What are some punishments for the medieval times?

Answer 1

Punishments depended not only on the misdemeanour but also on how often it occurred and whether it was confessed before all the brethren at the daily Chapter meeting, or was discovered by another monk and reported to a superior. It was considered a duty of all monks to report the faults they observed in others, including tardiness, falling asleep during services, singing the wrong words in Church or forgetting anything, breaking or losing monastery property or keeping private property against monastic rules.

For a confessed first minor infraction a monk (for example) might simply be pardoned and told to pray for guidance, support and forgiveness from God, who sees all things and knows men's hearts.

A superior at the monastery would encourage the monk to improve and would keep a close watch on his progress.

For repeated faults, or those not confessed, a monk might suffer corporal punishment: being beaten with leather lashes or wooden rods either stripped to the waist and sitting, or laying flat on the floor - in some cases the other brothers would step on him on their way out of the Chapter House.

Higher up the list was "minor excommunication", where the monk would be separated from the others for a period - he would eat, sleep, work and pray separately - this was a major punishment in a community where all monks normally did everything as part of a group and were unused to being alone. No other monk could speak to him or even look at him during that time.

Some monasteries had in the precinct a small isolated cell which could be locked, where the excluded monk would spend a period of virtual exile.

If all else failed, and after many attempts to correct his behaviour in many ways, the monk could be expelled or sent to another monastery - even overseas in some cases.

The final and ultimate penalty would be full excommunication, where the monk was stripped of his place in the community and within the Christian fellowship, when no man anywhere might give him food or shelter, when he could not be given a Christian burial when he eventually died but must be left for the dogs and crows. Such cases would be extremely rare.

Answer 2

• hand cut off

• beheaded

• hanged

• burned at a stake

• eyes poked out etc

Answer 3

The most common punishment was death. If you were extremely lucky you would be put in stocks from anywhere from a day to a week.But usually it was death.Types of death punishments were tieing bricks to the person's feet and throwing the person in a lake, burning them alive,hanging them, and beheading them.If it was a very serious crime they were tortured first.

Answer 4

In much of Western Europe, the most common punishment of the Early Middle Ages was a fine. Nearly everything was punished by a fine in some places, including even murdering a king. The amount of the fine depended on the crime, and the person against whom it was committed. A person who could not pay the fine was sold into slavery, and in some places criminals provided the only source of slaves. At the same time, the Byzantine Empire continued Roman Law and Roman punishments.

Later on, national laws became progressively more imaginative. For example, in many places, the laws against rape and murder put the physical body of the guilty into the hands of the victim or the victim's family, to perform any physical punishment they thought appropriate, including dismemberment or execution.

Most criminals, however, were not charged with breaking national laws. Petty infractions were dealt with in manorial courts, and the legal systems of these courts were based on unwritten custom. The juries were often made up of people of the same social status as the accused, and it was possible to have a person found innocent simply because some specific number of people were willing to swear they believed he was. In such courts, punishments were probably devised according to how angry people were, and certainly sometimes included public humiliation. Stocks could be used as a mild form of torture, and people in stocks were subjected to whatever treatment people might feel was deserved, including having things thrown things at them.

There were ecclesiastical courts, and many people could appeal to them by claiming benefit clergy, even if they were not technically ordained. The standard was to pass a test to see if the person could read, and so students were often included. Such courts were intended to secure penance instead of retribution, and so the punishments were often the equivalent of community service. Some of the men who participated in the murder of Thomas Becket were punished by being ordered to go on crusade.

Important crimes, such as crimes against the king, could be punished in any way the laws provided, or in any other way the king might feel would deter others from doing the same things. These varied enormously. One woman who tried to assassinate King Louis VII managed to escape all punishment by entering a convent. On the other hand there were dynasties of kings who punished many crimes by declaring them treason and torturing the accused to death; the Plantagenet kings of England were said to be especially prone to this.

Answer 5

get whip or get killed