Foot roasting

Foot roasting is a method of torture used since ancient times. The Romans immobilized the prisoner and pressed red-hot iron plates to the soles of their feet. The Spanish Inquisition frequently employed an enhanced technique, binding the prisoner face-upward to the rack with their bare feet secured in stocks. The soles of the feet were basted with lard or oil and slowly barbecued over a brazier of burning coals. A screen could be interposed between the feet and the coals to modulate the exposure, while a bellows controlled the intensity of the flame.

Knights Templars

This was the principal torture used to take down the Knights Templars (who were also tortured by having their limbs disjointed by the strappado or their toenails torn off by the action of sharp, thin wooden or metal wedges slowly hammered underneath) and it is recorded that one knight's feet were so completely incinerated that various foot bones fell to the floor, here and there, as he was carried to his cell. Prisoners could also be suspended head-downwards from stocks, with hot coals placed directly on the soles of the feet—held in place by gravity—while thin slivers of burning embers were slid between pairs of adjacent toes.

Brittany

In Brittany, an enhanced interrogation chair was used that immobilized the feet and provided a movable tray of coals that could be cranked up and down, eventually making physical contact with the soles of the feet.

Star kicking

A form of torture called "star kicking" supposedly began with Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who would place oiled bits of paper or string between the prisoner's toes and light the material on fire.