Real Historical Punishments 7-9

Real Punishments - 1550 Teresa of Avila

7. A nun in the order of Barefoot Carmelites, Saint Teresa had a strong preference for being birched, by herself and others. She frequently chastised the other nuns too. She is also depicted in Bernini's sculpture "The Ecstasy of St Teresa" having what Dan Brown calls a 'toe-curling orgasm' (in "Angels & Demons"). What Dan doesn't say is that according to Teresa's writings, the ecstasy was caused by an angel inflicting pain on her.

Here she is taking her turn in a group penance. You can't mortify the flesh without revealing it, right? This picture could just as well depict several other saints from convents: "Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor" - "Purge me, Lord, with hyssop (a spiky plant) and I shall be clean". All masochists form a queue (behind me).

Real Punishments - 1558 Marie-Ann Leveque

8. Marie was the niece of the Mayor of Bruges, Belgium. Her confessor was Father Cornelius Adriason, who customarily whipped young women half-naked for their sins. But he decided that Marie-Ann Leveque deserved an extra-special penance. He stripped her completely naked and after her whipping, she said, she felt something enter her 'shameful place'. A doctor confirmed her complaints, verifying whip marks and recent penetration. Fr Cornelius was removed from his post but no criminal charges were laid. Sound familiar?




Real Punishments - 1586 Jane Wiseman

9. An example of 'Peine Forte et Dure' in Protestant England. When Jane Wiseman refused to be tried by a jury for hiding a Catholic priest, it was ordered that she should be:
"stripped naked except for a linen cloth about the lower part of her body" and be laid on the ground. Then, "upon her body let there be placed as much stones and iron as she can bear and more."



It took a while before the worst thing to happen to a Catholic girl was getting the strap from the nuns!


Series blurb:
A history of the bondage and corporal punishment of females, using only incidents where a name and approximate date are known. I'm doing them in chronological order, covering from the first century to the nineteenth.

[Notes: (1) Some licence is taken with the positioning and state of dress of the victim, as this is usually unknown. (2) Most quotes in this series are from "Encyclopedia of Cruelty", Felicity Press, Islington Australia, 1995.]