Brodequin (torture)

The brodequin was a method of torture that used during the Middle Ages.

The victim would be placed on a bench in a sitting position, with strong, narrow boards of wood fixed tightly to the inside and outside of either of the victim's legs, bound together tightly with strong rope, causing a sandwich effect on either leg. Wedges of wood were then driven into the gaps with a mallet where the victim's legs lay. This would often cause such impact and trauma that the victim's bones would literally burst, and bone marrow would leak out. For ordinary felonies, four wedges were used; for more extreme cases the number of wedges would be doubled and eight were used.