The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly


Wellred Weekly
Volume 2, Number 2 : August 19, 2013
 
Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking
bulletHome
bulletFeatures
Articles
Promos
1
Cartoons
Comments:
161

bulletIssues
Volume 1
Volume 2
spanking library
The Allure of the Stocks and Whipping Post
by cayenne

Stocks in Keevil, Wiltshire
Every working day I pass by an ancient village whipping post and stocks. If I'm on the bus, I don't have much choice as the route inevitably passes through almost every village and hamlet imaginable. If I'm in the car, that particular set of stocks and adjacent whipping post are slightly out of my way, but nine times out of ten I go that way anyway. Is there a secret allure to these fearsome features of otherwise delicate chocolate box villages? Maybe there is for a spanko? I find the stocks and whipping posts strangely comforting, harking back to simpler, but more brutish times. In those days, corporal punishment was very much a spectator sport. The same villages probably host disciplinary events today, but only behind closed curtains!

You will find England's towns and villages still have a substantial legacy of whipping posts and stocks. Some hold listed building status, so their future is assured. Indeed, some are truly ancient, dating back to Saxon times. Others are replicas, but the vast majority are originals. I cannot speak for other parts of the kingdom, as circumstances dictate that I rarely travel far.

Whipping Post by Granger, 1878
An ancient law of 1405 decreed that every village and town (but not hamlet) had to be furnished with a set of stocks. Offenders were secured by their ankles, often for several hours. Such stocks remained in use until the early part of the 19th century. An earlier statute of 1351 commonly known as the "Whipping Act" imposed by notorious womaniser and general shit Henry VIII introduced whipping for vagabonds. Initially, offenders were secured to carts for their whippings, but gradually whipping posts became popular as the frame of the stocks could be used or augmented by a proper whipping post for such punishments. Whipping posts and the stocks went together rather like spanking and sex! Most whipping posts were wooden with metal manacles. Some stone posts can be found, generally with chains for securing the hands.


Artwork by Bessonov Nicolay (1990).
Minor crimes were dealt with in the stocks. Sinners were secured by their feet and had all manner of unpleasant items thrown at them. I'm avoiding detail here, but it wasn't just fruit and veg! Humiliation was encouraged. The stocks are sometimes confused with the pillory. The latter was a more severe punishment as the head and hands were secured, making it far more difficult to dodge any missiles. The whipping post was also used for the punishment of relatively minor crimes. Initially, the whole body was liable to be bared for whipping, but gradually such punishments were limited to the back and shoulders. Ironically, this was a more severe punishment than whipping of the buttocks, but was decreed in the interests of public decency.

Certainly the use of the whipping post was not restricted to England and an entry in the Statute Books of Virginia, USA in 1662 reads as follows:
The court in every county shall cause to be set up near a Court House a Pillory, a pair of Stocks, a Whipping Post and a Ducking-Stool in such place as they think convenient, which not being set up within six month after the date of this act the said Court shall be fined 5,000 lbs. of tobacco.

Furthermore, Alice Morse Earle in Curious Punishments of Bygone Days writes:
As a good, sound British institution, and to have familiar home-like surroundings in the new strange land, the whipping-post was promptly set up, and the whip set at work in all the American colonies. In the orders sent over from England for the restraint of the first settlement at Salem, whipping was enjoined, "as correccon is ordaned for the fooles back" — and fools’ backs soon were found for the "correccon"; tawny skins and white shared alike in punishment, as both Indians and white men were partakers in crime. Scourgings were sometimes given on Sabbath days and often on lecture days, to the vast content and edification of Salem folk.

The whipping-post was speedily in full force in Boston. At the session of the court held November 30, 1630, one man was sentenced to be whipped for stealing a loaf of bread; another for shooting fowl on the Sabbath, another for swearing, another for leaving a boat "without a pylott." Then we read of John Pease that for "stryking his mother and deryding her he shalbe whipt.

The old village stocks in Chapeltown, Lancashire, England.

In researching this article, I inevitably came across some gruesome punishments from olden times. I really try to avoid anything approaching torture, but be warned you will find stomach-turning stuff if you dig too deeply. I mean ducking stools, gibbets, branding and mutilation. Don't even go there!





11 comments



  Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19