A pillory is a device used to punish and humiliate people publicly. It is recognizable by the three holes in a wooden board to insert the head and hands.
The pillary was used for punishments of petty crimes. Under the system of serfdom, such crimes were under the jurisdiction of courts leet, which provided trials by a jury of freemen, who were often peasants themselves. A typical crime would be a violation of a pledge, misuse of property, misconduct. The legal codes of the times were rather flexible, particularly for crimes that were of little interest to a monarch.
The male slaves were beaten, tortured, and sometimes killed by cutting into pieces by sharp weapons. They were also thrown alive before carnivorous wild animals as their prey. Sometimes they were thrown into frying pans having hot boiling oil and kept on big ovens. The female slaves were made naked and flogged with leather whips having iron nails or sharp bone pieces bound to them. Their breasts were cut by sharp weapons. Genitals were penetrated with hard and blunt iron rods or wooden sticks. The Lips, cheeks, ears were pierced with nails. The young females were raped by tying their arms and legs with iron chains. Their breasts and genitals were pressed very hard causing them immense pain. Their hairs and nails were pulled by weapons. Most of the females kneeled down for mercy and surrendered for any kind of sexual favours to their masters including oral sex and licking their penis.