_The Council and the Council House--Nuremberg Tortures_
Da ist in dieser Stadt
Ein weiser, fürsichtiger Rath,
Der so fürsichtiglich regiert
Und alle Ding fein ordinirt.
--HANS SACHS, _Lobspruch der Stadt Nürnberg_.
We have seen how in gradual and piecemeal fashion the Council, as
representative of Nuremberg, acquired the character of an imperial state
on an equality with the reigning princes and territorial lords. The
special mark of sovereign power, the higher jurisdiction, was accorded
in perpetuity to the Nuremberg Council through an edict of Frederick
III., 1459. The Council was composed originally of such burghers as the
community saw fit to elect. But gradually it came about that only the
moneyed classes, large merchants, large land-owners, and court-officials
admitted to the citizenship took part in the election, and that, within
this circle again, those who had already held office formed themselves
into a specially privileged group. So there resulted in Nuremberg, as
everywhere else, the formation of a special town-aristocracy of those
families eligible to the Council, which in Nuremberg particularly, where
the original suffrage soon had to give place to the Council's right of
self-election, developed into the most pronounced exclusiveness. The
final result was the separation of the citizens into the governing
families and into the remaining classes cut off from any influence upon
the town government, and represented in general by the Trades Guilds.
This antithesis, which existed in all towns, led everywhere, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to violent conflicts; in our town,
to the riots of 1348, to which we have already referred.
The families eligible to the Council composed the _Patriciate_, the
origin of which can no longer be traced in detail. The Patricians were
not, as often in other towns, burghers of long standing, for in the
fourteenth century and later, even up to the beginning of the sixteenth
century, it happened that foreign families settling here were at once
accepted as eligible to the Council. This is a circumstance which does
not at all correspond to the usual conception of the burgher
exclusiveness in the Middle Ages; but on the contrary it betrays a
certain liberality.
The Patricians appear with others of the nobility as witnesses to
documents, and are not infrequently given precedence over the
territorial nobility. They carried shield, helmet, and seal; their
hatchments hung in the churches, they held fiefs from the princes, and
were eligible to church dignities. The Patriciate, however, did not by
any means occupy itself wholly with military service and knightly
exercises. Many of them carried on wholesale businesses and
manufacturing trades. This occurred pretty generally throughout the
Middle Ages, as also in the sixteenth century, though their descendants
denied that they were ever connected with trade.
As the burghers were in general capable of bearing arms, the governing
families especially kept themselves in military practice. They led the
armed burghers or the mercenaries in the wars of their country, and
many of them obtained in the service of the Emperor, or elsewhere, the
dignity of knighthood.
As early as the fifteenth century the Patrician families claimed the
rights of knighthood and heraldry like territorial nobles. Probably the
tourney held in 1446, on the occasion of a Patrician wedding, and
represented in life-size stucco-work on the ceiling of the upper
corridor in the Town Hall, by Hans Kuhn, 1621, was intended as a
manifesto to this effect.
At any rate it is recorded that this tourney vexed the nobles very
sorely, "as they opined, it did not become the Nuremberg families to
tilt in noble conflict or to indulge in such knightly pastime; it was
indeed generally held that this tourney had had no little influence in
bringing about the great Margravian War which soon followed." In the
year 1481, and again in 1485, in the Heidelberg and Heilbronn tournament
regulations, the Town Patriciate's right of tourney was formally
contested.
Though we do not know how their prerogative arose, we certainly find
that by 1521 the number of actual Patrician families was limited to
forty-three, whilst, by the end of the century, only twenty-eight are
left eligible for the Council. They formed a close and very exclusive
corporation, clinging very tightly to their fabricated privileges. "Anno
1521," runs an old statute, "it was declared and set down by the Elders
of the Town of Nuremberg which families have always from time immemorial
danced and may still dance in the Town Hall."
