and quartered would have been horrible, or burnt alive.
Perhaps the protracted tortures were the worst, it is horrible to think that in the past they had no qualms about it.
Now we have soft punishments even for murders and rapists.
Farley

by farle

I think some of the tortures inflicted on the African Slaves brought to America were the most horrific I have read about.

by fran.