Diodorus, a historian of the first century BC, says that if a man violated a married woman, he was emasculated; if it was adultery with consent, the man got a thousand blows with a rod, and the woman had her nose cut off.
An eighth-century Irish ‘Table of Commutations’ says of sinners who need to hold prayer vigils that they should, in order to stay awake, lie down not only in water, on nettles or on nutshells, but also sometimes with a corpse in the grave.
Among the monks of the early Christian church, homosexuality was euphemistically called a ‘special friendship’. Each monastery had its own rules to control the behaviour of the monks, and these featured a variety of physical punishments to deter homosexual activity. Usually, any outward display of affection of one man for another was disciplined as severely as the sexual act itself. Even such innocent practices as tucking a tunic around the thighs while laundering clothes was forbidden as a possible source of temptation for another. Nocturnal emissions were also a source of great concern for the monks.
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To explain the uncontrollable dreams that brought such intense pleasure, they invented the succubus, a beautiful female demon who tempted men in their sleep. To ward against her attentions, monks would tie a metal crucifix to their genitals before retiring for the night.
This custom actually originated in the Roman arena, where gladiators tied bits of cold metal to their testicles on the night before a combat — they believed that the metal’s chill would prevent them having an involuntary nocturnal ejaculation that would sap their strength (43).
And there is much more from the early Celtic church: for example, Cunmean’s Penitential was composed in the seventh century AD and devoted particular attention to homosexual activities between men. It catalogued virtually every potential sexual variation, and the degree of punishment demanded depended on the extent of homosexual contact: passionate kissing earned eight fasts, but a simple kiss only six. Mutual masturbation and interfemoral stimulation received several years of reduced rations. Cunmean reserved the most severe punishment of seven years atonement for anal intercourse.
However, standards seem to have been slightly different for the ladies. As early Irish Christian nuns, the virgins of Kildare shared with their Roman Christian sisters a loathing for sexual relationships with men. But they may not have been completely celibate. Brigid herself (the Abbess of Kildare) shared her bed with Darlughdacha ..…on one occasion, Darlughdacha looked lustfully at a passing warrior. To punish and purify her, Brigid made her walk in shoes filled with hot coals. Presumably, Brigid took Darlughdacha back into her bed when she felt the woman had suffered enough for this heterosexual flirtation (44).
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In ancient Greece, a male adulterer could be punished by having a large radish stuck up his rectum, doubtless symbolizing the penis of the injured husband. As a further insult, the adulterer was subject to having his pubic hair singed off, whereby he was made to look like a woman (45).
In the recently excavated Augustinian Friary of Kingston-upon-Hull, in northern England, some coffin burials of 1340–1360, the time of the Black Death, contained monks accompanied by what seem to be flagellation sticks — they are a metre long, and made of willow or hazel to be extra whippy.
In the Brehon law of Celtic society, if a man forcibly shaved the pubic hair of an unwilling woman, he was liable for her full honour-price and a ‘dire’ (punitive fine) (46). On the other hand, a woman could divorce her husband if he were clearly barren, impotent or very fat. ‘The Celts believed that extreme male obesity was a barrier to efficient lovemaking and placed an intolerable burden on the female partner.’ Moreover, if a husband revealed his wife’s intimate secrets to another, or displayed such sexual desire for other men or boys that his wife was deprived of his conjugal services, she could divorce him.
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In medieval London, if butchers were caught selling bad meats (‘putrid, rotten, stinking, and abominable to the human race’), the culprits were punished by being placed in the pillory and having the putrid matter burnt beneath their noses.
Torture: The ancient Chinese had a curious and horrible form of punishment. Some criminals were enclosed in barrels or boxes filled with building lime, and exposed in a public street to the rays of the noonday sun; food in plenty was within reach of the unfortunate wretches, but it was salt fish, or other salty foods, with all the water needed to satisfy the thirst this food was certain to excite, but in the very alleviation of which the poor criminals were only adding to the torments that would overtake them when by a more copious discharge from the kidneys the lime would ‘quicken’ and burn them to death.