We cannot deny that the short-sighted policy so often pursued by
Nuremberg to her own undoing was due to the narrow and selfish oligarchy
thus formed. But if we blame them for the decay we must also give them
full meed of praise for the ripening of the prosperity of Nuremberg. The
truth seems to be that the government of oligarchies of this nature,
formed, not of all the wealthy families, but of a Patrician order of
certain families, is, owing to the varied interests of the remaining
society over whom they rule, peculiarly difficult to overthrow.
Moreover, it is at first likely to lead on the State to success and
prosperity: for at first the prominence of particular families
represents the triumph of the fittest, the rise of those best able to
govern, to conduct commerce, to encourage industry and art. But when in
the course of nature these families begin to decay and cling all the
more obstinately to their rights, it is then that the weakness of the
position appears and the State is involved in the ruin of its most
degenerate members.
It is noticeable that many of the early measures of the Council bore a
decidedly socialistic character. We may instance the establishment of
public baths, and the storing up of corn against the time of famine,
besides the foundation of a great town brewery, which is the origin of
the famous Tucher brewery of to-day, and the keeping of public stallions
to improve the breed of horses, a measure that resulted in Nuremberg
becoming famous for its chargers. On the other hand, as an instance of
the jealous tyranny of the Council, we may quote the case of Christoph
Scheurl. When he, the "Oracle of the Republic" as he was called,
threatened to appeal to the Imperial Chamber against a sentence of the
Council they replied by torturing him in the cruellest fashion for three
weeks.
The public attitude of the Councillors being of this somewhat
grandmotherly kind, it is not surprising that they left the young
members of their families very little liberty in placing their
affections. Love affairs and marriage for love were in fact not regarded
with favour. Girls were betrothed by their parents at eight years of age
and married at fourteen, often to old men of sixty or seventy. A couple
were very seldom permitted to initiate for themselves an affair of the
heart. So when Leonhard Groland, against good manners and tradition, had
begun a love affair with Catherine, daughter of Hans Hardörfer, and this
was discovered, the precocious lover was punished with two months'
imprisonment and banished for five years from the town. When a father
did allow his son to choose his own wife he very seldom allowed him to
woo her. They tell us how when the young Paul Tucher said that he would
like to marry Ursula, daughter of the late Albrecht Scheurl, his father
did the wooing for him, and went to Andreas Imhof, her guardian, and
these two "with unshaken calm and dignified respectability" arranged the
dowry and settlements. The public betrothal took place first in the
Rathaus and then in the house of the bride. The wedding, after many
formalities, took place not in the church, but before the portal of the
church,[32] and only after the marriage service was completed did the
bridal pair enter the church to partake of the holy sacrament. After the
service the bridal party danced in the morning and then, after dinner at
the bride's home (where it was customary for the pair to reside for a
year), another dance took place in the evening; in the case of members
of the Patriciate, in the Rathaus. These proceedings were regulated by
laws by which the Council continually strove to repress the tendency to
luxury and extravagance which always accompanies commercial prosperity.
* * * * *
The _Rathaus_, the heart of the old trading Republic, fronts the chancel
end of the Sebald-kirche, a position architecturally unfortunate. The
original Councilhouse, which was shared by the Council with the
Clothiers Guild, stood in the present Tuchgasse. But in 1332 the Council
bought from the Heilsbronn Monastery a house on the site of the present
Rathaus, and here they built themselves a new Council-house into which
they first moved in 1340. In its oldest form the Rathaus consisted only
of a large hall, large enough to hold with comfort and dignity the
numerous assembly that might gather there on the occasion of a
Reichstag. All that now remains intact of this hall is the outer
architecture on the east side. The oldest portions of the Rathaus are to
be seen from the interior quadrangle and from the Rathausgasse, the
street at the back.
[Illustration: RATHAUS (WINDOW)]
In 1514 new rooms were added. They are mostly by Hans Behaim and are
very good specimens of late Gothic. In 1520 the Rathaus Hall was
renovated and altered and the side walls were painted after Durer's
designs, by Georg Pencz and other pupils of the master. The hall was
again restored and adorned with new pictures in 1613. Two years later
the great chandelier, by Hans Wilhelm Behaim, was placed there. Two
copies of it were added in 1874.
