Judicial Corporal Punishment Of Women: Stories And Novels

[Gillian]

Thanks for the expanantion Jon - I may have got the wrong end of the stick (not for the first time....)

 

[nsur1]

This drawing may help in visualising how this whipping bench would work in practice -- slightly different design but clearly the same idea. I don't know the name of the artist -- there are 12 of his drawings circulating online, none credited -- but from the style and the backgrounds I've always assumed he (or she?) was Austrian or Southern German.

 

[elephas]

This drawing may help in visualising how this whipping bench would work in practice -- slightly different design but clearly the same idea. I don't know the name of the artist -- there are 12 of his drawings circulating online, none credited -- but from the style and the backgrounds I've always assumed he (or she?) was Austrian or Southern German.

View attachment 873211

This artist is known as Prue.

 

[malins]

It was argubaly more humiliating as she was entirely innocent and the punishment came out of the blue, without any sort of formal trial: dragged out of her respectable father's home by soldiers, forcibly stripped and examined for virginity in jail (which she passed, but which didn't save her), then strung up on the whipping post outside her own home in front of all her neighbours and her father's parishioners, presumably stripped at least to the waist and whipped to the blood until she was lifeless. Revived and dragged by cart to the Town Hall on the other side of the main square, where she was strung up and flogged again, and again -- again -- again -- and yet again in another four places around the perimeter of Potsdam to make sure every lowlife in town has had the chance to gawk at her nudity and hear her screams. Half-dead she is then flung onto the cart and delivered for lifelong incarceration to the workhouse in Spandau, a prison set up for fallen women and whores who are forced to spin wool for 12-15 hours a day, with constant abuse, humiliation and punishments by cruel jailers.

What's interesting about Doris Ritter's fate is that she made a return to honorable society, married well, gave birth to six children and was so much a part of European respectable society that Voltaire actually put down a brief description of her later in life, describing her as a 'tall, gaunt woman akin to a Sibyl'.
Now of course marriages in that class and age often had a transactional aspect and maybe one condition of her being accepted as wife after her fall from grace was a regular, but secret 'reenactment' of her ordeal with the husband ...

 

[nsur1]

What's interesting about Doris Ritter's fate is that she made a return to honorable society, married well, gave birth to six children and was so much a part of European respectable society that Voltaire actually put down a brief description of her later in life, describing her as a 'tall, gaunt woman akin to a Sibyl'.

I'm not sure I would describe her post-incarceration life in quite as rosy terms. Full details are given in the PDF of the book chapter I have posted above (in German only, I'm afraid), according to which she made a much less respectable match than her sisters (her husband ran a marginal haulage business), and lived on the breadline at the edges of respectable society thereafter. King Frederick II, her supposed "lover" who caused her ordeal, made very little effort to rectify it -- she was given a desultory pension and her husband was given a meaningless appointment as haulier to the court which made him effectively no money and little prestige. Voltaire did indeed visit her, but mainly out of a ghoulish attraction to her notoriety, not because he met her at Court (where she was never admitted) -- it is very clear from his description that he was going slumming when he went to her house. His description of Doris is far from flattering. He called her piano playing atrocious and said that from her ugly figure you would never have thought her to be a woman who was flogged for attracting a Prince. Of course, this visit happened more than twenty years after her flogging and incarceration, and will not reflect what she looked like at sixteen. Three years in a Bridewell-like Spinnhaus are likely to have left their marks on the poor woman, and in those days women of fourty were likely to look much more aged and haggard than today, especially if they have had a hard life.

Voltaire, incidentally, is the only source for the suggestion that the King forced Crown Prince Frederick to witness the flogging. Most other sources put Frederick in a remote jail cell far from Postdam that day, and it may be that Voltaire embellished his account, or conflated it with the established historical fact that the King forced Frederick to witness the beheading of his best friend and co-conspirator Katte a few days later.

 

[malins]

true, I didn't read the PDF, ... just skimmed some info available online, but nevertheless her fate turned out a lot better than rotting forever in the Spinnhaus...

