In Spain, Roman law was carried through the Visi gothic code and the Fuero juzgo down to the Siete partidas, corn piled by Alf onto the Wise in 1243, and promulgated in 1256. Tor ment is defined as a manner of punishment which lovers of jus tice use, to scrutinize by it the truth of crimes committed secretly, and not provable in any other manner. Repetition was allowed in case of grave crimes. There were the usual provisions for the infliction of torture only by a judge having jurisdiction, and for the liability of the judge for exceeding legal limits. Subsequent codes did little more than amend the Partidas in matters of pro cedure. In Aragon, while it was an independent state, torture was not in use to the same extent as in other parts of Spain. It was abolished in the 13th century by the General Privilege of 1283, except for vagabonds charged with coining. A statute of 1335 made it unlawful to put any freeman to the torture. On the other hand, the Aragonese nobility had power to put a criminal to death by cold, hunger and thirst. The jurists dealing with the subject are not as numerous as in Italy, no doubt because Italian opinions were received as law in all countries whose systems were based on Roman law. Among them are Suarez de Paz, Antonio Gomez and Alvarez de Velasco. The Peruvian, Juan de Hevia Bolanos, who wrote at the beginning of the 19th century, should also be noted. The principal Spanish tortures, according to Suarez de Paz, were the water and cord, the pulley or strappado, the hot brick, and the tablillas, or thumbscrew and boot combined.
Germany (including Austria) possesses the most extensive literature and legislation on the subject. The prin cipal writers are Langer, von Rosbach, von Boden, Ulrich Tengler, Remus, Casonus and Carpzow. Legislation was partly for the em pire, partly for its component states. Imperial legislation dealt with the matter in the Golden Bull (1356), the Ordinance of Bamberg (15o7) the Carolina (1532) and the Constitutio crim inalis theresiana (1768). Torture was formally abolished in the empire in 1776. In Prussia it was practically abolished by Fred erick the Great in 1740, formally in 18o5. Even before its aboli tion it was in use only to discover accomplices after conviction. In some other states it existed longer, in Baden as late as 1831.
The principal legislative enactment was the code of Philip II., known as the Ordonnance sur le style (157o). One of its main objects was to assimilate the varieties of local custom, as the Nueva recopilacion had done in Spain three years earlier. Certain cities of Brabant, however, still claimed the privilege of torturing in certain cases not permitted by the ordi nance, e.g., where there was only one witness. This law continued to be the basis of criminal procedure in the Austrian Netherlands until 1787, and in the United Provinces until 1798. The principal
text-writers are Damhouder, van Leeuwen and Voet, who took the same view as St. Augustine as to the uselessness of torture, and compared its effect with that of trial by battle.
There is a notice of torture in the Icelandic code known as the Gragas (about 1119). Judicial torture is said to have been introduced into Denmark by Valdemar I. in 1157. In the code of Christian V. (1683) it was limited to cases of treason. It was abolished by the influence of Struensee in 1771, but nothwithstanding this he was threatened with it, though, it was not actually inflicted, before his execution in 1772. In Sweden torture never existed as a system, and in the code of 1734 it was expressly forbidden. It was however occasionally inflicted, as in England, by extrajudicial authorities, called secret committees. The "cave of roses," where reptiles were kept for the purpose of torture, was closed by Gustavus III. in 1772.
The earliest mention of torture is that of the mutilation provided for certain offences by the code of Stephen. Dushan in 1349. In Russia torture does not occur in the recen sions of the earlier law. It was possibly of Tatar origin, and the earliest mention of it in an official document is probably in the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible (1497). In the ordinance of 1556 there are elaborate regulations, which were not always observed in periods of political disturbance, and torture was used even as a means of enforcing payment of debts. The reaction begins with Peter the Great and culminates with Catherine II., who was largely influenced by the opinions of Beccaria and Voltaire. In the instructions to the commission for framing a criminal code (1776) it is declared that all punishments by which the body is maimed ought to be abolished, and that the rack violates the rules of equity and does not produce the end proposed by the laws. It was formally abolished by Alexander I. in 18or, and in 1832 the Svod Zakonov subjected to penalties any judge who pre sumed to order it. But even as late as 1847 it was inflicted in one or two exceptional cases.
Numerous accounts of tortures inflicted by Asiatic monarchs survive in the narratives of early travellers. Of these, Olearius' Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors, translated by John Davies (1662). is informative. From these accounts it is apparent that torture was used regularly in the East both as an incident in judicial process, and as a part of punishment, and in some countries at least there seem to have been few checks on its employment beyond the whim of the monarch. In Persia, Olearius records that such punishments as mutilation and sawing asunder were in use. In India, again, the local despots employed torture as a mode of extracting evidence.