The Rathaus took almost its present form in 1616. The architect,
Eucharius Karl Holzschuher, adapted, so far as possible, the old Rathaus
to the new Italian style of building which now enclosed it. The outbreak
of the Thirty Years War, however, prevented the completion of his plan.
The north-east portion of the Rathaus has indeed only recently been
finished after the designs of Dr A. von Essenwein. The imposing
Renaissance façade confronting St. Sebald's is nearly 300 feet long and
consists of two stories containing thirty-six windows apiece. Three
Doric portals form the entrances, and are ornamented with sculptures of
reclining figures--Justice holding the scales and Truth with a mirror,
Julius Cæsar and Alexander, Ninus and Cyrus--by Leonhard Kern. The
sculptor received the moderate wage of 100 gulden per figure.
Entering the first court by the central portal, we see in front on the
right the charming old Gothic gallery, supported by three pillars. In
the centre of the court is a bronze fountain by Pankraz Labenwolf
(1556); in the second court is the Apollo fountain of Hans Vischer.[33]
The principal[34] staircase (_r_ of central entrance) leads to the Great
Hall or Council Chamber already referred to (1332). The arched wooden
ceiling dates from 1521. The hall is 130 feet long and 40 feet wide and
contains the chandeliers and the paintings after Durer's designs
mentioned above. The latter, on the north wall, have been much spoiled
by the effects of time and of incompetent restoration. The first of them
represents the Triumphal Car of Maximilian I. drawn by twelve horses.
Victory holds a laurel wreath over the Emperor, who is attended by the
various Virtues. Behind the car follows an animated procession of
Nuremberg town musicians. The second design is on the well-worn subject
of Calumny--Midas with his long ears sitting in judgment on Innocence
who is accused by Calumny, Fraud, Envy, and so forth, whilst in the
background appear Punishment, Penitence, and Truth. On the right of the
judge (our left) who sits between Ignorance and Suspicion, are the
words: _Nemo unquam sententiam ferat priusquam cuncta ad amussim
perpenderit_, on the left the same sentiment in German:
Ein Richter soll kein Urtheil geben
Er soll die Sach erforschen eben.
Over the little door is written "Eins manns red ist eine halbe red. Man
soll die Teyl verhören bed." (One man's rede is but half the rede. The
other side should be heard.)
The frescoes (now scarcely visible) between the windows are by Gabriel
Weyer (1619?). As both _Bædeker_ and _Murray_ state that "among them is
a representation of the _guillotine_, which is thus proved to be two
centuries older than the French Revolution," it may be worth while to
remark that nothing of the sort is proved. The falling-axe, _fall-beil_,
the Italian _caraletto_ here represented, was of course much used at
this time, as the engravings of Lucas Cranach, Georg Pencz and others
and as our own Halifax Gibbet and Morton's Maiden show. But the
guillotine, properly so-called, was a revived and modified form of this.
The instrument then took its name from the inventor of these
modifications, M. Guillotin, a philanthropic French physician, who
designed "to reduce the pain of death to a shiver" by this machine;
"Qui simplement nous tuera
Et que l'on nommera,
Guillotine."
as the royalist song first phrased it.
The bronze railing, by Peter Vischer, which once separated the lower
from the upper half of the hall has now disappeared.
The small hall on the second floor is used now as the city court. It has
recently been repaired and contains, besides portraits of modern
Nuremberg worthies, some pompous allegorical paintings by Paul Juvenell
(1579-1643).
In the Rathaus as in the Castle and Museum some very fine specimens of
old German stoves are to be seen. The stucco-relief on the ceiling of
the corridor on this floor we have already mentioned more than once.[35]
The Municipal Art Gallery (gratuity) on the third floor contains an
interesting collection of paintings that deal with the history of
Nuremberg. The most remarkable historically is the _Banquet held in the
Rathaus_ on the occasion of the Peace of Westphalia (1649), by Joachim
von Sandrart (1606-1688). Thirty of the forty-seven figures at the table
in this piece are portraits from life.
