View source for Pillory

{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Short description|Restraint used to hold and punish a person in a standing position}}
{{For|the racehorse|Pillory (horse)}}
{{Redirect|Whipping post|The Allman Brothers Band song|Whipping Post (song)|the ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'' episode|Whipping Post (Space Ghost Coast to Coast)}}
[[File:TitusOates-pilloried 300dpi.jpg|thumb|The 17th-century perjurer [[Titus Oates]] in a pillory]]
The '''pillory''' is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, used during the [[medieval]] and [[renaissance]] periods for [[punishment]] by [[public humiliation]] and often further physical abuse.<ref>{{Cite web |title=definition: "Pillory" |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pillory |access-date=25 March 2009 |publisher=Dictionary.com |archive-date=5 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090705105511/http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pillory |url-status=live }}</ref> The pillory is related to the [[stocks]].<ref name="Kellaway">{{Harvnb|Kellaway|2003|pp=64–65}}</ref>
== Etymology ==
The word is documented in English since 1274 (attested in Anglo-Latin from {{circa|1189}}), and stems from [[Old French]] {{lang|fro|pellori}} (1168; [[French language|modern French]] {{lang|fr|pilori}}, see below), itself from [[medieval Latin]] {{lang|la|pilloria}}, of uncertain origin, perhaps a diminutive of Latin {{lang|la|pila}} 'pillar, stone barrier'.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Etymology Online |title=definitions: "Pillory" & "Stock" |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=pillory&searchmode=none |access-date=25 March 2009 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303174442/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=pillory&searchmode=none |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Description==
[[File:Schandpfahl.png|thumb|upright|alt=Pillory from Sweden, Dalarna Ragion, Nordic Museum, Stockholm.|Pillory from [[Dalarna]] Region, Sweden (Nordic Museum, Stockholm)]]
Rather like the lesser punishment called the [[stocks]], the pillory consisted of hinged wooden boards forming holes through which the head or various limbs were inserted; then the boards were locked together to secure the captive. Pillories were set up to hold people in marketplaces, crossroads, and other public places.<ref name=Kellaway/> They were often placed on platforms to increase public visibility of the person; often a placard detailing the crime was placed nearby. These punishments generally lasted only a few hours.{{Citation needed|date=May 2012}}
In being forced to bend forward and stick their head and hands out in front of them, offenders in the pillory would have been extremely uncomfortable during their punishment. However, the main purpose in putting criminals in the pillory was to humiliate them publicly. On discovering that the pillory was occupied, people would excitedly gather in the marketplace to taunt, tease and laugh at the offender on display.{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}}
Those who gathered to watch the punishment typically wanted to make the offender's experience as unpleasant as possible. In addition to being jeered and mocked, the criminal might be pelted with rotten food, mud, offal, dead animals, and animal excrement. Sometimes people were killed or maimed in the pillory because crowds could get too violent and pelt the offender with stones, bricks and other dangerous objects.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cavendish |first=Richard |date=7 July 2003 |title=Daniel Defoe Put in the Pillory |url=http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/daniel-defoe-put-pillory |access-date=15 May 2014 |publisher=History Today |archive-date=17 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517121219/http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/daniel-defoe-put-pillory |url-status=live }}</ref> However, when [[Daniel Defoe]] was sentenced to the pillory in 1703 for [[seditious libel]], he was regarded as a hero by the crowd and was pelted with flowers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richetti | first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani0000unse_z2o1 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0521858403 |location=Cambridge |page=166 |url-access=registration}}</ref>
The criminal could also be sentenced to further punishments while in the pillory: humiliation by shaving off some or all hair or regular [[corporal punishment]](s), notably [[flagellation]] (the pillory serving as the "whipping post") or even permanent mutilation such as [[human branding|branding]] or having an ear cut off ([[cropping (punishment)|cropping]]), as in the case of [[John Bastwick]].
In [[Protestant culture]]s (such as in the [[Scandinavia|Scandinavian countries]]), the pillory would be the worldly part of a church punishment. The delinquent would therefore first serve the ecclesiastical part of his punishment on the pillory bench in the church itself, and then be handed to the worldly authorities to be bound to the Skampåle (literally: "Shame Pole") for public humiliation.
