who for insolence to the Bushwyck magistrates was sentenced to be
fastened to a stake near the gallows, with a bridle in his mouth, a
bundle of rods under his arm, and a paper on his breast bearing the
words, "Lampoon-riter, False-accuser, Defamer of Magistrates." William
Gerritsen of New Amsterdam sang a defamatory song against the Lutheran
minister and his daughter. He pleaded guilty, and was bound to the
Maypole in the Fort with rods tied round his neck, and wearing a paper
labelled with his offense, and there to stand till the end of the
sermon.
This custom of labelling a criminal with words or initials expositive of
his crime or his political or religious offense, is neither American nor
Puritan in invention and operation, but is so ancient that the knowledge
of its beginning is lost. It was certainly in full force in the twelfth
century in England. In 1364 one John de Hakford, for stating to a friend
that there were ten thousand rebels ready to rise in London, was placed
in the pillory four times a year "without hood or girdle, barefoot and
unshod, with a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck, and lying on his
breast, it being marked with the words _A False Liar_, and there shall
be a pair of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way." Many other
cases are known of hanging an inscribed whetstone round the neck of the
condemned one. For three centuries men were thus labelled, and with
sound of trumpets borne to the pillory or scaffold. As few of the
spectators of that day could read the printed letters, the whetstone and
trumpets were quite as significant as the labels. In the first year of
the reign of Henry VIII, Fabian says that three men, rebels, and of good
birth, died of shame for being thus punished. They rode about the city
of London with their faces to their horses' tails, and bore marked
papers on their heads, and were set on the pillory at Cornhill and again
at Newgate. In Canterbury, in 1524, a man was pilloried, and wore a
paper inscribed: "This is a false perjured and for-sworn man." In the
corporation accounts of the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne are many items of
the expenses for punishing criminals. One of the date 1594 reads: "Paide
for 4 papers for 4 folkes which was sett on the pillorie, 16d."
Writing was not an every-day accomplishment in those times, else
fourpence for writing a "paper" would seem rather a high-priced
service.
VIII
BRANKS AND GAGS
The brank or scold's bridle was unknown in America in its English shape:
though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too
plentiful, and were gagged for that annoying and irritating habit. The
brank, sometimes called the gossip's bridle, or dame's bridle, or
scold's helm, was truly a "brydle for a curste queane." It was a
shocking instrument, a sort of iron cage, often of great weight; when
worn, covering the entire head; with a spiked plate or flat tongue of
iron to be placed in the mouth over the tongue. Hence if the offender
spoke she was cruelly hurt.
Ralph Gardner, in his book entitled _England's Grievance Discovered in
Relation to the Coal Trade, etc._, printed in 1665, says of
Newcastle-on-Tyne:
"There he saw one Anne Bridlestone drove through the streets by an
officer of the same corporation, holding a rope in his hand, the other
end fastened to an engine called the branks, which is like a crown, it
being of iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gag
or tongue of iron forced into her mouth, which forced the blood out; and
that is the punishment which the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and
scolding women; and he hath often seen the like done to others."
[Illustration: The Branks.]
Over fifty branks of various shapes are now in existence in English
museums, churches, town halls, etc., and prove by their number and wide
extent of location, the prevalence of their employment as a means of
punishment. Being made of durable iron and kept within doors, and often
thrust, as their use grew infrequent, into out-of-the-way hiding-places,
they have not vanished from existence as have the wooden stocks and
pillories, which stood exposed to wear, weather and attack.
One of these old-time branks is in the vestry of the church at
Walton-on-Thames. It is dated 1632, and has this couplet graven on it:
"Chester presents Walton with a bridle
To cure women's tongues that talk too idle."