* * * * *
The power over life and death was given, as we have said, to the Council
along with the other rights of the _Schuldheiss_ in 1459 by Frederick
III. Till then the Emperor had reserved to himself the power to give to
any individual he chose this right, "Ban über das Blut in der Stadt zu
richten." It was an evil thing now to fall into the hands of the
Council. Prisoners even during their detention before trial were made to
suffer more severely than the worst modern convicts. The accused were
put into the _Loch_, the hole which formed a part of the cellar of the
old Rathaus, where there are twelve underground cells, each about two
yards square, and two yards high.
Entering the Rathaus by the portal nearest to the Schöner Brunnen we
turn to the right, ascend a flight of steps and ring the bell for the
Hausmeister,[36] who will guide us with lanterns to those gloomy caverns
which like the Piombi of Venice cry shame on the inhumanity of man. We
follow our guide down a narrow stone staircase to the dungeons cold and
dark as the grave. Over the various entrances were symbolic figures of
animals: the two last being ornamented with a red cock and a black cock.
No one seems able to say what these strange hieroglyphics denote.
The cells were never cleaned, but were warmed by a brazier in the
winter. Two of them are furnished with stocks; in each there is an
angular wooden couch; in some, when the sight has got gradually
accustomed to the darkness, we become aware of a ghastly cleft in the
floor. Flaubert, Poe, Scott, and Victor Hugo never fail to make my blood
run cold with their descriptions of tortures, but the pages of
"Salammbo," of the "Pit and the Pendulum," of "Old Mortality," or "Les
Misérables" have no such terrors for my imagination as the actual sight
of these deep and horrid dungeons wherein so many hundreds, innocent and
guilty alike, have been incarcerated and suffered, with no Anne of
Geierstein to deliver them. Presently we pass on to a room of still more
horrible interest--the torture-chamber where the judges (Die
Blutrichtern) sat, whilst their wretched victim, far removed from human
aid and human sympathy, was "examined" till a confession was wrung from
him. This vaulted room in the _Loch_ was called the "Chapel." Over it is
written "Folterkammer, 1511" (Torture Chamber). On the wall was
inscribed the jingling verse--
"_Ad mala patrata hæc sunt atra theatra parata_."
Revolting as the idea of torture is to us, it would not be fair to
concentrate our indignation on the Nurembergers, as we are tempted to
do, when we see these things and still more when, in the Castle, we
visit the stupendous collection of torture-instruments, those melancholy
monuments of human error. For torture as a system of trial, as the great
alternative to the ordeal, has received the sanction of the wisest
lawgivers throughout far the greater portion of the world's history. It
is, indeed, only quite recently that we have in practice acknowledged
Quintilian's objection to torture--that under it one man's constancy
makes falsehood easy to him whilst another's weakness makes falsehood
necessary. History, too, has shown us the evil effects of this system
upon the judge, who became inevitably eager to convince himself of the
guilt of the poor wretch whom he had already caused to suffer. How
completely the prisoner thus became a quarry to be hunted to the death
is shown by the jocular remark of Farinacci, a celebrated authority in
criminal law, that the torture of sleeplessness invented by Marsigli was
most excellent, for out of a hundred martyrs exposed to it not two could
endure it without becoming confessors as well. This form of torture was
practised in England even without the continental limit of time. But on
the whole, torture in England fell short of the best continental
standard. Still, it remains true to say that human ingenuity could not
invent suffering more terrible than was constantly and legally employed
in _every_ civilised community. Satan himself, one writer exclaims,
would be unable to increase its refinements. A visit to the Tower of
London will prove that Nuremberg was not a solitary and disgraceful
exception to the manners of her day. The robber-barons, who flourished
under King Stephen in England used the same methods as their German
brethren to extract ransoms from the rich merchants they captured, using
knotted ropes twisted round the head, crucet-houses, or chests filled
with sharp stones in which the victim was crushed, sachentages, or
frames with a sharp iron collar preventing the wearer from sitting,
lying, or sleeping. A visit to the Castle of Nuremberg shows us that the
rich merchants were ready to use similar arguments to the robber-barons.