{{anchor|poteau}}
==Uses==
[[File:Microcosm of London Plate 062 - Pillory, Charing Cross edited.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|The pillory at [[Charing Cross]] in London, {{Circa| 1808}}]]
In 1816, use of the pillory was restricted in England as punishment for [[perjury]] or [[Subornation of perjury|subornation]].<ref name=Kellaway/><ref>{{Cite book | title= The statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland [1807–1868/69] | editor= George Kettilby Rickards | editor-link = George Kettilby Rickards | volume= 56 |chapter-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924092898430&view=1up&seq=719&skin=2021 |chapter=An Act to abolish the Punishment of the Pillory, except in certain cases |date= 2 July 1816 | page=685 | id= CAP 138 |publisher=His Majesty's statute and law printers |access-date=23 July 2021 |archive-date=23 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723182619/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924092898430&view=1up&seq=719&skin=2021 |url-status=live }}</ref> The pillory was formally abolished as a form of punishment in England and Wales in 1837,<ref>[https://archive.org/details/statutesunitedk18britgoog/page/n92/mode/2up?view=theater An Act to abolish the Punishment of the Pillory – 30 June 1837]</ref> after [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]] had said "I shall likewise propose to bring in a Bill to abolish the punishment of the pillory—a punishment which is never inflicted."<ref>{{cite hansard |jurisdiction=United Kingdom |title=Criminal Law |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1837/mar/23/criminal-law#column_731 |house=House of Commons |date=23 March 1837 |column=731 |speaker=[[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]] |position=Secretary of State for the Home Department }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210722212754/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1837/mar/23/criminal-law#column_731 |date=22 July 2021 }}</ref> However, the stocks remained in use, though extremely infrequently, until 1872.{{#tag:ref|The stocks were never formally abandoned in England and Wales, but simply dropped out of use. The last person to be put in the stocks was Mark Tuck, for drunkenness.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120208122913/http://sh1.webring.com/people/lp/pillory/history.html History of pillory and stocks –  A long history]</ref>|group=nb}} The last person to be pilloried in England was Peter James Bossy, who was convicted of "wilful and corrupt perjury" in 1830. He was sentenced to seven years [[penal transportation]], six months in prison at Newgate and one hour in the pillory in the Old Bailey.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cunningham |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LjM7AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA604 |title=A handbook for London: Past and Present, Volume 2 |publisher=J. Murray |year=1849 |pages=604 |language=en}}</ref>
In France, time in the "{{Lang|fr|pilori}}" was usually limited to two hours. It was replaced in 1789 by "exposition", and abolished in 1832.<ref name=Kellaway/> Two types of devices were used:
* The ''{{Lang|fr|poteau}}'' (literally: "post" or "pole") was a simple post, often with a board around only the neck, and was synonymous with the mode of punishment. This was the same as the ''{{Lang|nl|schandpaal}}'' ("shamepole") in Dutch. The ''{{Lang|fr|carcan}}'', an iron ring around the neck to tie a prisoner to such a post, was the name of a similar punishment that was abolished in 1832. A criminal convicted to serve time in a prison or galleys would, prior to his incarceration, be attached for two to six hours (depending on whether he was convicted to prison or the galleys) to the ''{{Lang|fr|carcan}}'', with his name, crime and sentence written on a board over his head.
* A permanent small tower, the upper floor of which had a ring made of wood or iron with holes for the victim's head and arms, which was often on a turntable to expose the condemned to all parts of the crowd.
[[File:John Waller in pillory.JPG|left|thumb|Eighteenth-century illustration of perjurer [[John Waller (perjurer)|John Waller]] who was killed while being pilloried in London in 1732]]
Like other permanent apparatus for physical punishment, the pillory was often placed prominently and constructed more elaborately than necessary. It served as a symbol of the power of the judicial authorities, and its continual presence was seen as a deterrent, like permanent [[gallows]] for authorities endowed with [[high justice]].
