Tudor Naming and Shaming

Tudor Naming and Shaming

Fornication and incest were punishable by ‘carting’: being carried through the city in a cart, or riding backwards on a horse, wearing a placard describing the offence – an Elizabethan version of naming and shaming. Many offences were punished by the pillory – the criminal stood with his head and his hands through holes in a wooden plank. This could be as painful as public opinion decided, as the crowd gathered round to throw things at the wretched criminal. Stones were banned, in theory, but if the public felt deeply, the offender might not finish his sentence alive. Sometimes one or both of the offender’s ears were nailed to the pillory, sometimes they were cut off anyway. A sentence of whipping meant that the offender’s back was laid open raw and bloody, as he staggered along the appointed route through the city.