Elizabethan Era Crime and Punishment Essay Example

not "sick or crippled", and was begging, they could be punished.

Other people, such as, “Palm readers, wizards, unlicensed healers, tinkers, and minstrels were now defined as vagrants, liable to be whipped and burned on the ear for a first offense and hanged for a second, unless they quickly found masters. Earlier parliaments had restricted begging, ordered that vagrants be whipped and sent back to their home parishes, seized child vagrants and placed them into apprenticeships, and even permitted the enslavement of able-bodied beggars. " (The renaissance: Crime and Punishment). There were many other crimes, and certain tools and methods of punishment were designed to fit the crime.

A punishment for women gossiping was the ducking stool. It was a chair attached to a lever used to dunk women under water. When woman was in the water “the women usually drowned. ” (The Renaissance: Crime and Punishment). Another tool was the amputation saw. And the body would be in terrible pain because “it was used to remove a limb slowly and painfully. ” (The Renaissance: Crime and Punishment). Beheading was used for the higher-class people, “because it was considered a more honorable way to die. ” (Elizabethan Crime and Punishment). “One of the most popular of Elizabethan punishments was the pillory. ” (Elizabethan Crime and Punishment).

The pillory had a wooden block with three holes in it for the head and hands. Criminals would be locked up in the pillory and wait in public for their decided punishment. There were different variations of the pillory. The stocks were like the pillory except that the feet were locked up. They were “used for

public drunkenness and for temporarily holding a criminal. ”(The Renaissance: Crime and Punishment) In another type of pillory, “toes were put through holes and smashed by a hammer and wedge. ” (Elizabethan Crime and Punishment). The finger pillory was used for higher classed people for bad behavior during social gatherings.

It was very painful for finger because they would be put into a “block of wood and kept bent at a ninety-degree angle at the middle knuckle. ” (Elizabethan Crime and Punishment). There were many laws and “everyone was confined within strictly defined limits, which were imposed and enforced by the ruling estates, the clergy and the feudal nobility. ” (Martin) Elizabethan crime and punishments are very different from those of today. Judicial systems, prisons, and the Constitution prevent these cruel and unusual punishments from happening. Treason is no longer a reason for death, and strange torture devices are not used for punishing a criminal.