[[File:The Vere Street Gang at the pillory in 1810.png|right|170px|thumb|The [[Vere Street Coterie]] at the pillory in 1810]]
The pillory was also in common use in other western countries and colonies, and similar devices were used in other, non-Western cultures. According to one source, the pillory was abolished as a form of punishment in the United States in 1839,<ref name=Kellaway/> but this cannot be entirely true because it was clearly in use in [[Delaware]] as recently as 1901.<ref>{{cite news |date=22 September 1901 |title=Pilloried in Delaware; Lawbreakers Subjected to Heavy Corporal Punishment. |page=3 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1901/09/22/archives/pilloried-in-delaware-lawbreakers-subjected-to-heavy-corporal.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=26 July 2018 |archive-date=26 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180726172311/https://www.nytimes.com/1901/09/22/archives/pilloried-in-delaware-lawbreakers-subjected-to-heavy-corporal.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=17 February 1901 |title=Five men whipped by Sheriff; Another Exhibition of Corporal Punishment in Delaware |page=1 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1901/02/17/archives/five-men-whipped-by-sheriff-another-exhibition-of-corporal.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=26 July 2018 |archive-date=26 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180726170315/https://www.nytimes.com/1901/02/17/archives/five-men-whipped-by-sheriff-another-exhibition-of-corporal.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Governor [[Preston Lea]] finally signed a bill to abolish the pillory in Delaware in March 1905.<ref>''[[Spokesman-Review]]'' (Spokane, Wash.). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19050322&id=HtgUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GLgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6373,654771 "Has Abolished The Pillory"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312102122/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19050322&id=HtgUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GLgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6373,654771 |date=12 March 2016 }}. 22 March 1905, p. 6. Retrieved on 2 October 2013.</ref>
Punishment by whipping-post remained on the books in Delaware until 1972, when it became the last state to abolish it.<ref>''1973 World Almanac and Book of Facts'' p. 90.</ref>  Delaware was the last state to sentence someone to whipping in 1963; however, the sentence was commuted.  The last whipping in Delaware was in 1952.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cohen |first=Celia |url=http://www.delawaretoday.com/Delaware-Today/November-2013/Whipping-Post-Finally-Struck-from-Delaware-Law-Books-as-Acceptable-Form-of-Criminal-Punishment/ |title=Whipping Post No Longer An Acceptable Form of Criminal Punishment |date=November 2013 |work=Delaware Today |access-date=12 February 2015 |publisher=Today Media |archive-date=12 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212223912/http://www.delawaretoday.com/Delaware-Today/November-2013/Whipping-Post-Finally-Struck-from-Delaware-Law-Books-as-Acceptable-Form-of-Criminal-Punishment/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
In [[Portugal]] today pillory has a different meaning. The Portuguese word is ''{{Lang|pt|Pelourinho}}'', and there are examples which are monuments of great importance, in a tradition dating back to Roman times, when criminals were chained to them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Macedo |first=Joaquim Antonio |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C546AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA110 |title=A guide to Lisbon and its Environs including Cintra and Mafra with a large plan of Lisbon |year=1874 |page=110}}</ref> They are stone columns with carved capitals, and they are usually located on the main square of the town, and/or in front of a major church or palace, or town hall: they symbolize local power and authority. {{Lang|pt|[[Nelas|Pelourinhos]]}} are considered major local monuments, several clearly bearing the coat of arms of a king or queen. The same is true of its former colonies, notably in Brazil (in its former capital, [[Salvador, Bahia|Salvador]], the whole old quarter is known as {{Lang|pt|[[Pelourinho]]|italic=no}}) and Africa (e.g. Cape Verde's old capital, [[Cidade Velha]]), always as symbols of royal power. In Spain, the device was called ''{{Lang|es|picota}}''.<ref>{{cite book |last=de Quirós |first=C. Bernaldo |url=https://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/i18n/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=10067373 |title=La Picota – Crímenes y castigos en el país castellano en los tiempos medios |publisher=Librería General de Victoriano Suárez |year=1907 |location=Madrid |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225061244/https://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/i18n/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=10067373 |archive-date=Feb 25, 2021}}</ref>
==Similar humiliation devices==
[[File:Prisoners whipped.jpg|thumb|upright|Combined pillory and whipping post in [[New Castle County, Delaware|New Castle County]] Jail, Delaware, 1907. The pillory sits in an elevated position to increase its visibility, while the whipping post is at ground level to provide more room for the whipper.]]
There was a variant (rather of the stocks type), called a [[Drunkard's cloak|barrel pillory]], or Spanish mantle, used to punish drunks, which is reported in England and among its troops. It fitted over the entire body, with the head sticking out from a hole in the top. The criminal is put in either an enclosed barrel, forcing him to kneel in his own filth, or an open barrel, also known as "barrel shirt" or "drunkards collar" after the punishable crime, leaving him to roam about town or military camp and be ridiculed and scorned.<ref>[http://turandot.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/Artworks.php?CF=28 Images of barrels and other stocks as used in imperial China] {{web archive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116190538/http://turandot.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/Artworks.php?CF=28 |date=16 November 2006 }}.</ref>
Although a pillory, by its physical nature, could double as a whipping post to tie a criminal down for public flagellation (as used to be the case in many German sentences to ''staupenschlag''), the two as such are separate punishments: the pillory is a sentence to [[public humiliation]], whipping is essentially a painful corporal punishment. The combination of the pillory and the whipping post was one of the various punishments the [[Puritans]] of the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] applied to enforce religious and intellectual comformity on the whole community.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Merrill |first1=Louis Taylor |title=The Puritan Policeman |journal=American Sociological Review |publisher=American Sociological Association |date=1945 |volume=10 |issue=6 |pages=766–776 |doi=10.2307/2085847 |jstor=2085847 }}</ref> Sometimes a single structure was built with separate locations for the two punishments, with a whipping post on the lower level and a pillory above (see image at right).