When the prisoner had been brought into the torture chamber and the
professional gentlemen (the Hangman and the Secretary) had decided how
much the patient could bear, operations began. A circular opening on the
inside of the room above the entrance marks the place behind which sat
the person who took down the prisoner's confession. Innumerable devices
and instruments had been invented, as we see in the Castle, by using
which separately and in combination the confession was extorted. Burning
candles held under the arms were found very effective and the favourite
Spanish methods, the Strappado (suspension by the arms behind the back
with weights to the feet), pouring water down the throat and applying
fire to the soles of the feet were in frequent use. We find many
varieties of the "little ease" or rack in the Castle. The severity of
the instrument is attested by the signature of our Guy Fawkes before and
after being submitted to that ordeal. But even less attractive than this
must have been the _peine forte et dure_. John Gow, it will be
remembered, in "The Pirate," stands mute even when his thumbs were
squeezed by two men with a whipcord till it broke, and again when it was
doubled and trebled so that the operators could pull with their whole
strength. But his fortitude gave way and he confessed when he had seen
the preparations for pressing him to death with the _peine forte et
dure_, a board loaded with heavy weights. A peculiar atrocity marked the
torture system of Scotland. Torture retained its place in that kingdom's
laws as long as she preserved the right of self-legislation. Her system
could not surpass, but it serves to illustrate the fiendish barbarities
of the Nuremberg questions. Readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember
his description of the "boot"--an iron frame in which the leg was
inserted and broken by iron wedges driven in with a hammer. The
penni-winkis, thumb-screws, and caschielawis, iron frames for the leg
heated from time to time over a brazier, were also favourite instruments
both there and here.
It is not surprising that such persuasion usually succeeded in producing
a confession from the prisoners, whether true or not, of their own or of
other people's guilt. They were not infrequently compelled to confess to
crimes which they had never committed[37] and were hanged for murdering
persons who afterwards were found to be alive and well. Real criminals,
however, often refused to speak; for habitual and professional
malefactors used to torture each other regularly in order to be hardened
when brought to justice. But in that case their wives and children often
proved less reticent. Confession having been secured the Council
appointed a day of judgment for the _armen_, "poor fellow," as they
termed him. If when he came before them he still persisted in his
confession he was condemned. But condemnation depended on the confession
of the criminal, and the Church had long maintained that confessions
obtained under torture were invalid. If, therefore, when brought before
the Council he recanted he was tortured again, and as often as he
retracted this process was repeated until a confession apart from
torture was obtained. The humane intervention of the Church thus
resulted in a redoublement of cruelty. Even after condemnation, if the
convict told the clergyman, who came to prepare him for death, that he
was really not guilty but had confessed only because of the torture, the
Council on hearing of it had to begin all over again. This became such a
nuisance that they warned the clergy not to talk to the condemned too
much about temporal matters! After sentence had been passed by the
Council a public trial of an entirely formal character was held, very
wearisome to the condemned wretch, who probably knew that it was so
empty a form that it was held even if the prisoner had already succumbed
to the torture or committed suicide in the cells.
In Nuremberg, as elsewhere, various methods of punishment were employed.
Much ingenuity and some humour were displayed in making "the punishment
fit the crime." The shrew was tamed, as in England, by the application
of the _Brank_ or scold's bridle--an iron framework placed over the head
in such a way that a plate covered with spikes, which was attached to
it, fitted into the mouth. Thieves, like English authors, had their ears
cut off. This operation was performed on the Fleischbrücke. The tongues
of blasphemers were torn out, and if the banished returned to the city
their eyes were gouged out. The latter treatment was often applied in
the East to junior princes not required to be heirs. But there the
removal of the eyeball gave way, in later times, to the drawing of a
red-hot sword blade across the eyeball. In Italy the use of a heated
metal basin (bacinare) was preferred. Whilst, in England, we punished
drunkenness, as lately as 1872, with confinement in the stocks, the use
of the ordinary Nuremberg punishment--"The Drunkard's Cloak"--a barrel
worn after the manner of a cloak--was almost confined to Newcastle. The
ancient Moslem punishment for wine-drinkers--the pouring of melted lead
down the offender's throat--does not appear to have been in vogue. Other
devices shown in the Five-Cornered Tower are the Spanish horse, which
suggests the modern American method of "riding on a rail," the
finger-cramp for bad musicians, pipes for excessive smokers, faces to
be worn by husband-beaters, ducking-stools and the wheel, last used in
1788, and the cradle, last used in 1803.