By tradition this brank was angrily and insultingly given by a gentleman
named Chester, who had through the lie of a gossiping woman of Walton
lost an expected fortune. One is in Congleton Town Hall which was used
as recently at 1824, upon a confirmed scold who had especially abused
some constables and church-wardens; and as late as 1858 a brank was
produced _in terrorem_ to silence an English scold, and it is said with
marked and salutary effect. Several branks are still in existence in
Staffordshire. The old historian of the county, Dr. Plot, pleads
quaintly the cause of the brank:
"We come to the arts that respect mankind, amongst which as elsewhere,
the civility of precedence must be allowed to the women, and that as
well in punishments as in favours. For the former, whereof they have
such a peculiar artifice at Newcastle and Walsall for correcting of
scolds, which it does too, so effectually and so very safely that I look
upon it as much to be preferred to the ducking-stool, which not only
endangers the health of the party, but also gives her tongue liberty to
wag, twixt every dip, to neither of which is this at all liable, it
being such a bridle for the tongue as not only quite deprives them of
speech, but brings shame for the transgression, and humility thereupon,
before its taken off.... Which being put upon the offender by the order
of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, she is led
through the town by an officer, to her shame, nor is it taken off till
after the party begins to show all external signs imaginable of
humiliation and amendment."
Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, editor of the _Reliquary_, gives an explicit
account of the way a brank was worn:
"The Chesterfield brank is a good example, and has the additional
interest of bearing a date. It is nine inches in height, and six and
three-quarters across the hoop. It consists of a hoop of iron, hinged on
either side, and fastening behind, and a band, also of iron, passing
over the head from back to front and opening dividing in front to admit
the nose of the woman whose misfortune it was to wear it. The mode of
putting it on would be thus: The brank would be opened by throwing back
the sides of the hoop, and the hinder part of the top band by means of
the hinges. The constable would then stand in front of his victim and
force the knife or plate into her mouth, the divided band passing on
either side of her nose, which would protrude through the opening. The
hoop would then be closed behind, the band brought down from the top to
the back of the head, and fastened down upon it, and thus the cage would
at once be firmly and immovably fixed so long as her tormentors might
think fit. On the left side is a chain, one end of which is attached to
the hoop, and on the other end is a ring by which the victim was led, or
by which she was at pleasure attached to a post or wall. On the front of
the brank is the date 1688."
This brank is depicted in the _Reliquary_ for October, 1860. Mr. William
Andrews, in his interesting book, entitled _Old-Time Punishments_ gives
drawings of no less than sixteen branks now preserved in England. Some
of them are massive, and horrible instruments of torture.
It will be noted that the brank is universally spoken of as a punishment
for women; but men also were sentenced to wear it--paupers, blasphemers,
railers.
I am glad John Winthrop and John Carver did not bring cumbrous and cruel
iron branks to America. There are plenty of other ways to shut a woman's
mouth and to still her tongue, as all sensible men know; on every hand,
if gossips were found, a simple machine could be shaped, one far simpler
than a scold's bridle. A cleft stick pinched on the tongue was as
temporarily efficacious as the iron machine, and could be speedily put
in use. On June 4, 1651, the little town of Southampton, Long Island,
saw a well-known resident, for her "exorbitant words of imprication,"
stand for an hour in public with her tongue in a cleft stick. A neighbor
at Easthampton, Long Island, the same year received a like sentence:
"It is ordered that Goody Edwards shall pay L3 or have her tongue in a
cleft stick for contempt of court warrant in saienge she would not
come, but if they had been governor or magistrate then she would come,
and desireing the warrant to burn it."
About the same time Goodwife Hunter was gagged in Springfield for a
similar offense.
In Salem, under the sway of the rigid and narrow Puritan Endicott, the
system of petty surveillance and demeaning punishment seemed to reach
its height; and one citizen in mild sarcasm thereof said he did suppose
if he did lie abed in the morning he would be hauled up by the
magistrates,--and was promptly fined for even saying such a thing in
jest. Therefore of course "one Oliver, his wife" was adjudged to be
whipped for reproaching the magistrates and for prophesying. Winthrop,
in his _History of New England_, says of her scourging and her further
punishment:
"She stood without tying, and bare her punishment with a masculine
spirit, glorying in her suffering. But after (when she came to consider
the reproach which would stick by her, etc.), she was much dejected
about it. She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour for
reproaching the elders."
In Salem in 1639 four men got drunk--young men, some of them servants.
