Torture: A Dark History18 Sep 2022

Head Crusher: Medieval Teabagging

What if the torture device they threatened you with was so horrifying that it might not have even been used?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan take a trip to 16th-century Germany to examine the Schneiden, a terrifying head-crushing device supposedly designed to squeeze the life out of a prisoner’s skull. With a metal dome, a screw, and enough nightmare fuel to make a medieval dentist quit on the spot, the device has become one of the most infamous torture machines in history.

But there’s a problem:despite surviving examples in museums and lurid illustrations of what the device supposedly did, historians have found little evidence that Schneiden was actually used in the way the stories claim. Was it a genuine torture device, something used only rarely, or an elaborate piece of propaganda designed to make prisoners confess without ever having to turn the screw?

We also get into the supposed head splitter, the difference between the Schneiden and actual head-penetrating devices, and the wonderfully horrifying concept of “in conspectus tormentorum”—basically, “look at this horrible thing and tell us what we want to hear.”

Torture: A Dark History brings you questionable medieval engineering, religious persecution, questionable historical claims, and the kind of morbid humor that makes you wonder whether Kevin and Dan should be allowed around antique torture museums.

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Thank you to Tea Time Crimes for starting off the episode today.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-torture-devices/2

https://www.ststworld.com/head-crusher-torture-device/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0k66C1SM7o

http://www.medievality.com/head-crusher.html

http://occasionalhell.com/infdevice/skull-splitter/

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