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Punishment In The Middle Ages

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Crime and punishment have gone hand in hand since the cavemen roamed the Earth. Though times have progressively changed what punishments ae deemed as just, there was a time when punishments were cruel, but far from being unusual. Some of the most notable periods of exceptional punishments include the age of the Greeks and Romans, the Middle Ages, and the Age of Enlightenment. With time there definitely comes change and luckily, for criminals, this saying is especially true when it comes to change in what punishments have become acceptable. The first, and most imaginative, when it comes to punishments, being focused on will be the Greeks and Romans. Though the Romans were known to make a spectacle of all public punishments, they also had an order to their chaos. They did not just strap people to the wheel of death because it was Tuesday; there was actually procedures and protocol they had to …show more content…
The Middle Ages were a time when most aspects of life, including handing down punishments for crimes, were heavily influenced by religious views and beliefs. When it came to paying debts for crimes committed “the sinner had to pay two debts, one to society and another to God.” (Allen et al, 2013, p. 6) According to the authors, those accused of crimes were put thru “ordeal”, instead of trials, by the leader of the secular group. (Allen et al, 2013) They were putting people through different feats that were either impossible or extremely dangerous n der the “belief that those who were innocent would emerge unscathed, whereas the guilty would suffer agonies and die.” (Allen et al, 2013, p. 6) Under this Reformation, the leaders could burn a woman at the stake for being a witch and have the “logical” argument that had she been innocent, God would not have let her burn. Though freedom of religion is a wonderful thing, the Middle Ages definitely dropped the ball when it came to freedom from being prosecuted

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