1. This CARW2023 cache will be published about 6pm on Thursday, March 2, 2023.
2. This cache has been placed for the CARW event with the intention that it not be located prior to 9:00 a.m. Saturday March 4, 2023. The caches for the CARW event are released early so that the geocaching community has an opportunity to plan their routes and strategies prior to the event start.
3. Should you hunt and find this cache before the event start, it will not count for the event, and FTF points are only valid as of 9AM March 4th.
Medieval Torture
In the middle ages torture was used to extract information, force confessions, punish suspects, frighten opponents, and satisfy personal hatred.
Historically, ancient Greeks and Romans used torture for interrogation. Until the second century AD, torture was used only on slaves.. A slave's testimony was admissible only if extracted by torture.
The word 'torture' comes from the French torture, originating in the Late Latin tortura and ultimately deriving the past participle of torquere meaning 'to twist'. Many characteristically Christian tortures rely on a twisting of the limbs, twisting ligatures, or turning screw mechanisms as the Church discouraged the shedding of blood.
The Norman French who came to England with William the Conqueror used torture to extract treasure from the Anglo-Saxons in their new kingdom. During the Anarchy, the Norman supporters of both of the claimants to the throne practiced torture to extract gold and silver from the peasantry. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1139 puts it:
They hanged them by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung fires on their feet; they put knotted strings about their heads, and writhed them so that it went to the brain ... Some they put in a chest that was short, and narrow, and shallow, and put sharp stones therein, and pressed the man therein, so that they broke all his limbs ... I neither can nor may tell all the wounds or all the tortures which they inflicted on wretched men in this land.
Medieval and early modern European courts used torture, depending on the accused's alleged crime and social status. Torture was deemed a legitimate means to extract confessions or to obtain the names of accomplices or other information about a crime. In theory, it was permitted only if there was already half-proof against the accused. Defendants already sentenced to death would be tortured to force them to disclose the names of accomplices.
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