 

[Jon Smithie]

If I were a Hollywood producer, I would definitely go with Malin's version. Maybe I'll pitch this to Mel Gibson.

 

[nsur1]

Oh, absolutely.

I also suspect Voltaire may have embellished his description of her poverty-stricken household somewhat for effect. After all, in order for him to say that her piano-playing was atrocious, he must have heard her play. Pianos were expensive in the 1750s! Still, Frederick II doesn't come out of all of this very well. Even in the day, people thought his treatment of Doris to be particularly ungrateful and shabby.

 

[windar]

What's interesting about Doris Ritter's fate is that she made a return to honorable society, married well, gave birth to six children and was so much a part of European respectable society that Voltaire actually put down a brief description of her later in life, describing her as a 'tall, gaunt woman akin to a Sibyl'.
Now of course marriages in that class and age often had a transactional aspect and maybe one condition of her being accepted as wife after her fall from grace was a regular, but secret 'reenactment' of her ordeal with the husband ...

So maybe Sanjay acted in haste by divorcing Priya...

 

[malins]

So maybe Sanjay acted in haste by divorcing Priya...

Might have been an option to develop the relationship to a new level ... but I guess the storyline needed him to disappear ...?

 

[Venom]

I'm not sure I would describe her post-incarceration life in quite as rosy terms. Full details are given in the PDF of the book chapter I have posted above (in German only, I'm afraid), according to which she made a much less respectable match than her sisters (her husband ran a marginal haulage business), and lived on the breadline at the edges of respectable society thereafter. King Frederick II, her supposed "lover" who caused her ordeal, made very little effort to rectify it -- she was given a desultory pension and her husband was given a meaningless appointment as haulier to the court which made him effectively no money and little prestige. Voltaire did indeed visit her, but mainly out of a ghoulish attraction to her notoriety, not because he met her at Court (where she was never admitted) -- it is very clear from his description that he was going slumming when he went to her house. His description of Doris is far from flattering. He called her piano playing atrocious and said that from her ugly figure you would never have thought her to be a woman who was flogged for attracting a Prince. Of course, this visit happened more than twenty years after her flogging and incarceration, and will not reflect what she looked like at sixteen. Three years in a Bridewell-like Spinnhaus are likely to have left their marks on the poor woman, and in those days women of fourty were likely to look much more aged and haggard than today, especially if they have had a hard life.

Voltaire, incidentally, is the only source for the suggestion that the King forced Crown Prince Frederick to witness the flogging. Most other sources put Frederick in a remote jail cell far from Postdam that day, and it may be that Voltaire embellished his account, or conflated it with the established historical fact that the King forced Frederick to witness the beheading of his best friend and co-conspirator Katte a few days later.

I have only just learnt about the sad story of Doris Ritter through this thread (thank you, elephas), but knew that Frederick had been made to watch his friend being executed. It is widely believed that this episode led to the abolishment of torture in Prussia by Frederick as a king.

 

[Harsh Martinet]

I agree with you: Doris was too young and innocent, her punishment was absolutely undeserved, so don't go too deep into details. But we can imagine such a story not as a historical event, but as a fantasy in a kingdom reminiscent of old Prussia, where the girl would be somewhat older, and for such a harsh sentence there would be more "solid grounds". That could be a good JCP storyline.
Also I would like to ask you, what interesting JCP stories in German do you know?

There are many ways to reimagine how Doris Ritter's punishment was carried out. Perhaps she might have been sentenced to more than just a public whipping....

 

[Harsh Martinet]

More variations

 

[Harsh Martinet]

Different methods

 

[Harsh Martinet]

Different methods

Her shame and humilation would be even worse than the pain...maybe.

 

[Harsh Martinet]

How a girl like Doris Ritter's bare back might appear after her sentence was carried out.

 

[Harsh Martinet]

More scenes from the past of public whipping. Doris Ritter was not alone.

