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Welcome to the History Extra Podcast, Fascinating Historical Conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.

Why were people tortured in the Middle Ages? Was it ever legal? And did anyone actually experience the deadly embrace of the Iron Maiden?

Speaking to Charlotte Hodgman for our latest Everything You Want to

to Know episode, Hannah Skoda answers listener questions on the use of torture in the

medieval era. We're going to be talking about medieval torture today and we have some questions in from our

social channels and also some popular Google searches. So I guess the first thing to kind of

start with which lots of people seem to want to know is was torture ever legal in England?

No, not really. That sounds like a slightly a critical response because the basic answer is that

torture was not an instrument of law, but it was an instrument of state.

So the king could authorize torture. Famous example might be the king authorizing the torture of Guy Fawkes. It's not strictly speaking

an instrument of law but we find it being used in law on multiple occasions. But I would add to that that I think torture is much, much less prevalent than we so often believe. Like if you visit a medieval castle or ever quite often there's a torture chamber to go and visit and I think

...