ter operation the
bones of the legs were literally burst.

The _brodequins_ which were often used for ordinary torture were stockings
of parchment, into which it was easy enough to get the feet when it was
wet, but which, on being held near the fire, shrunk so considerably that
it caused insufferable agony to the wearer.

Whatever manner of torture was applied, the accused, before undergoing it,
was forced to remain eight or ten hours without eating. Damhoudere, in his
famous technical work, called "Practique et Enchiridion des Causes
Criminelles" (1544), also recommends that the hair should be carefully
shaved from the bodies of persons about to undergo examination by torture,
for fear of their concealing some countercharm which would render them
insensible to bodily pain. The same author also recommends, as a rule,
when there are several persons "to be placed on the rack" for the same
deed, to begin with those from whom it would be most probable that
confession would be first extorted. Thus, for instance, when a man and a
woman were to suffer one after the other, he recommended that the woman be
first tortured, as being the weaker of the two; when a father and son were
concerned, the son should be tortured in presence of the father, "who
naturally fears more for his son than for himself." We thereby see that
the judges were adepts in the art of adding moral to physical tortures.
The barbarous custom of punishment by torture was on several occasions
condemned by the Church. As early as 866, we find, from Pope Nicholas V.'s
letter to the Bulgarians, that their custom of torturing the accused was
considered contrary to divine as well as to human law: "For," says he, "a
confession should be voluntary, and not forced. By means of the torture,
an innocent man may suffer to the utmost without making any avowal; and,
in such a case, what a crime for the judge! Or the person may be subdued
by pain, and may acknowledge himself guilty, although he be not so, which
throws an equally great sin upon the judge."

[Illustration: Fig. 342.--Type of Executioner in the Decapitation of John
the Baptist (Thirteenth Century).--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the
Psalm-book of St. Louis. Manuscript preserved in the Musee des
Souverains.]

After having endured the _previous_ torture, the different phases of which
were carried out by special tormentors or executioners, the condemned was
at last handed over to the _maistre des haultes oeuvres_