Two named George Dill and John Cook were thus punished:
"They be fined 40s for drunckenes, and to stand att the meeting-house
doar next Lecture day with a Clefte Stick vpon his Tong and a paper vpon
his hatt subscribed for gross premeditated lyinge."
The others, Thomas Tucke and Mica Ivor, were not so drunk nor such
wanton liars and their punishment was somewhat mitigated. The sentence
runs thus:
"They are also found guilty of Lyeing & Drunckenes though not to that
degree as the twoe former yett are fined 40s & their own promis taken
for itt. Alsoe two stand on the Lecture day with the twoe former but noe
clefte sticke on their Tong only a paper on his head subscribed for
lying."
So it will be seen that men suffered this painful and mortifying
punishment as well as women. And I may say, in passing, that slander and
mischief-making seemed to be even more rife among men than among women
in colonial times. This entry may be found in the _Records of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony_:
"6 September, Boston, 1636. Robert Shorthouse for swearinge by the bloud
of God was sentenced to have his tongue put into a cleft stick, and soe
stand for halfe an houre & Elizabeth wife of Thomas Applegate was
censured to stand with her tongue in a cleft stick for half an houre for
swearinge, railinge and revilinge."
Robert Bartlett in the same court in 1638 was "psented" for cursing, and
swearing, and had his tongue thrust in a cleft stick. Samuel Hawkes for
cursing, lying and stealing received the same sentence. In 1671 Sarah
Morgan struck her husband. He evidently ran whining to the constables,
and Wife Sarah received a just punishment. She was ordered to "stand
with a gagg in her mouth" at Kittery, Maine, at a public town-meeting,
and "the cause of her offense written and put on her forehead." Thus
gagged and placarded she must have proved a striking figure; jeered at,
doubtless, as an odious example of wifely insubordination, by all the
good citizens who came to shape the "Town's Mind" at the Town's
Meeting.
As years passed on the independent spirit of the times became averse to
gagging, though whipping and imprisonment still were for some years
dealt out for reviling and railing. America was in some ways earlier in
humane elements of consideration for criminals than England, and while
women were still wearing the brank in English villages American women no
longer feared either gag or cleft stick for unruly tongues.
Long after the punishment of which I write had been banished from
American courts it lingered in various forms in American schools--as did
the stocks, the penance-stool, and the whip. I have an example of a
"whispering-stick," a wooden gag, provided with holes by which it could
be tied in place, and which was used in a Providence school during this
century as a punishment for whispering. And many a child during the past
century had a cleft stick placed on his tongue for ill words or untimely
words in school. Sometimes, with an exaggeration of ridicule, a small
branch of a tree in full leaf was split and pinched on the tongue--a
true pedagogical torture.
IX
PUBLIC PENANCE
The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church
either through significant action, position or confession has often been
held to be peculiar to the Presbyterian and Puritan churches. It is, in
fact, as old as the Church of Rome, and was a custom of the Church of
England long before it became part of the Dissenters' discipline. All
ranks and conditions of men shared in this humiliation. An English king,
Henry II, a German emperor, Henry IV, the famous Duchess of Gloucester,
and Jane Shore are noted examples; humbler victims for minor sins or
offenses against religious usages suffered in like manner. In Scotland
the ordeals of sitting on the repentance-stool or cutty-stool were most
frequent. In economic and social histories of Scotland, and especially
in Edgar's _Old Church Life in Scotland_, many instances are enumerated.
Sometimes the offender wore a repentance-gown of sackcloth; more
frequently he stood or sat barefoot and barelegged.
[Illustration: Public Penance]
In our own day penance has been done in the Scottish Church. In 1876 a
woman in Ross-shire sat on the cutty-stool through the whole service
with a black shawl over her head; while in February, 1884, one of the
ringleaders in the Sabbatarian riots was set on the cutty-stool in
Lochcarron church and rebuked for a moral offense which could not,
according to the discipline of the Free Church in the Highlands, be
fully punished in any other way.
