Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/117

Rh neck. Every village had its whipping-post, every town had its gallows for hanging, and public disgrace played a prominent part in the punishments of medieval times. The derision and scorn of the populace must have been hard to bear, however well it may have been deserved. But, after all, it must be noted that the lighter punishments fitted the crimes of those days, and were in some cases more wholesome than the solitary confinement of the modern prison. The heavier crimes were over-severely punished. From the days of Edward I. theft was punished with death in some form or another, and treason by hanging, drawing, and quartering. The low value set on life in the fourteenth century marks a strange contrast to that of the twentieth century, and it is instructive to mark the want of concern at the public death of a medieval criminal as though it were an everyday occurrence. On the other hand. Englishmen were revolted by the idea of the Inquisition, with its attendant tortures, that was making its way over the Continent at this time, and, though torture was used later as a means of extorting confession from the criminal, yet it is ever to the credit of our forefathers, in a rough and barbarous age, that they had