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forward slash history.

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 Wanted 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 equivocal 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 authorise torture. The famous example might be the king authorising

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

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