Knights Templar
Foot roasting was one of the principal tortures used to extract supposed confessions of heresy and other accusations made against the Knights Templar after their arrest in October 1307. It is recorded that one Templar's feet was so savagely tortured that—as he was being carried back to his cell—various pieces of charred bone fell from his feet to the floor, here and there. Prisoners could also be suspended head-downwards from stocks, with hot coals placed directly on the soles of the feet—held in place by gravity—while thin slivers of burning embers were slid between pairs of adjacent toes. Templars were also tortured by having their limbs disjointed by a system of pulleys and weights (the strappado, or squassation) or by having sharp, thin wedges of wood or metal hammered beneath the nails of their toes and fingers, or had their teeth extracted with pliers and the empty sockets stimulated with sharp iron tools.
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Famous quotes containing the word knights:
“Here we have bishops, priests, and deacons, a Censorship Board, vigilant librarians, confraternities and sodalities, Duce Maria, Legions of Mary, Knights of this Christian order and Knights of that one, all surrounding the sinner’s free will in an embattled circle.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)