© Shutterstock

Origins of the pillory -

Pillories were in use in Europe as early as the 8th century CE, though probably longer in Asia. By the Middle Ages, the pillory had become a common form of corporal punishment.

© Getty Images 

A device to deter lawbreakers -

From the medieval period to the early 1800s, criminals who avoided the hangman's noose might instead receive their punishment in the pillory. The instrument, however, was more readily used for restraining petty lawbreakers.

© Getty Images 

Corporal punishment -

Indeed, pillories and stocks—feet restraining devices that were also used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation—were a favorite form of medieval punishment. Typically the miscreant, a petty thief for example, would be ridiculed in public as a remedy against minor offenses. Dishonest merchants were very often placed in the pillory with the offending goods round their necks. In this illustration, a finger pillory is also seen being applied to a thief.

© Getty Images 

Finger pillory -

The finger pillory was employed to restrain the fingers by way of trapping the knuckle in a wooden block. Pilferers could expect this kind of punishment, although the finger pillory was also used in churches for minor offenses, like not paying attention during a sermon.

© Getty Images 

Degrading and painful -

The pillory was designed to be strong enough to hold offenders without peril to their bodies. By the 1600s, however, the instrument had became symbolic of some truly degrading and painful retribution. In 1637, English lawyer and prominent Puritan opponent of Church policy William Prynne was arrested for writing a book attacking the English Church.  He was subsequently tried, jailed, and suffered the amputation of both his ears while restrained in a pillory.

© Getty Images 

John Lilburne -

The 17th-century English political agitator John Lilburne ended up subdued by a pillory for printing and circulating unlicensed books. But not before he had been flogged by the authorities and then dragged by his hands tied to the rear of an ox cart from Fleet Prison to the pillory at Westminster.

© Getty Images 

Pilloried in the United States -

The pillory was used in the American colonies with alarming regularity. This early 17th-century Charlestown flyer informs the public that Magnus Mode, Richard Hodges, and J. Newington Clark are to each have one of their ears cut off before being "whipped 20 stripes."

© Getty Images 

James Nayler -

Back in England, English Quaker leader James Nayler was charged with blasphemy after he reenacted Christ's Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem by entering Bristol on a horse. For his profaneness, Nayler spent two hours on the pillory at Westminster, and was whipped by the hangman to the Old Exchange. There, he endured a further two hours at the pillory, during which he had his tongue bored through with a hot iron.

© Getty Images

Humiliated to death -

Sometimes it was the anger of a gathered crowd that sealed the fate of a person at the pillory. In 1732, highwayman and perjurer John Waller was killed while being pilloried in London, a victim of an act of revenge.

© Public Domain

Titus Oates -

In a notorious episode, English priest Titus Oates was arrested for sedition in August 1681 after fabricating the "Popish Plot," a supposed Catholic conspiracy to murder King Charles II. Oates was put into the pillory at the gate of Westminster Hall, where the public pelted him with eggs. The next day he was tied to a cart and whipped from Aldgate to Newgate. The same punishment was meted out on the third day as he was taken to Tyburn.

© Getty Images 

Daniel Defoe -

Not everyone faced such a painful and demeaning public experience. English novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe, best known as the author of 'Robinson Crusoe,' was sentenced to the pillory in 1703 for seditious libel. Defoe, however, was regarded as a national hero by the crowd, and pelted with fresh flowers.

© Getty Images 

The pillory wasn't prejudiced -

The pillory wasn't prejudiced. Women, too, found themselves secured in the device for crimes that by the mid 18th-century also included embezzlement of state property and swindling. In this image, a woman is seen tied to the pillory with the details of her misdeed pinned to her chest.

© Getty Images 

No class distinction -

Neither was class distinction an issue. Well-to-do English merchant and politician Christopher Atkinson found himself in a bit of a pickle after being convicted of perjury in 1783. He ended up on the pillory outside the Corn Exchange in London in full view of a disparaging crowd. Atkinson wasn't hurt, but he was later forced to resign from the House of Commons.

