Brodequin (torture)

The brodequin was a method of torture that used during the Middle Ages.

The victim would be placed on a bench in a sitting position, with strong, narrow boards of wood fixed tightly to the inside and outside of either of the victim's legs, bound together tightly with strong rope, causing a sandwich effect on either leg. Wedges of wood were then driven into the gaps with a mallet where the victim's legs lay. This would often cause such impact and trauma that the victim's bones would literally burst, and bone marrow would leak out.[1] For ordinary felonies, four wedges were used; for more extreme cases the number of wedges would be doubled and eight were used.[2]