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A variety of torture instruments including, at right, the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg
The Romans used torture for interrogation. Until the second century AD, torture was used only on slaves (with a few exceptions). After this point it began to be extended to all members of the lower classes. A slave's testimony was admissible only if extracted by torture, on the assumption that slaves could not be trusted to reveal the truth voluntarily. Crucifixion was not regarded as torture, though it was a deliberately horrible way to execute people as an example to frighten others. Prior to crucifixion, victims were often savagely whipped with barbed metal lashes, also to frighten others. Over time the conceptual definition of torture has been expanded and remains a major question for ethics, philosophy, and law, but clearly includes the practices of many subsequent cultures.
Modern scholars find the concept of torture to be compatible with society's concept of Justice during the time of Jesus Christ. Romans, Jews, Egyptians and many others cultures during that time included torture as part of their justice system. Romans had crucifixion, Jews had stoning and Egyptians had desert sun death.[citation needed] All these acts of torture were considered necessary (as to deter others) or good (as to punish the immoral).
Medieval and early modern European courts used torture, depending on the accused's crime and social status. Torture was deemed a legitimate means to extract confessions or to obtain the names of accomplices or other information about a crime. Often, defendants already sentenced to death would be tortured to force them to disclose the names of accomplices. Torture in the Medieval Inquisition began in 1252 and ended in 1816 when a papal bull forbade its use.
While secular courts often treated suspects ferociously, Will and Ariel Durant argued in The Age of Faith that many of the most vicious procedures were inflicted upon pious heretics by even more pious friars. The Dominicans gained a reputation as some of the most fearsomely innovative torturers in medieval Spain.[citation needed]
Torture was usually conducted in secret, in underground dungeons. By contrast, torturous executions were typically public, and woodcuts of English prisoners being hanged, drawn and quartered show large crowds of spectators, as do paintings of Spanish auto-da-fé executions, in which heretics were burned at the stake.
Throughout the early modern period, the torture of witches became commonplace. Countless women were targeted and tortured for their supposed relationship with the devil.
In 1613 Anton Praetorius described the situation of the prisoners in the dungeons in his book Gründlicher Bericht Von Zauberey und Zauberern (Thorough Report about Sorcery and Sorcerers). He was one of the first to protest against all means of torture.
In Colonial America women were sentenced to the stocks with wooden clips on their tongues or subjected to the "dunking stool" for the gender-specific crime of talking too much.
While in Egypt in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte wrote to Major-General Berthier that the
barbarous custom of whipping men suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this method of interrogation, by putting men to the torture, is useless. The wretches say whatever comes into their heads and whatever they think one wants to believe. Consequently, the Commander-in-Chief forbids the use of a method which is contrary to reason and humanity.
Johann Graefe in 1624 published Tribunal Reformation, a case against torture. Cesare Beccaria, and Italian lawyer, published in 1764 "An Essay on Crimes and Punishments", in which he argued that torture unjustly punished the innocent and should be unnecessary in proving guilt
Torture was abolished by Frederick the Great in Prussia in 1740. Italy followed suit in 1786, followed by France in 1789 and Russia in 1801.