© Getty Images 

The pillory in caricature -

Eighteenth-century caricaturists were merciless in their depictions of those who'd been pilloried—and even of those who hadn't. In 1784, English parliamentarian Sir Cecil Wray was ridiculed for his "small beer" policy— an excise tax determined by  wholesale price—and of his upholding of the rights of the House of Commons. He promptly found himself center stage in one of James Gillray's famous political cartoons.

© Getty Images 

Named and shamed -

Albinia, Countess of Buckinghamshire (left) and Lady Sarah Archer were also victims of Gillray's etched political and social satires. The two 18th-century British celebrities are seen here ridiculed as the mob throw rotten vegetables at them. The two women had been reported to the authorities for playing the illegal game of faro (a French gambling game using cards), and were subsequently fined.

© Getty Images 

Similar humiliation devices -

Historians have suggested that the pillory was in use in Asia long before its arrival in Europe. In China, they used a cangue or tcha, a kind of portable pillory, to punish criminals. The cangue was still in use as late as the early 20th century.

© Getty Images 

Shrew's fiddle -

In this German cartoon, two women are seen wearing a connected shrew's fiddle, a device similar to a pillory where the wrists are locked in front of the bound person by a hinged board or steel bar. It was a medieval public punishment for "quarrelsome" women.

© Getty Images

Barrel pillory -

The barrel pillory was used by various cultures as another form of punishment by ridicule. In England, it was often called a "drunkard's cloak," employed as it was to humiliate the hopelessly inebriated. Its use in the Far East was more sinister, with anyone forced to wear the barrel effectively incapacitated and reliant on others for food and water.

© Getty Images 

Les Halles de Paris -

By the early 19th century, the pillory was restricted in England to punishment for perjury or subornation. Elsewhere in Europe, France, for example, where the instrument was known as a carcan, the pillory remained a device of near-torture. Pictured is the infamous carcan at Les Halles de Paris.

© Getty Images 

Crude spectator sport -

Despite the restrictions on how it could be used, the pillory still represented for many an opportunity to enjoy a spot of outdoor entertainment. Some devices were designed to hold up to four individuals, which for the jeering crowds meant more mud, rotting vegetables, and other decaying matter to pitch at their hapless victims. 

© Getty Images 

Charing Cross pillory -

The most famous pillory in London was at Charing Cross, located just south of Trafalgar Square. Here, the success of the punishment and humiliation largely depended on the reaction of the audience: the greater the carnival atmosphere, the better the spectacle.

© Getty Images 

Abolishment in England -

The pillory was formally abolished as a form of punishment in England and Wales in 1837. However, stocks remained in use, though very infrequently, until 1872.

© Getty Images

America maintains the pillory -

The withdrawal of the pillory in other countries took longer. In the United States, the instrument was still being used as a regular form of punishment well into the 19th century. In this illustration, a woman is held at the pillory at the Tombs prison in New York City.

© Getty Images 

The whipping post -

The dreaded whipping post and pillory at New Castle County Jail in Delaware remained in use as late as 1901. It was one of the various punishments the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony used frequently.

© Getty Images 

Still popular in Europe -

This 1869 engraving depicts the pillory in the city of Schwäbisch Hall, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.

© Getty Images 

Instruments of correction -

And in Williamsburg, Virginia, the stocks and pillory at the public jail are depicted in this 1842 illustration.

© Getty Images 

America finally bans the pillory -

The pillory was finally abolished in Delaware in 1905. Incredibly, punishment by whipping post remained on the state's statutes until 1972, although the last whipping carried out occurred in 1952.

© Getty Images 

Consigned to history -

Today, original examples of pillories serve as historical reminders of how justice was once meted out. This device, designed so that its occupant had to squat, is in the Town Hall Tower in Krakow, Poland.

© Getty Images 

Pillories still standing -

This ancient, weather-worn pillory stands on a square in the old town of Fredrikstad, in Norway. In fact, many original pillories can still be found in several countries, ghoulish reminders of medieval correction.

© Shutterstock 

Modern-day attraction -

And, of course, the pillory is a favorite attraction at medieval fairs across the world.

Sources: (Britannia) (History Today) (Pillory History) (BBC)

See also: The most painful ways to die (according to science)

© Shutterstock