Spanish Donkey: Poor Poor Perineum

What happens when getting drunk, picking a fight, or stepping out of line in the military could land you on a wooden horse with weights hanging from your feet?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan explore the strange and surprisingly widespread history of the Spanish Donkey, also known as the Wooden Horse, Chevalet, or Mule.

We’ll travel back to the armies of 17th and 18th century Europe, where soldiers could be sentenced to ride this uncomfortable contraption for everything from drunkenness and fighting to theft, insubordination, and other military offenses. We’ll follow the punishment from the Dutch colonies of North America and New France to European armies and eventually across the Atlantic to the American Civil War.

Along the way, we’ll meet soldiers like Philip Geraerdy, examine the military records and firsthand accounts that help establish that the Wooden Horse was a real punishment, and separate the documented history from some of the more sensational claims that have grown around the device over the years.

But was the Spanish Donkey actually a torture device, or was it primarily a form of military punishment and public humiliation? And just how much damage could sitting on a sharp wooden beam with weights attached to your legs actually do?

Kevin and Dan dig into the history, the myths, and the very real misery of a punishment that proves you don't need elaborate machinery to make someone's day absolutely terrible. And, of course, there’s plenty of gallows humor along the way.

If you’re interested in the Spanish Donkey, Wooden Horse, Chevalet, military punishment, military history, Dutch colonial America, New France, the American Civil War, torture devices, historical torture, and the strange ways armies have punished their own soldiers, this episode is going to be a particularly uncomfortable ride.

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