Even In Enlightenment Britain, You Could Be Sentenced To Death By Being Crushed With Huge Weights

Europeans were creative when it came to torture. They developed some of the most excruciating and slowest methods of torture in history, including the horrific blood eagle torture method. But one of the worst forms of torture was not even considered torture by the court. It was an official sentence: pressing to death. 


The men and women who were sent to death by crushing in Britain had not been found guilty of any crime. In fact, they refused to plead innocent or guilty, and pressing was supposed to coerce them to enter a plea so they could go to trial. The victims could end their torment at any time if they simply cried out "not guilty."


Dating back to the 13th century, England used pressing as a form of punishment, and it continued well into Britain's Enlightenment. Victims not only suffocated, but their bones were also crushed and sometimes even burst through their skin. And the most famous case occurred in the United States, when Giles Corey was pressed to death in the Salem witch trials. Shockingly, people who were pressed to death often had a very good reason for choosing their brutal executions.



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