© Getty Images

The Rack -

This popular medieval torture device was essentially a wooden bed with four ropes, where legs and arms would be tied. The ropes would be pulled until the victims confessed... or not.

© Getty Images

Iron maiden -

The medieval torture device that inspired the name of the famous English heavy metal band was brutal. It was essentially a sarcophagus with spikes inside. You can imagine what would happen when the door closed and someone was inside.

© Getty Images

Iron chair -

This terrifying chair was popular in medieval times. If sitting on sharp spikes was not enough to make someone confess, surely lighting a fire underneath the chair would!

© Shutterstock

Combing -

This torture went down in Christian history for being used by the Romans against Saint Blaise. It consisted of having one's skin raked off with hot wool combers' irons.

© Getty Images

Stocks -

Stocks not only were popular in medieval times, but remained a torture tool for many centuries after. It essentially consisted of a wooden board with three holes, for the head and arms, respectively. Victims would be left out to be humiliated, and many times died in public.

© Getty Images

Stocks -

While the typical three-hole stocks are indeed the most popular ones, there were versions where just the legs, arms, head, or a combination of these would be trapped.

© Getty Images

Brazen bull -

Victims would have their tongues cut out, and then would be placed inside a bronze bull with their hands tied and a fire lit underneath. The screaming sounds of the victim would resemble the sound a bull.

© Getty Images

Pear of anguish -

The pear of anguish was usually placed in the victim's mouth, vagina, or rectum, and expanded, inflicting damage and pain in the person being tortured.

© Getty Images

Scold's bridle -

Also known as a witch's bridle, gossip's bridle,  brank's bridle, or just branks, these came in many shapes and forms. The one used depended on the offense committed.

© Getty Images

Scold's bridle -

If a woman was found to be gossiping, she would wear one like this, covering her mouth, and she would be paraded in public for further humiliation.

© Getty Images

Strappado -

Used throughout the Spanish Inquisition, this torture consisted of hanging the victim with their hands tied behind their backs. Sometimes, weights would be added to the ankles to make it worse. That, and dropping them slightly and stopping suddenly, letting gravity do its job, likely dislocating their shoulders even more.

© Getty Images

Heretic's fork -

Placed between the chest and the neck, this torture device caused pure agony if the victims even slightly moved their jaws or necks.

© Shutterstock

Thumbscrew -

The clue is in the name. The thumbscrew was a torture instrument used to crush thumbs, in a very slow and painful way.

© Getty Images

The boot -

With this device, wedges were hammered between boards and created pressure on the legs and ankles, causing intense pain.

© Getty Images

Ducking stool -

These chairs were traditionally used to punish "disorderly women." The torture survived from medieval times to the 18th-century witch hunt in Europe and the Americas.

© Getty Images

Scavenger's daughter -

This English torture method was popular during  the reign of Henry VIII. The victims would be forced to crouch in a way that the pressure did its job in breaking their backs and breastbones.

© Getty Images

Catherine wheel -

This device is also known as the breaking wheel. Limbs would be broken and strapped on a spiked wheel. Sometimes the victim would be left outside at the mercy of the elements, or the torture would be sped up with a fire underneath. It was named after St. Catherine of Alexandria, after it was used to torture her.

© Getty Images

Zanzhi -

This Chinese instrument of torture was a finger crusher. The device had sticks strung together, which were then placed around the victim's fingers and pulled.

© Getty Images

Shower-bath -

This torture method, used in the 19th-century New York State penal system, had prisoners held in stocks with clamps around their ankles, wrists, and neck. Then water was poured over their heads from a barrel.

© Getty Images

Head crusher -

It does exactly what it says on the tin. Now, imagine your teeth breaking, then your jaw, and perhaps your eyes popping out, before your skull was completely crushed.

© Shutterstock

Judas chair -

What is essentially a pyramid on top of four wooden legs is as painful as it looks. Ropes would be tied to the victim and the person would be pulled down as the pyramid pierced them.

© Shutterstock

Spanish boot -

Similar to the boot torture mentioned previously, this iron cast would be used to squeeze a victim's leg. Sometimes spikes would even be placed on the inside.

© Shutterstock

Coffin torture -

This was basically an iron hollow coffin. Victims would be placed inside and left to die.

© Shutterstock

Wooden horse -

Also known as the Spanish horse, this torture device became popular during the Inquisition. Victims would sit on it (most of the times naked) and let gravity do its job inflicting pain.

© Getty Images

Weight torture -

In this torture method, weights were placed on a board that would then press against the victim's body. Talk about "pressuring" someone to talk, right?

© Getty Images

Roasting -

Many people were burned at the stake, but this roasting method was a bit slower, and surely extremely painful.

© Getty Images

Rat torture -

Rats have been used as a part of torture on many occasions throughout history. One of these torture methods consisted of placing a metal box with rats over the victim. The rodents would then proceed to rip chunks of flesh out of the person!  

Sources: (List25) (Medievality)

See also: The brutal ways Jesus' disciples died

© Getty Images