Boot (torture)

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This article is about the boot as a torture instrument. For other uses, see Boot (disambiguation)

The boot was an instrument of torture and interrogation designed to crush the feet and legs. The boot has taken many forms in various places and times. Common varieties include the Spanish boot and the Malay boot.

One type was made of four pieces of narrow wooden board nailed together. The boards were measured to fit the victim's leg. Once the leg was put inside, wedges would be hammered between the boards increasing pressure. The pressure was increased until the victim confessed or fainted.

The Spanish Boot, so called for its use in the Spanish Inquisition, was an iron casing for the leg and foot. A screw or crank was used to compress the calf. The Spanish boot was often heated before or during its application. Often boiling tar or liquids would be poured into the boot, or it would be filled with cold water and heated over a fire causing the water to boil.

Primitive forerunners of the archetype can be found dating back as far as a thousand years. The first Scottish effort--also referred to as a buskin--made use of a vaguely sock-shaped rawhide garment that was soaked with water, drawn over the foot and lower leg, and bound in place with cords. The contraption was slowly heated over a gentle fire, drastically contracting the rawhide and squeezing the foot until the bones were dislocated, though there would not have been sufficient pressure actually to crush the bones of the foot. A more progressive variant, found in both the British Isles and France, consisted of a trio of upright wooden boards that splinted around and between the feet and were tied in place by cords. Wedges were hammered between the boards and the feet to dislocate and crush the bones. Finally, a prototype hailing from Autun, France, consisted of high boots of spongy, porous leather that were drawn over the feet and legs. Boiling water was poured over the boots, eventually soaking through the leather and eating the flesh away from the entrapped limbs.

Foot Press

A similar impliment, the foot press, consisted of a pair of horizontal iron plates tightened around the foot by means of a crank mechanism to lacerate the flesh and crush the bones of the foot. Although it was quite standard to line the lower plate with ribs to prevent the bare foot from slipping out of the grip of the instrument as it became sweatier, a crueler variant of this device--typically encountered in Nuremberg, Germany--lined the upper plate with hundreds of sharp spikes. A version from Venice even connected the crank mechanism to a drill, so that a hole was drilled in the center of the instep while the instrument was tightened.

The Malay Boot is a foot press made of wood. It features in a scene from the 1935 film China Seas

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