After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
Episode Title: The Dark Side of Medieval England
Date: August 25, 2025
Hosts: Dr. Anthony Delaney & Dr. Maddy Pelling
Guest: Matt Lewis, historian and co-host of Gone Medieval

Episode Overview

This episode of After Dark plunges into the grim realities of medieval England’s most notorious tortures and executions. Hosts Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney invite Matt Lewis to uncover the methods, motivations, and social context behind infamous punishments like hanging, drawing and quartering, impalement, the rack, and more. Through chilling stories, historical analysis, and thoughtful discussion, they challenge popular myths and illuminate the complex meanings of violence in medieval justice.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Spectacle of Medieval Punishment

• Purpose of Brutal Justice:

  • The most severe punishments, such as being hanged, drawn and quartered, were primarily for high treason and designed both as a deterrent and a spectacular display of state power.
  • Matt Lewis: “The point of this was that it was for the worst crime… it needed the worst punishment that they could come up with.” (05:19)

• Public Display:

  • Punishments were staged in public to maximize humiliation, shame, and deterrence. The procession through town (being ‘drawn’) was as much about spectacle as punishment.
  • Rotten vegetables, feces, and public jeering were all part of the ordeal.
  • Matt Lewis: “You would be drawn through the town… as many people as possible can see your shame and your embarrassment at the public nature of your punishment.” (06:44)

Anatomy of Hanging, Drawing & Quartering

• Stages of Punishment:

  1. Drawing: Originally being dragged to the execution site, later modified for maximum suffering and spectacle.
  2. Hanging: Prolonged strangulation, not instantaneous neck-breaking.
  3. Disembowelment and Dismemberment: Incision, removal, and burning of internal organs, occasionally while the victim was still alive; beheading and then quartering the body.
  4. Public Dissemination: Body parts displayed in different regions as ongoing warnings.

• Religious and Symbolic Significance:

  • Punishments reflected and compounded cultural anxieties, including the need for wholeness of body for resurrection.
  • Emasculation—removal of genitalia—was used for added humiliation, sometimes tied to accusations of heresy or same-sex relations, as in the case of Hugh Despenser.
  • “His penis and testicles were cut off because he was a heretic and a sodomite.” (15:47)

• Notorious Cases:

  • Guy Fawkes: Noted for trying to escape extended torture by leaping to break his own neck at execution.
  • William Wallace & Hugh Despenser: Heads and body parts sent to significant locations for maximum effect and as stark reminders.

Impalement in Medieval England

• Origins and Methods:

  • While more famous in Eastern Europe (e.g., Vlad the Impaler), impaling had occasional use in England.
  • The case of “John the Impaler,” or John Tiptoft, who impaled corpses post-mortem for public display as a warning.
  • Matt Lewis: “It’s the only example that I know of people being impaled in medieval England. And it was done to them after they were already dead. But nevertheless, we do have our very own John the Impaler.” (27:13)

• Purpose of Impaling:

  • Designed less to kill than to horrify observers—sometimes the impaled lived for days.
  • “...presumably paralyzed, but you’re essentially just then starving to death and dehydrating to death or dying of exposure.” (21:20)
  • Vlad Tepes used forests of impaled corpses to frighten entire armies.

Torture to Extract Information

• The Rack – Fact vs. Fiction:

  • Contrary to dramatic portrayals, torture (especially the rack) was not routine in medieval England.
  • The rack required special royal permission, as in the case of Guy Fawkes.
  • “Torture wasn’t something that was widely used during the period… it was illegal, really, it wasn’t the done thing.” (31:33)
  • Victims were stretched until dislocation and damage forced confessions, but authorities were wary of unreliable information.

• Alternative Punishments:

  • Blinding, mutilation, and public shaming were self-contained punishments with ritual significance.
  • Sometimes, torture was avoided if authorities believed the victim would die before providing useful information.

Reliability of Confessions under Torture

• Medieval Perspective:
  • Extracting confessions was often seen as necessary, especially for treason; yet there was some awareness that torture produced unreliable admissions.
  • “They did have this understanding that information isn’t going to be reliable… but it was legitimate as an ultimate step.” (38:30)
  • The religious ethos sometimes conflicted with the routine infliction of harm.

Execution, Torture, and Punishment: The Spectrum

• Nuanced Application:
  • The medieval justice system wielded a diverse array of punishments, often carefully calibrated (“the punishment ought to fit the crime”).
  • Examples: Cutting off hands for coiners; blinding heirs to disable their claim to the throne; escalation to gory executions for treason.
  • Public perception of medieval violence may be distorted by the extreme (but rare) cases that have survived in culture and memory.
  • “We have a view of them as being slightly barbaric and maybe a little bit backward, which is unfair… they just lived in a different world.” (43:47)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On deterrence and state power:

  • “What they’re suffering is a lesson to everybody else who might be thinking about doing what they’re doing. Really, the impact is meant to be on the crowd.”
    — Matt Lewis (08:29)

• On the psychological dance of torture:

  • “It’s quite a dynamic scene, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a psychological struggle between the person being tortured and the person doing the torture.”
    — Maddy Pelling (37:47)

• On spectacle and fame:

  • “There’s something there that people would have been drawn to these events to see these famous people as much as to see them be killed by the state, I guess.”
    — Maddy Pelling (17:13)

• On the rarity of torture:

  • “That’s a real new nugget of information for me as well. But here’s the final question before we wrap up…”
    — Anthony Delaney (44:12)

• Closing hypothetical:

  • “You have to choose from crushing, the rack, impaling, or being hanged, drawn and quartered… which are you going to choose as your form of punishment?”
    — Anthony Delaney (45:10)

• Comedic relief amid the grim:

  • “I often think about Margaret Clithero, who is crushed, I think, in the 16th century in York on the Ouse Bridge. And I think she’s crushed under the weight of her own door. I mean, it’s insulting.”
    — Maddy Pelling (46:16)

Timestamps for Major Topics

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|-----------------------------------------| | 03:38 | Introduction to torture & executions | | 05:01 | Hanging, drawing, quartering explained | | 09:31 | Public spectacle and deterrence | | 10:03 | Quartering and significance | | 15:12 | Sexual humiliation & ritual symbolism | | 19:59 | Impaling: Vlad & John the Impaler | | 30:12 | The rack & extraction of confessions | | 37:47 | Psychology of torture & truthfulness | | 41:36 | Justice spectrum: punishment, torture | | 45:10 | Which punishment would you pick? | | 46:16 | Margaret Clithero and crushing |

Episode Takeaways

• Medieval punishments were carefully staged performances, intended as much for the living audience as for the condemned.
• While the era’s violence can seem appalling today, many punishments were rare, purpose-driven, and embedded in cultural, religious, and legal contexts.
• There is a crucial distinction between torture (to extract information), punishment (to fit specific crimes), and spectacular executions (often political in aim).
• Misconceptions, heavily influenced by modern depictions, obscure the complexity and infrequency of torture in medieval England.
• The conversation ends with a darkly humorous “would you rather?” about preferred medieval punishments, highlighting both the horror and the enduring fascination with this period.

Further Listening:
Check out Matt Lewis’s podcast, Gone Medieval, for more deep dives into Britain’s shadowy past.

Contact:
Email your thoughts or suggest episodes to afterdark@historyhit.com