Even the sentence of death was variously performed. Robbers were hanged;
murderers beheaded; worse criminals were torn asunder by horses or
broken on the wheel. Sinners against the Church were exposed barefooted
and bareheaded and hanged before the church doors; sinners against
morality were branded. Jews--if it was a question of hanging them--were
always hung from the end of the gallows' beam, so that they and the
Christians might swing from a different place. Boiling oil does not seem
to have been indulged in, though it was used in France for mere
counterfeiters, and in England for poisoners. The Bishop of Rochester's
cook for instance was treated in this manner in 1630. Terrible as these
atrocities were, they are also terribly recent. The last burning at the
stake in Germany took place in Berlin, 1786, and in the same year at
Vienna occurred the last case of breaking on the wheel. The victim was
tortured with red-hot pincers as he walked to the place of execution.
And in England the execution of the rebels after the "45" was carried
out in exact accordance with the statute of treason of Edward III.,
1351, by which the unhappy victim of justice must be drawn to the
gallows and not walk; be cut down alive and his entrails be then torn
out and burnt before his face.
Women in Nuremberg, as in France and England, were not exposed on
gibbets in chains but were buried alive, till 1515, when at the
hangman's request they were drowned instead. In 1580 they took to being
decapitated. Women who had murdered their husbands were bound to a cart
on the way to execution, bared to the waist and tortured with red-hot
tongs. The condemned criminal usually walked from the
[Illustration: HENKERSTEG (HANGMAN'S TOWER)]
Rathaus over the Barfüsserbrücke to the Frauenthor, where the gallows
stood. On the way priests confessed him; pious people prayed for him and
supported him with draughts of wine. It is satisfactory to learn that
the feeling of the people was usually in favour of the "poor" thing.
Fellow-feeling made them wondrous kind, so that if the hangman bungled
his business and failed to kill his subject outright the mob might prove
dangerous. But the executioners, who lived in the picturesque
Henkersteg, were usually masters of their art.[38] They tell us of one
great artist who in 1501 killed two robbers almost at a blow. He placed
them back to back, two or three yards apart, and took his stand between
them. He beheaded the first one, who was kneeling, then with the same
sweep, swinging round in a circle, he whipped off the other's head.
Clearly he was not devoid of professional pride, and worthy was he to be
compared with the executioner in Anne of Geierstein who boasted that
"Tristrem of the Hospital and his famous assistants André and Trois
Eschelles are novices compared with me in the use of the noble and
knightly sword," and who claimed "if one of my profession shall do
his grim office on nine men of noble birth with the same weapon and
with a single blow to each patient, hath he not a right to his
freedom from taxes and his nobility by patent?"
The day-book of the Nuremberg executioner, 1573-1617, shows that no less
than 361 were executed, and 345 were beaten with rods and had their ears
and fingers cut off in that period. Besides these there were doubtless
many dungeon executions and much cellar practice as well. There were
also the victims of the Secret Tribunal, the Vehme-Gericht.
After leaving the torture-chamber we pass the entrance to a passage,
inaccessible now by reason of the masses of fallen stone, which leads
beyond the town to a distance of nearly two miles, and emerges (it is
said) in the forest near Dutzendteich. It was used to despatch envoys,
and as a means of access to, and escape for, the Senate in troublous
times.
