TORTURE (Lat. tortura, a twisting, tor ture, from torquere, to rack, twist, torment). The infliction of severe bodily pain either as punishment or for purpose of revenge or for the purpose of compelling the person tortured to give evidence or make confessions in judicial pro ceedings. Among primitive and savage peoples torture has been used as a means of ordeal (q.v.), and as a means of punishing captured enemies. During the Middle Ages the Church made use of torture as a means of compelling religious con formity and for the purpose of extorting evidence in heresy trials. Throughout Southern and West ern Europe the most extreme cruelties were prac ticed for this purpose (see INQUISITION), and it was not until 1816 that torture was finally prohibited by Papal bull. Examination by tor ture, otherwise called 'the question,' has been largely used in many countries as a judicial in strument for extracting evidence from unwill ing witnesses, or confessions from accused per sons. In ancient Athens slaves were always examined by torture, and their evidence seems on this account to have been deemed more valu able than that of freemen. No free Athenian could he examined by torture, but torture seems oc casionally to have been used in executing crimi nals. Under the Roman Republic only slaves could be legally tortured, and, as a general rule, they could not be tortured to establish their master's guilt.. Under the Empire, however, tor ture, besides being much used in examining slaves, might by order of the Emperor be in flicted even on freemen. to extract evidence of the crime of lasa majestas, a prerogative fre quently exercised by the Roman emperors. Cic ero and other enlightened Romans condemned its use. Until the thirteenth century torture seems to have been unknown to the canon law; about that period the Roman treason law began to be adapted to heresy as crimes hem majes tatis Dirinw. A decree of Pope Innocent IV. in 1282, calling on civil magistrates to put persons accused of heresy to the torture, to elicit con fessions against themselves and others, was prob ably the earliest instance of ecclesiastical sanc tion being extended to this mode of examina tion. Gradually the ecclesiastical courts devel oped from the Roman law and applied a system of torture which reached its culmination in the atrocities of the Inquisition. The influence of the
Church during the Middle Ages undoubtedly con tributed to the adoption of torture by the civil tribunals. It was early adopted by the Italian municipalities, but its introduction into Western Europe as an instrument of judicial inquisition as distinguished from the ordeal or eompurgation was slow. It first appeared in France in the latter part of the thirteenth century and in Ger many in the fifteenth century, and ultimately became a part of the legal system of every Euro pean nation except Sweden and England. The use of torture seems to have been repugnant to the genius of the law of England, and it never became a part of the common law, although its use by exercise of the royal prerogative was law ful both in State trials and in the case of ordi nary crimes. The first instance we have of its use is in 1310, in aid of the ecclesiastical law, during the struggle between Pope Clement V. and the Templars. Edward II., when applied to to sanction the infliction of torture by the In quisitors in the case of certain Templars accused of heresy and apostasy, at first refused; but on a remonstrance by Clement, he referred the mat ter to the council; and on the recommendation of the council, the Inquisitors were authorized to put the accused to the torture, but without mu tilation or serious injury to the person, or effu sion of the blood. During the Tudor period the council frequently assumed the power of direct ing torture-warrants to the lieutenant of the Tower, and other officers both against State prisoners and those accused of other serious crimes; and similar warrants were at times is sued under the sign manual. Under James I. and Charles I. torture was less resorted to, and only in State trials. In 1628, in the case of Felton, the assassin of the Duke of Dnekingham, the judges declared the examination of the ac cused by torture, for the purpose of discovering his accomplices, to be illegal. The last recorded instance of the use of torture in England was in the reign of Charles I. (1640) to compel a con fession of treason. The use of torture was never legal in the English colonies, and the few in stances of torture in the American colonies were properly forms of execution, or the infliction of ?wine forte et dare as a means of compelling the defendant to plead to an indictment.