PILLORY, an instrument of punishment which consisted of a wooden post and frame fixed on a platform raised several feet from the ground, behind which the culprit stood, his head and his hands being thrust through holes in the frame (as are the feet in the stocks) so as to be held fast, exposed in front of it. This frame in the more complicated forms of the instrument consisted of a perforated iron circle, which secured the heads and hands of several persons at the same time, but it was commonly capable of holding only one.
In the statutes of Edward I. it is enacted that every pillory or "stretch-neck" should be made of convenient strength so that execution might be done on offenders without peril of their bodies. It was customary to shave the heads wholly or partially, and the beards of men, and to cut off the hair and even in ex treme cases to shave the heads of female culprits. By the "Statute
of the Pillory" (1266) the pillory was made the penalty for many small offences. In 1637 an attack was made on the Press, and the pillory became the recognized punishment of those who published books without a licence or libelled the Government. In 1816 the pillory was abolished except for perjury and subornation, and the perjurer Peter James Bossy was the last to stand in the pillory, at the Old Bailey for one hour on June 22, 1830. It was finally abolished in 1837 at the end of William IV.'s reign. In France the pillory, called tartan, was employed till 1832. In Germany it was known as granger. The pillory was used in the American colonies, and provisions as to its infliction existed in the United States statute books until 1839; it survived in the State of Delaware until 1905. (See STOCKS.)