The passage which we follow was constructed about 1543. It runs beneath
the streets towards the Castle, making a circuitous course and passing
under the Albrecht Dürer Platz. It varies in height from 3 to 7 feet,
and, as it nears the Castle, is hewn out of the living rock. Presently
we pass on the right the passage which leads down to the Deep Well (see
Chap. V.); and then at last we emerge first into the
Thiergärtnerthorthurm and then on to the Castle bastion--the
Schlosszwinger. This bastion is now a well-kept garden, and the empty,
spreading embrasures for guns are now covered with creepers. Our guide
leads us out into the Burgstrasse. A few years ago it was possible to
descend again into the passages, traverse the inner side of the
town-wall and pass into the Castle dungeon--the secret prison of the
Vehme-Gericht. Underground passages led thither both from their own
tribunal--a hall now used as a warehouse in the Pannier-Gasse--and from
the private residences of the Senators. There, too, was that deep and
dismal abyss[39] which was wont to receive the mangled remains of the
prisoners, mostly of rank, who had been condemned to "kiss the
maiden"--_die verfluchte Jungfer_. He upon whom doom had been passed was
forced, after a night spent in her presence, into the embraces of the
famous female figure, which stands to-day with Sphinx-like placidity in
the Castle. Gradually by cunningly-contrived machinery the Maiden
grasped the unhappy man with iron arms and pressed him crushingly to her
bosom. But from her body and from her face sharp spikes sank as
gradually into his eyes and flesh, piercing him through and through. At
last the arms relaxed from their cruel embrace, but only to precipitate
him, a mass of ghastly laceration, into the pit below, where the body
was received upon sharply-pointed bars of steel placed vertically at the
bottom, and was cut to pieces by wheels armed with knives which soon
completed this inhuman work of secret destruction. This subsequent
cutting into a thousand pieces may be compared with the Chinese
_Ling-chee_, and the _Bodoveresta_ prescribed by Zoroaster for
incompetent physicians. Besides its horrid appeal to the imagination, it
was doubtless useful in concealing the identity of a prisoner secretly
condemned and secretly executed.
There are various parallels to the Nuremberg Maiden. A similar
instrument was invented by Nabis, a Spartan tyrant, who named it the
Apega, after his wife. But the famous Morton's Maiden in the Museum of
Antiquities in Edinburgh is simply a beheading machine, something after
the manner of a guillotine. Tradition says that the Regent, Earl of
Morton, introduced it into Scotland and was the first to suffer by it.
This is a story as old as the Bull of Phalaris. But it is not likely
that Morton introduced it and he was certainly not the first to suffer
by it. Similarly the rack was called Exeter's Daughter because the Duke
of Exeter is said to have introduced it into England. So, too, the
Scavenger's Daughter in the Tower of London took its name from Sir
William Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower under Henry VIII., who
revived the use of an iron hoop, in which the prisoner was bent heels to
hams and chest to knees, and was thus crushed together unmercifully. In
all these cases, it will be observed, the instrument took its title of
Maiden or Daughter from the grim contrast that would strike the popular
mind between the soft embraces of a girl and the cruel greeting of the
machine. It was the sweetest maiden he ever kissed, said the Marquis and
Earl of Argyle when he suffered death by Morton's Maiden. So in the navy
the gun to which a sailor was lashed before being flogged was termed the
Gunner's Daughter.[40] So, too, in the days of the French Revolution, as
Dickens tells us, the figure of the sharp female figure called La
Guillotine was the popular theme for jests: it was the best cure for
headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it
imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National
Razor which shaved close; who kissed La Guillotine looked through the
little window and sneezed into the sack. In Nuremberg this grim jest was
translated into literal earnest. But it must have been difficult for the
sufferer to appreciate the hideous humour of the thing.
Not long ago there was an exhibition of torture instruments in London.
The Nuremberg Maiden was represented, and round her neck hung a placard
with the legend: "Maiden: Nuremberg." A cockney, the story runs, read
out this inscription to his companion: "Syme old gyme," was the comment;
"Myde in Germany." And it was.