In English churches similar penance was done. In the _History of
Wakefield Cathedral_ are given the old church-wardens' accounts. In them
are many items of the loan of sheets for men and women "to do penance
in." About sixpence was the usual charge. For immorality, cheating,
defamation of character, disregard of the Sabbath and other
transgressions penance was performed. In 1766 penance was thus rendered
in Stokesby Church for three Sundays by James Beadwell:
"In the time of Divine service, between the hours of ten and eleven in
the forenoon of the same day, in the presence of the whole congregation
there assembled, being barehead, barefoot and barelegged, having a white
sheet wrapped about him from the shoulder to the feet and a white wand
in his hand, where immediately after the reading of the Gospel, he shall
stand upon some form or seat before the pulpit or place where the
minister readeth prayers and say after him as forthwith, etc."
Clergymen even, if offenders against the established church, were not
spared public humiliation. In the year 1534 the vicar of a church in
Hull, England, preached a sermon in Holy Trinity church advocating the
teaching of the Reformers in Antwerp. He was promptly tried for heresy
and convicted. He recanted; and in penance walked around the church on
Sunday clad only in his shirt, barefooted and carrying a large faggot in
his hand. On the market day he walked around the market-place clad in a
similar manner. This really solemn act is robbed of its dignity because
of the apparel of the penitent. A man's shirt is an absurd garment; had
the offender been wrapped in a sheet, or robed in sackcloth and ashes,
he would been a noble figure, but you cannot grace or dignify a shirt.
With a mingling of barbarity and Christianity unrivalled by any other
code of laws issued in America, the _Articles, Lawes, and Orders Divine,
Politique and Martiall for the colony of Virginea_, as issued by Sir
Thomas Dale, punished offenders against the church and God's word
equally by physical and moral penance.
"Noe man shall vnworthilie demeane himselfe vnto any Preacher, or
Minister of God's Holy Word, but generally hold them in all reverent
regard and dutiful intreatie, otherwise he the offender shall openly be
whipt three times, and ask publick forgiveness in the assembly of the
congregation three several Saboth daies."
"There is no one man or woman in this Colonie now present, or hereafter
to arrive, but shall give vp an account of his and their faith and
religion, and repaire vnto the Minister, that by his conference with
them, hee may vnderstand, and gather, whether heretofore they have been
sufficiently instructed and catechised in the principles and grounds on
Religion, whose weaknesse and ignorance herein, the Minister, finding,
and advising them in all love and charitie to repaire often unto him to
receive therein a greater measure of knowledge, if they shal refuse so
to repaire unto him, and he the Minister give notice thereof unto the
Governour, he shall cause the offender first time of refusall to be
whipt, for the second time to be whipt twice, and to acknowledge his
fault vpon the Saboth day, in the assembly, and for the third time to be
whipt every day vntil he hath made the same acknowledgement, and asked
forgivenesse for the same, and shall repaire vnto the Minister, to be
further instructed as aforesaid; and vpon the Saboth when the Minister
shall catechize and of him demaund any question concerning his faith and
knowledge, he shall not refuse to make answer vpon the same perill."
Those who were found to "calumniate, detract, slander, murmur, mutinie,
resist, disobey, or neglect" the officers' commands also were to be
whipped and ask forgiveness at the Sabbath service. The Puritans were
said dreadfully to seek God; far greater must have been the dread of
Virginia church folk; and in view of this severity it is not to be
wondered that this law had to be issued as a pendant:
"No man or woman, vpon paine of death, shall rune away from the Colonie,
to Powhathan or any savage Weroance else whatever."
Bishop Meade, in his history of the Virginia church, tells of offenders
who stood in church wrapped in white sheets with white wands in their
hands; and other examples of public penance in the Southern colonies are
known.
In 1639 Robert Sweet of Jamestown--"a gentleman"--appeared, wrapped in a
white sheet, and did penance in church. In Lower Norfolk County, a white
man and a black woman stood up together, dressed in white sheets and
holding white wands in their hands.
The custom of public confession of sin prevailed in the first Salem
church, and thereafter lasted in New England, in modified form for two
centuries. Biblical authority for this custom was claimed to rest in
certain verses of the eighteenth chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew.
Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in his paper entitled _Some Phases of
Morality and Church Discipline in New England_, gives many examples of
public confession of sin and public reprimand in the Braintree
meeting-house. Manuscript church records which I have examined afford
scores, almost hundreds of other examples.
In earliest times, in New England as in Virginia a white robe or white
sheet was worn by the offender.
In 1681 two Salem women, wrapped in white, were set on stools "in the
middle alley" of the meeting-house through the long service; having on
their heads a paper bearing the name of their crime. In 1659 William
Trotter of Newbury, Massachusetts, for his slanderous speeches was
enjoined to make "publick acknowledgement" in the church on a
lecture-day. On the 20th of September, 1667, Ellinor Bonythorne of
York, Maine, was sentenced "to stand 3 Sabbath dayes in a white sheet in
the meeting-house." Another Maine woman, Ruth, the wife of John Gouch,
being found guilty of a hateful crime was ordered "to stand in a white
sheet publickly in the Congregation at Agamenticus two several Sabbath
days, and likewise one day in the General Court."
These scenes were not always productive of true penitence. This affair
happened in the Braintree church in 1697, and many others might be
cited.
"Isaac Theer was called forth in public, moved pathetically to
acknowledge his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and stood
against the lower end of the fore seat after he had been prevented by
our shutting the east door from going out. Stood impudently and said
indeed he owned the sin of stealing and was heartily sorry for it,
begged pardon of God and men, and hoped he should do so no more, which
was all he would be brought unto, saying his sin was already known; all
with a remisse voice so few could hear him. The Church gave their
judgment against him that he was a notorious scandalous sinner, and
obstinately impenitent. And when I was proceeding to spread before him
his sin and wickedness, he, as tis probable, guessing what was like to
follow, turned about to goe out, and being desired and charged to tarry
and know what the church had to say, he flung out of doors with an
insolent manner though silent."
A most graphic description of one of these scenes of public abasement
and abnegation is given by Governor John Winthrop in his _History of New
England_. The offender, Captain John Underhill, was a brave though
blustering soldier, a man of influence throughout New England, a
so-called gentleman. And I doubt not that Boston folk tried hard to
overlook his transgressions because, "soldiers has their ways." Winthrop
wrote thus:
"Captain Underbill being brought by the blessing of God in this church's
censure of excommunication to remorse for his foul sins, obtained by
means of the elders and others of the church of Boston, a safe conduct
under the hand of the governor and one of the council to repair to the
church. He came at the time of the court of assistants, and upon the
lecture day, after sermon, the pastor called him forth and declared the
occasion, and then gave him leave to speak; and, indeed, it was a
spectacle which caused many weeping eyes, though it afforded matter of
much rejoicing to behold the power of the Lord Jesus in his ordinances,
when they are dispensed in his own way, holding forth the authority of
his regal sceptre in the simplicity of the gospel. He came in his worst
clothes, being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and
neatness, without a band, in a foul linen cap pulled close to his eyes,
and standing upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of
tears, lay open his wicked course, his adultery, his hypocrisy, his
persecution of God's people here, and especially his pride, as the root
of all which caused God to give him over to his sinful courses, and
contempt of magistrates. * * * * * He spake well, save that his
blubbering, etc., interrupted him, and all along he discovered a broken
and melting heart and gave good exhortations to take heed of such
vanities and beginnings of evil as had occasioned his fall. And in the
end he earnestly and humbly besought the church to have compassion on
him and to deliver him out of the hands of Satan."
In truth, the Captain "did protest too much." This well-acted and
well-costumed piece of vainglorious repentance was not his first
appearance in the Boston meeting-house in this role. Twice before had he
been the chief actor in a similar scene, and twice had he been forgiven
by the church and by individuals specially injured. He was not alone in
his "blubbering," as Winthrop plainly puts it. The minister at Jedburgh,
Scotland, for similar offenses, "prostrated himself on the floor of the
Assembly, and with weeping and howling, entreated for pardon." He was
thus sentenced:
"That in Edinburgh as the capital, in Dundee as his native town, in
Jedburgh as the scene of his ministration, he should stand in sack-cloth
at the church door, also on the repentance-stool, and for two Sundays in
each place."