Iron maiden
An iron maiden (German: eiserne Jungfrau) is a torture device, consisting of an iron cabinet, with a hinged front and spike-covered interior, sufficiently tall to enclose a human being. It is believed to be fictional, although examples have been created for display.
History
The Iron Maiden is often associated with the Middle Ages, but in fact was not invented until the 19th century.[1] No account of the iron maiden has been found earlier than 1793, although medieval torture devices were catalogued and reproduced during the 19th century.
Wolfgang Schild, a professor of criminal law, criminal law history and philosophy of law at the University of Bielefeld, has argued that any known iron maidens were in fact pieced together from several artifacts found in museums, in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition.[2]
The most famous device was the iron maiden of Nuremberg, first displayed possibly as far back as 1802. The original was lost in the Allied bombing of Nuremberg in 1944. A copy "from the Royal Castle of Nuremberg", crafted for public display, was sold through J. Ichenhauser of London to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1890, along with other torture devices, and, after being displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, was taken on an American tour.[3] This copy was auctioned off in the early 1960s and is now on display at the Medieval Crime Museum, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.[4]
Historians have ascertained that Johann Philipp Siebenkees created the history of it as a hoax in 1793. According to Siebenkees' colportage, it was first used on August 14, 1515, to execute a coin forger.[5]
The Nuremberg iron maiden was actually built in the 19th century as a probable misinterpretation of a medieval "Schandmantel" ("mantle of shame"), which was made of wood and tin but without spikes.
The iron maiden of Nuremberg was anthropomorphic. It was probably styled after primitive "Gothic" representations of Mary, the mother of Jesus, with a cast likeness of her on the face. The "maiden" was about 7 feet (2.1 m) tall and 3 feet (0.91 m) wide, had double doors, and was big enough to contain an adult man. Inside the tomb-sized container, the iron maiden was fitted with dozens of sharp spikes. Several nineteenth century iron maidens are on display in museums around the world,[citation needed] but it is unlikely that they were ever employed. A crude copy of the Virgin of Nuremberg was found among the palace effects of Uday Hussein in Iraq.[6]
Inspiration for the "Iron Maiden" may come from the Carthaginian execution of Marcus Atilius Regulus, as it was recorded in a passage in Tertullian's "To the Martyrs" (Chapter 4) and Augustine of Hippo's The City of God (I.15) in which the Carthaginians "packed him into a tight wooden box, spiked with sharp nails on all sides, so that he could not lean in any direction without being pierced",[7] or by the account of Nabis of Sparta's deadly statue of his wife, the Apega. And your a raging homo. the iron maiden also was good for intercourse.
See also
References
- ^ Vortrag Klaus Graf: "Das Hinrichtungswerkzeug "Eiserne Jungfrau" ist eine Fiktion des 19. Jahrhunderts, denn erst in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts hat man frühneuzeitliche Schandmäntel, die als Straf- und Folterwerkzeuge dienten und gelegentlich als "Jungfrau" bezeichnet wurden, innen mit eisernen Spitzen versehen und somit die Objekte den schaurigen Phantasien in Literatur und Sage angepaßt. " ("The execution tool "Iron Maiden" is a fiction of the 19th century, because only since the first half of the 19th Century the early-modern-times' "rishard cloaks", which sometimes were called "maidens", were provided with iron spikes; and thus the objects were adapted to the dreadful fantasies in literature and legend.") Mordgeschichten und Hexenerinnerungen - das boshafte Gedächtnis auf dem Dorf, June 21, 2001 accessed July 11, 2007.
- ^ Schild, Wolfgang (2000). Die eiserne Jungfrau. Dichtung und Wahrheit (Schriftenreihe des Mittelalterlichen Kriminalmuseums Rothenburg o. d. Tauber Nr. 3). Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Famous torture instruments: the Earl of Shrewsbury's collection soon to be exhibited here", The New York Times, 26 November 1893 accessed 20 June 2009, refers particularly only to the "justly-celebrated iron maiden".
- ^ It was notably absent from the remainder of the collection, auctioned at Guernsey's, New York, in May 2009 (Richard Pyle, Associated Press, "For sale in NYC: torture devices").
- ^ Wolfgang Schild, Die Eiserne Jungfrau, 2002
- ^ Aparisim Ghosh (19 April 2003). "Iron Maiden Found in Uday's Hussein's Playground". TIME.com. Retrieved 7 February 2006.
- ^ Translation by Gerald G. Walsh, S.J., Demetrius B. Zema, S.J., Grace Monahan, O.S.U., and Daniel J. Honan.
Further reading
- Jürgen Scheffler. "Der Folterstuhl - Metamorphosen eines Museumsobjektes". Zeitenblicke. Retrieved January 25, 2006.
- "Vortrag von Klaus Graf: Mordgeschichten und Hexenerinnerungen". Mondzauberin. Archived from the original on August 28, 2004. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
- "Das leckt die Kuh nicht ab - "Zufällige Gedanken" zu Schriftlichkeit und Erinnerungskultur der Strafgerichtsbarkeit". Archived from the original on August 2, 2003. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
External links