When permanently present in sight of prisoners, whipping posts were thought to act as a deterrent against bad behaviour, especially when each prisoner had been subjected to a "welcome beating" on arrival, as in 18th-century [[Waldheim, Saxony|Waldheim in Saxony]] (12, 18 or 24 whip lashes on the bare posterior tied to a pole in the castle courtyard, or by [[birch rod]] over the "''bock''", a bench in the corner).{{Citation needed |date=May 2012}} Still a different penal use of such constructions is to tie the criminal down, possibly after a beating, to expose him for a long time to the elements, usually without food and drink, even to the point of starvation.{{Citation needed |date=May 2012}}
==Notable cases==
<!-- alpha by surname -->
*[[Peter Annet]]
*[[Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald]]
*[[Daniel Defoe#Pamphleteering and prison|Daniel Defoe]]
*[[James Nayler]]
*[[Elizabeth Needham]]
*[[Titus Oates#Aftermath|Titus Oates]]
{{Clear}}
==Legacy==
[[File:Girls in stocks at Turku Medieval market 2015.jpg|thumb|right|A pillory at the Medieval Market in [[Turku]], Finland]]
While the pillory has left common use, the image remains preserved in the figurative use, which has become the dominant one, of the verb "to pillory" (attested in English since 1699),<ref>[[Richard Bentley]], ''Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris''; cited in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''</ref> meaning "to expose to public ridicule, scorn and abuse", or more generally to humiliate before witnesses.
Corresponding expressions exist in other languages, e.g., ''{{Lang|fr|clouer au pilori}}'' "to nail to the pillory" in French, ''{{lang|it|mettere alla gogna}}'' in Italian, or ''{{Lang|es|poner en la picota}}'' in Spanish. In Dutch it is ''{{Lang|nl|aan de schandpaal nagelen}}'' (nailing to the pole of shame) or ''{{Lang|nl|aan de kaak stellen}}'', placing even greater emphasis on the predominantly humiliating character as the Dutch word for pillory, ''{{Lang|nl|schandpaal}}'', literally meaning "pole of shame".
==See also==
*[[Cangue]], board around the head
*[[Judicial corporal punishment]]
*[[Jougs]], metal collar
*[[Scold's bridle]], metal frame around head, with bit to hold down tongue
*[[Shrew's fiddle]], board around neck and wrists
*[[Patibular fork]]
==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=nb}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
;Bibliography
{{refbegin}}
*{{Cite book |last1=Beadle |first1=Jeremy |url=https://archive.org/details/crime0000bead |title=Firsts, Lasts & Onlys: Crime |last2=Harrison |first2=Ian |publisher=Robson Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-905798-04-9 |url-access=registration}}
*{{Cite book |last=Kellaway |first=Jean |url=https://archive.org/details/historyoftorture0000kell |title=The History of Torture and Execution |publisher=Pequot Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-904668-03-9 |url-access=registration}}
{{refend}}
==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*[https://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=6032813 Examples of Pillories] from the UK and Ireland on geograph.org.uk
*[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1815/apr/06/pillory-punishment-abolition-bill Debate in the House of Commons on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 6 April 1815]
*[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1815/jul/05/pillory-abolition-bill#S1V0031P0_18150705_HOL_5 Debate in the House of Lords on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 5 July 1815] [https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1815/jul/10/pillory-abolition-bill and 10 July 1815]
*[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082035258&view=1up&seq=424&skin=2021 Debate in the House of Commons on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 22 February 1816]
*[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082035258&view=1up&seq=436&skin=2021 Debate in the House of Lords on the Pillory Abolition Bill, 26 February 1816]
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:European instruments of torture]]
[[Category:Medieval instruments of torture]]
[[Category:Modern instruments of torture]]
[[Category:Physical restraint]]
[[Category:Punishment]]
[[Category:Pillories| ]]