The iron virgin is still one of the most notorious torture devices of all time, but contrary to the popular opinion, it was never used in the Middle Ages.

The Print Collector/Getty Images. Woodcut of an iron virgin who is used in a torture chamber.

The iron virgin is perhaps one of the most famous medieval torture devices of all time, which is primarily thanks to her awareness in films, television series and cartoons such as Scooby-Doo. As for torture devices, however, the iron virgin is quite simple.

It is a human -shaped box that is lined with incredibly sharp spines on the inside, which the victim would probably drill through both sides if the box was closed. However, the spines were not long enough to kill a person immediately; They were quite short and so positioned that the victim suffered a slow and painful death by death over time.

At least that was the idea. Only the iron virgin was not a medieval torture instrument at all.

The first written mention of the Iron Virgin was only in the late 18th century, long after the end of the Middle Ages. And although there were undoubtedly torture in the Middle Ages, many historians argue that the medieval torture was much easier than later reports suggest.

Many medieval torture instruments were not really medieval.

It is generally assumed that the Middle Ages was an uncivilized period of history.

The collapse of the Holy Roman Empire led to a drastic decline in technological performance and material culture, since the infrastructure built by the Romans collapsed almost completely. Suddenly, Europeans could no longer rely on the mass production of Roman factories or the complex trading systems of Rome.

Instead, everything got smaller. The pottery was primitive and homemade. Luxury goods were no longer traded over long distances. That is why some scientists often describe the Middle Ages as the “dark age”: it seemed as if everything was in decline.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Medieval farmers in field work and sowing.

Essentially, some Italian scholars analyzed world history in three clearly distinguishable phases from the 14th century: the classic age when the ancient Greeks and Romans were at the height of their wisdom and power; the renaissance in which these scholars lived and the general location was in the upswing; And everything in between, the Middle Ages.

As the British historian Janet Nelson explained in the History Workshop Journal, these writers believed that “their age was a age of reviving the classical culture. They saved the Greek from almost completely forgetting, remedied errors from Latin, cleared the fog from philosophy, the grossness of theology and the roughness of art.”

For this reason, the troubled years between classic antiquity and the Renaissance were considered an uncivilized and barbaric era of history and many torture instruments that were used long or after, were associated with the Middle Ages.

The first mention of the Iron Maiden

As Peter Konieczny, editor of the Medieval Warfare magazine, wrote for Medievists.net, were not at all medieval at all.

The first mention of the Iron Maiden comes from the 18th century writer Johann Philipp Siebenkees, who described the instrument in a city guide in Nuremberg.

In it he described a execution in 1515 in Nuremberg, in which a criminal was supposedly placed in a sarcophagus -like device that was provided with sharp nails.

The man was pushed into the device and executed “slowly”, wrote Siebenkees, “so that the very sharp tips of his arms and in several places his legs, his stomach and chest, his bladder and the basis of his limbs, his eyes, his shoulder and buttocks penetrated deep enough to kill him.

Roger Violet about Getty Images. The iron virgin from Nuremberg.

However, many scientists believe that Siebenkees might have invented this story and that the iron virgin never existed before the 18th century.

The myth of the Iron Virgin spreads out

Shortly after Siebenkees published its story, museums all over Europe and the USA Iron Maidens appeared. They were assembled from various medieval artifacts and waste metal and shown to those who were ready to pay admission. One of them even appeared at the world exhibition in Chicago in 1893.

Perhaps the most famous of these artifacts was the Nuremberg iron virgin, built in the early 19th century and destroyed in 1944 in a bombing of the Allies. The Nuremberg Iron Virgin was finally classified as a fake, but some claim that it had already been in use in the 12th century.

According to a terrifying report, an iron virgin was found in 2003 at the headquarters of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee in Baghdad. Time reported that Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein’s son, headed the country’s Olympic Committee and the country’s football association. He is said to have used the iron virgin to torture poor athletes.

Konieczny identified several other torture devices that were incorrectly attributed to the Middle Ages. The bronze animal, for example, is often seen as a medieval invention, but its origins are said to be in the 6th century BC. Chr. Back.

The fear bulb is also associated with the Middle Ages, but similar devices can only be found in the mid -19th century. The torture bank also became a synonym for the Middle Ages, although it occurred much more frequently in antiquity. Only a current copy from 1447, which can be found in the Tower of London, can be demonstrated.

In fact, the torture methods in the Middle Ages were significantly less complex. How does the shammal differ from the Iron Virgin?

The credibility of Siebenkees ’story has been questioned and it is assumed that it was invented by the historian himself. It is also possible that Siebenkees misinterpreted a medieval penalty instrument called Shammantel, which was used for public humiliation by German prostitutes and poachers. Although the Iron Virgin resembled it, the shame had no spines.

Torture device “Shield of shame”. (Flominator / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Siebenkees ’report on this terrible device inspired his readers and iron virgins were created on the basis of his writings. In addition, the iron virgin was closely connected to the city of Nuremberg and known as a Nuremberg virgin (an iron virgin with the head of the Virgin Mary) and Nuremberg iron virgin.

At the beginning of the 19th century, iron virgins were not only manufactured and exhibited in Nuremberg, but also in other European cities. Towards the end of the 19th century, in 1893, an iron virgin was even exhibited at the world exhibition in Chicago. The iron virgins, which were created at the time, were composed of various medieval artifacts and spare parts and presented to the public for a fee.

The head of the virgin on the Iron Virgin symbolizes the triumph of the Catholic Church over heresia. (Grafenschreck / CC BY-SA 4.0)

What did torture really look like in the Middle Ages?

Most of these myths about torture in the Middle Ages were spread by people who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, explained Konieczny.

“It seems that people in the Middle Ages were much wilder because they wanted to look less wild,” Konieczny told Live Science. “It is much easier to make fun of people who have been dead for 500 years.”

Konieczny is essentially convinced that people in their representations of the Middle Ages in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the following years, this exaggeration has increased, and today many of these myths from the 18th century are considered a reality.

In recent years, for example, it has been argued that the threshing flail, a ball and chain weapon that is usually associated with the Middle Ages were not used in the Middle Ages, contrary to the popular opinion.

In fact, the threshing flail only appeared in epic works of art that represented fantastic battles, but was never performed in a catalog of medieval weapons. Like the iron virgin, the threshing flail seems to have been associated with a certain era thanks to the influence of later stories.

Rischgitz/Getty Images. A 15th century court in which a defendant was tortured in front of the jury’s eyes to force a confession.

However, this does not mean that there were no torture at the time.

“In the Middle Ages, the idea prevailed that you could only be honest with severe punishment and great stress,” said Konieczny. “The fact that the truth would come to light when it begins to hurt.”

However, there were much easier ways to extract this information for which no long list of elaborate devices was required.

“The most common torture method was to simply captivate people with ropes,” said Konieczny.

So you have it. In the past, there have certainly been directional methods similar to the iron virgin – the idea of ​​a box with spines in it is not particularly revolutionary – but the iron virgin itself seems to be more fiction than reality.