Some holy and just pedagogues' eye-popping (oops) inventions, and usages:
Designed in Greece by Perillos (not a Christian) of Athens, the condemned person was shut in the bull. There was a fire lit underneath the device. When the person was screaming it would sound like the bull was raging.
Antipas roasted alive in a copper steer, AD 95.
The Rack.
One end had a fixed bar, where the feet were locked onto it, and the other end had a movable bar, where the hands were tied to it. It had a lever that was used as the interrogation progressed. It was on a lever and pulley system that would eventually cause the joints of the person being tortured to dislocate and then separate. Eventually, the muscle fibers, ligaments, and cartilage would break separating the limbs from the body.
A relief of the torture of Saint John Sarkander on torturing rack at Sarkander's gravestone in 1620.
Bitowski of Bistritz falsely accused Sarkander of conspiring with King Sigismund. The rack was used on 13, 17 and 18 February. On each of the latter days the torture lasted for two and three hours, lighted candles and feathers soaked in oil, pitch, and sulphur were strewn over his body and ignited. He lingered from the effects for a month and died in prison.
A similar device was the intestinal crank. This method of torture involved making an incision in the abdominal area, separating the duodenum from the pylorus, and attaching of the upper part of the intestine to a crank. The crank would then be rotated to extract the intestines from the gastrointestinal cavity of a conscious person.
Judas Cradle
This torture device is a pyramid shaped seat. The victim is placed on top of it, with the point inserted into an orifice, then they are very slowly lowered onto it. The condemned was usually naked in order to add to their humiliation. This device was thought to stretch the orifice or to slowly impale the person. The stretching of the orifice would cause pain, rips and tears, which would eventually cause death.
Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition.
Galileo Galilei, 15 February 1564– 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy,"[6] the "father of modern physics,"[7] the "father of science,"[7] and "the Father of Modern Science."[8] Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.
The Catholic Church warned Galileo. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
The term Inquisition can apply to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics (or other offenders against canon law) within the justice-system of the Catholic Church.
Amen.
Joan of Arc is interrogated by The Cardinal of Winchester in her prison 1431.
The Trial of Joan of Arc, which took place before an English-backed church court in Rouen, France in the first half of the year 1431 was, by consensus, one of the most significant and moving trials ever conducted in human history. It culminated in the burning at the stake of the person known to history as Joan of Arc, the young French peasant girl who was the defendant in the case. Later, the trial verdict would be reversed, completely exonerating her. She is now a French national heroine and Saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
How ironic that she be sainted by the very organisation that burned her alive. She prayed forgiveness to the end for her torturers.
The Iron Gag, or Mute's Bridle was used to stifle the screams of a victim. The oblong box was forced into the mouth and the metal collar was tightly fastened around the back of the neck. A small hole in the front allowed air to pass in and out but muffled any screams. A torturer could press a single fingertip to the air-hole and create an extremely distressing situation for the accused. This was used often during the Inquisition's auto da fe, so the accused would not interrupt the ceremony with their irritating cries of distress.
Tomb of Cardinal Beaufort, Cardinal Bishop of Winchester
Henry Beaufort (c. 1375 – 11 April 1447) was a medieval English clergyman and Bishop of Winchester an anomaly in being both a bishop and a member of the royal house of Plantagenet.
The second son of John of Gaunt and his mistress Katherine Swynford, Beaufort was born in Anjou, an English domain in France, in about 1374 and educated for a career in the Church. After his parents were married in early 1396, Henry, his two brothers and one sister were declared legitimate by the pope and legitimated by Act of Parliament on 9 February 1397, but they were barred from the succession to the throne. On 27 February 1398 he was nominated Bishop of Lincoln and on 14 July 1398 he was consecrated. When his half-brother deposed Richard and took the throne as Henry IV of England, he made Bishop Beaufort Lord Chancellor of England in 1403. Beaufort resigned that position in 1404 when he was appointed Bishop of Winchester on 19 November.
In Rouen on 30 May 1431, Beaufort, who had been involved in the mock trial of Joan of Arc, was watching her from a scaffold as she was being led to the stake. But he could't bear to watch her burning, and left the place in tears before the execution.
Poor Henry...
Heretic's Fork
Abiuro - "I recant" - the latin phrase engraved into the side of this double-ended two-pronged fork, was the only phrase that the prisoner was allowed to speak. The head was tilted back sharply, with the top two prongs embedded deeply under the flesh of the chin; the bottom two prongs likewise embedded into the flesh above the sternum. The leather strap was fastened tightly behind the neck. Used during the Inquisition to hasten the confession of heresies real or imagined, those that refused to repent were summarily executed at the stake or by hanging - but were allowed Christian rites, no doubt a consoling factor.
In the 17th century, during the Spanish Inquisition, burning at the stake was a popular choice for punishment since it did not spill the victim's blood (the Roman Catholic Church forbade this). The burning meant the victim would have no body to take into the afterlife.
Cecco d'Ascoli 1257 - September 26, 1327
Born in Ancarano, in the modern Abruzzo region, he devoted himself to the study of mathematics and astrology. In 1322 he was made professor of astrology at the University of Bologna.
Cecco was tried and sentenced for relapse into heresy, to the stake. He was burned at Florence the day after sentence, in his seventieth year. He was the first university scholar to be burned by the Inquisition.
Burning of Anneken Hendriks, Amsterdam, 1571
Axe grinding jig for the do-it-yourselfer.
Note: It is not the belief of this poster that individual Christians or religious groups are potentially any different than other Homo sapiens or associations. Many humans are loving and just, yet simultaniously are violent, hate-filled, horrifying, loathsome devils.
For example:
False Religions and Cults Catholics, Wiccans, Lutherans, Satanists, Mormons, and more!
Spreading hatred.
"Vide", inquiunt, "ut invicem se diligant" - ipsi enim invicem oderunt - "et ut pro alteruto mori sint parati"; ipsi enim ad occidendum alterutrum paratiores erunt.
"Look," they say, "how they love one another" (for they themselves hate one another); "and how they are ready to die for each other" (for they themselves are readier to kill each other).
Usually quoted as 'See how [these Christians] love one another.'
Text is CSEL 69; translation is Glover, Loeb edition.
B.D. Tyagi of Bhopal, India has the world's longest ear hair.
It measures 4 inches
Dennis Abner of San Diego, CA (where else?), is a mild mannered, college educated former Marine and current computer programmer. He's also, if you ask him, a tiger.
Spook has a 14.5 inch waist (37cm). She's into corsets and "corset training".
AOL screen name: HottF17SeXXX4u69
Michael Jackson
Jane Fonda
Bill Gates, scofflaw, after traffic infraction arrest.
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