Weapons of the Times

What would have been the worst aspect of life during the European middle ages? Heinous personal hygiene? No. Disease and famine? Hardly. That really crappy mandolin music that midgets enjoy dancing to? Close, but wrong again. The worst thing about medieval life was the unwavering evil of the Christian "justice" system and the tools of torture they employed.

The following are the 20 worst torture devices of all time in order of sheer terror:

20. Punishing Shoes

The shoes were often used in conjunction with the standing pillory (a device that holds your head and wrists in place while you stand). How long do you think you could stand on your tippy-toes before you had to rest your heels on those iron spikes?

19. Heretic's Fork

The four sharp points snugly nestled under the chin and sternum were designed to allow the victim just enough range of motion with his mouth to murmer a confession.

18. Dunking Stool

Used primarily on women (as was the case for most devices of pseudo-sexual torture), the dunking stool would dip its occupant into a river for as long as the authorities saw fit.

17. The Boots

The victim's legs were placed between two planks of wood and bound together with cords. Between the cords the torturers placed wedges with which they would violently hammer. Each time a wedge was hammered, an acute portion of the shin bone was shattered. The tormentors could hammer at least a dozen wedges up and down the legs. When the Boots were removed, the bone fragments fell to pieces and the skin of the lower legs merely served as loose sacks for them.

16. Water Torture

This is the only non-medieval, European torture on our list. The water torture was a favorite among Japanese POW guards during WWII. The victim was first bound with barbed wire and his mouth stuffed with rags. Next, the guards would snake a tube down the victim's nasal passage and bloat his belly with water. Once that was finished, the guards would kick and beat the poor sap's midsection until his stomach lining burst and and death ensued.

15. Cat's Paw

This was simply used to slowly tear the flesh from its victim, often times all the way down to the bone.

14. The Rack

It does exactly what it looks like it does: the rack pulls your body from end to end until your limbs are slowly plucked from their joints.

13. Quartering by Horses

Quartering is the rack taken to the next level and was reserved only for murderers and those who killed or attempted to take the life of a nobleman or royalty. Each of the prisoner's limbs were tied to a horse and the horses were whipped simultaneously so that each limb would erupt from the body in an instant. A crowd favorite.

12. The Pear

Hinging on your gender, the pear was either placed in your anus or your vagina in its thin form and then cranked to open up and blossom into a rather uncomfortable position.

11. Cleansing the Soul

In many Catholic countries, the clergy believed that the corrupted soul of a damned person could be cleansed if they were forced to consume boiling water, burning coals, or both. Of course, this was what happened to prisoners before they were punished for their crime -- sort of a "warm-up" torture, if you will.

10. The Hanging Cage

The pictured victim is one of the lucky ones because most occupants were caged completely naked to expose them to either extreme cold or hot weather conditions. And... most caged prisoners were usually placed in there only after other means of extreme physical torture were administered. But wait -- there's more! The victims were left in the cage until they died from either the elements or thirst, which could take weeks.

9. The Head Crusher

If ever an explanation was in a name, the head crusher is it. Death by head crusher usually went something like this: the teeth imploded into their sockets and smashed the surrounding jaw bones. Then the eyes squirted from their sockets and finally, brain matter squirted from the ears. Unbelievably, many nations still use a version of the head crusher to this very day as an interrogation tool.

8. Burning at the Stake

A favorite execution for those accused of witchcaft. Clergy believed