Nonetheless, equally brutal methods of torture were practiced in the medieval period.įrom flaying a person’s skin to crushing their limbs in a vice, here are 8 of the most gruesome forms of medieval torture. But it was actually a Victorian fabrication to suggest the middle ages were more brutal than Victorian times. The iron maiden, for example, a cage lined with deadly iron spikes, appears in countless films and literature, as well as entertainment dungeons across the globe. Some methods of torture popularly associated with the middle ages aren’t grounded in truth, however. From the 12th to the 15th centuries, in particular, increasingly sadistic methods of torture arose, driven by a desire to either extract confessions from victims or to enforce punishment on them. The medieval era saw the invention of some of the most cruel and painful methods of torture in history.
