Ways of Torture - Spanish Boot & Foot Press

(all the graphics below are via Google Search)

I am doing research....  no really, it's research...

I have been fascinated with murderers for a long .....loooooong....... loooooooooooong time.  So working on this book and having a serial killer in it...  I'm taking the opportunity to do a lot of research because my serial killer ...  or is it killers? .... and I'm actually learning a lot.  I am also taking some notes from my constant watching of ID (channel) ...

Look at the times of the Salem Witch Trial where women and men who were accused of being a "witch" were jailed, treated horribly, and tortured until they admitted their guilt.

But this series includes some notes on Medieval Torture (or general torture devices)...

But the first thing I'm going to talk about is the SPANISH BOOT and the FOOT PRESS.

I have read that a lot of these different torture type devices were used in trials to coerce the truth out of the people they believed commited crimes of the time. It's sad in a way because it seems that this was a "guilty unless proved innocent" time of mentality and would very likely and very easily get people who were innocent to say they were guilty of something they really didn't do.

These are all very similar of a device, but also different too.  There are also similar things for the hands.

SPANISH BOOT

So the SPANISH BOOT was an iron casing for the leg and foot. (Sometimes only for the leg.)  Wood or iron wedges, or studs, would press against the skin, through the skin, into and through the muscles, eventually into the bones - breaking them - with every turn of a screw (or screws depending on how they were made.)

When you look up the "Spanish Boot" you see the following types of images (among others of different things)

But I think this is actually the SHIN CRUSHER which is a smaller device that squeezes the calf between two carved iron plates decorated with spikes, knobs, teeth, etc that specifically fractures the tibia and fibula.

However it the foot is in there in a flexed position, I can see it working with the foot in there.

These types of devices date as much as a thousand years back.  The first known type of - at least the idea of this device - was a Scottish effort.   They would make a boot-shaped rawhide version that would be soaked in water, put into place on the foot/lower leg, and bound in place with leather cords.  The book would be heated ever so slowly to make the rawhide/leather contract around the wearers leg and foot and it would apply sufficient pressure to cause pain but not enough pressure to actually break any bones. It was later made from leather, with hot boiling water poured over it, and it was known to actually eat the flesh away.

There were some that they would pour hot boiling water or oil INTO ... also.

There were also versions that started to be improved upon and would then be made out of wood and wedges that would actually would dislocate and crush the bones.

None of these sound pleasant...  and those pictures make me shiver.  A part of me always wanted to be a princess or live in that time, a tiny part, but those photos make the "princess" in me want to shrivel up and die!  Much like a lot of the "torture" devices.

This is what Wikipedia had to say:

The Spanish boot was an iron casing for the leg and foot. Wood or iron wedges were hammered in between the casing and the victim's flesh. A similar device, commonly referred to as a shin crusher, squeezed the calf between two curved iron plates, studded with spikes, teeth, and knobs, to fracture the tibia and fibula.^[1]

Primitive forerunners of the archetype can be found dating back as far as a thousand years. The first Scottish effort also referred to as a buskin, made use of a vaguely boot-shaped rawhide garment that was soaked with water, drawn over the foot and lower leg, and bound in place with cords. The contraption was slowly heated over a gentle fire, drastically contracting the rawhide and squeezing the foot until the bones were dislocated, though there would not have been sufficient pressure actually to crush the bones of the foot. A more progressive variant, found in both the British Isles and France, consisted of a trio of upright wooden boards that splinted around and between the feet and were tied in place by cords. Wedges were hammered between the boards and the feet to dislocate and crush the bones. A prototype hailing from Autun, France, consisted of high boots of spongy, porous leather that were drawn over the feet and legs. Boiling water was poured over the boots, eventually soaking through the leather and eating the flesh away from the entrapped limbs. Lastly, oversized boots of iron or copper (often soldered in place on the floor) received the prisoner's bare feet as he lay helplessly bound and gagged in a chair. The boots were slowly filled with boiling water or oil, or even molten lead, to consume the feet and legs. One variant—applied in Ireland to the martyr Dermot O'Hurley—consisted of lightweight metal boots that were filled with cool water and heated with the feet inside over a fire until the water boiled aggressively.

FOOT PRESS

Similar to the Spanish Boot the FOOT PRESS or FOOT SCREW can (depending) look more like a boxy metal shoe that the bare foot in placed in, with spikes, teeth, knobs and screws that will cause discomfort and breaking into the skin, muscle, and bone much like the Spanish Boot.   This torture device has a crank mechanism that will eventually break the bones if it's taken to that point.

There have been other versions of this device too...  you can read about them on Wikipedia along with various references in cinema and literature!

A similar implement, the foot press or foot screw, consisted of a pair of horizontal iron plates slowly tightened around the bare foot by means of a crank mechanism to crush the bones. Although it was quite standard to line the lower plate with ribs to prevent the foot from popping out of the grip of the instrument as it became sweatier, a crueler variant of this device—typically encountered in Nuremberg, Germany—lined the upper plate with hundreds of sharp spikes. A version from Venice, sometimes called the foot screw or toe breaker, connected the crank mechanism to a drill that slowly mutilated the foot by boring a hole through the center of the instep as the press was tightened. The instrument was of sufficient power and cruelty to pulverize the tiniest of toe bones.^[2]

Medieval boots were built according to a wide array of architectures. One commonly encountered boot consisted fundamentally of a pair of upright parallel boards that splinted the toes. Turning the screw squeezes the toes between the boards, inflicting lateral pressure on the metatarsal heads and causing agony. This is the type of boot commonly associated with the torture of Esmeralda in Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The cruelty of the torture could be increased by spacing the toes apart with stiff wooden pegs. Various extensions of the instrument were designed to crush the ankle, calf, or knee in addition to its primary target, the instep. The toes often protruded from the front of the boot, facilitating the infliction of additional tortures, such as forcibly tearing the nails from the toes with red-hot iron pincers.