The brodequins which were often used for ordinary torture were stockings of parchment, into which it was easy enough to get the feet when it was wet, but which, on being held near the fire, shrunk so considerably that it caused insufferable agony to the wearer.

Whatever manner of torture was applied, the accused, before undergoing it, was forced to remain eight or ten hours without eating.  Damhoudere, in his famous technical work, called “Practique et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles” (1544), also recommends that the hair should be carefully shaved from the bodies of persons about to undergo examination by torture, for fear of their concealing some countercharm which would render them insensible to bodily pain.  The same author also recommends, as a rule, when there are several persons “to be placed on the rack” for the same deed, to begin with those from whom it would be most probable that confession would be first extorted.  Thus, for instance, when a man and a woman were to suffer one after the other, he recommended that the woman be first tortured, as being the weaker of the two; when a father and son were concerned, the son should be tortured in presence of the father, “who naturally fears more for his son than for himself.”  We thereby see that the judges were adepts in the art of adding moral to physical tortures.  The barbarous custom of punishment by torture was on several occasions condemned by the Church.  As early as 866, we find, from Pope Nicholas V.’s letter to the Bulgarians, that their custom of torturing the accused was considered contrary to divine as well as to human law:  “For,” says he, “a confession should be voluntary, and not forced.  By means of the torture, an innocent man may suffer to the utmost without making any avowal; and, in such a case, what a crime for the judge!  Or the person may be subdued by pain, and may acknowledge himself guilty, although he be not so, which throws an equally great sin upon the judge.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 342.—­Type of Executioner in the Decapitation of John the Baptist (Thirteenth Century).—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Psalm-book of St. Louis.  Manuscript preserved in the Musee des Souverains.]

After having endured the previous torture, the different phases of which were carried out by special tormentors or executioners, the condemned was at last handed over to the maistre des haultes oeuvres—­that is to say, the executioner—­whose special mission was that of sending culprits to another world (Fig. 342).

[Illustration:  Fig. 343.—­Swiss Grand Provost (Fifteenth Century).—­From a Painting in the “Danse des Morts” of Basle, engraved by Merian.]

The executioner did not hold the same position in all countries.  For whereas in France, Italy, and Spain, a certain amount of odium was attached to this terrible craft, in Germany, on the contrary, successfully carrying out a certain number of capital sentences was rewarded by titles and the privileges of nobility (Fig. 343).  At Reutlingen, in Suabia, the last of the councillors admitted into the tribunal had to carry out the sentence with his own hand.  In Franconia, this painful duty fell upon the councillor who had last taken a wife.