 

[nsur1]

I'm currently mulling over whether I have the writing skills and creative imagination to try my hand at a fictionalisation of the story of Doris Ritter. Doing some more research, there are a few interesting titbits:

• One source noted that the public whipping administered to Doris Ritter was a specific penalty for convicted prostitutes, rather than female delinquents in general, and that by choosing this penalty the King had officially decreed her as a prostitute. However, even for prostitutes, the multiple whipping and in particular the sentence of life imprisonment would have been considered excessively harsh -- two to three years was the norm. Thus, the King's order had marked Doris out for public humiliation as a harlot, and to be punished accordingly, to be executed with exceptional additional harshness.
• There is a lot of material online on public punishments for prostitutes in 18th century Germany. Invariably, this involved public humiliation and (partial or full) nudity. All descriptions I have found mention the forced shearing of the hair for humiliation -- I think it is certain that Doris would have been shorn, as this is also mentioned in Bridewell as standard practice for female prisoners in the Spinnhaus.
• In Vienna of the 1750s, 20 years or so after Doris, Empress Maria Theresa decreed a very explicit punishment regime for prostitutes: they were to be stripped, flogged, had their hair shorn off and their head tarred. In this sorry state, they were to be exhibited to the public tied to the Schandpfahl ("Post of shame", which served as both pillory and whipping post), after which they were to be commited to the Spinnhaus. Note that there did not need to be any actual prostitution involved to suffer this fate -- Maria Theresa had outlawed female tavern attendants in the City's wineries, and decreed that any female waitresses found should be punished in this manner. This does not appear to have been unusual in Germany. Punishments in Hamburg in the mid-18th century were of similar harshness as in Vienna, or more so in that they substituted tarring with branding, i.e. permanent disfigurement and marking as a whore.
• It is not clear to me which of these would have been commonly used in Prussia for prostitutes in general. Whichever it was, based on the above it is likely that Doris would have been treated the same way, i.e. at the minimum shearing her hair and an element of public exposure and nudity. Public humiliation in the pillory or tying/chaining to the Schandpfahl would have been logistically difficult if they wanted to get through six separate floggings in six public squares across the city within a day, so maybe this took the form of the Hurenkarch ("whore's cart") as shown below, sitting astride a Spanish donkey on a cart with exposed breasts. As the King had marked her as worse than a common harlot, additional humiliation may have been added even if not in common use in Prussia at the time. This may have included tarring and/or branding as used in other German cities, or other imaginative indignities.
• In a more sinister vein, laws against rape or dishonorment did not apply to prostitutes -- they were deemed not to have any honour worth protecting -- and thus there would have been nothing to stop her jailers, either in the City jail before her punishment or at the Spinnhaus thereafter, to take that precious maidenhead which had only just been confirmed by the humiliating virginity test forced on her. This may even have had the King's active or tacit approval -- he knew of her virginity when he ordered her punishment, and it just seemed to have confirmed to him that not only did the harlot get her claws into his son, she strung him along with the prospect of carnal pleasure without ever putting out.

I've found a few more historical images of the flogging of females in Germany -- the first one (the flogging of an unwed mother) a few decades after Doris's punishment and the second (a flogging of a female delinquent in a house of correction) a few decades earlier. The latter seems particularly brutal as unlike any other images of whipping posts I've seen, here the delinquent is strung up entirely from her tied wrists, with her feet dangling well clear off the ground.



Also:

Different methods

Thanks for those pictures. Although it appears bizarre on first sight, the third picture is actually historically quite accurate -- a Spanish donkey mounted on a cart like this looks and functions very much like the "Hurenkarch" shown and described in the below image and quote I posted earlier in this thread. Although the historic image shows rather less nudity than the modern reimaging, the breasts are plainly exposed and she sits astride on the sharp edge of the donkey, presumably without clothes in the way:

"Hurenkarch" (whore's cart) - a perch mounted on a cart to which prostitutes or other women convicted of immorality were tied and then dragged through the town, sometimes towed by other convicted women (as in the print):

Finally, here is a higher-resolution version of the portrait of Doris Ritter from the book extract previously posted -- helps making the indignities heaped on her more personal.

 

[nsur1]

I'm probably boring everybody by now with the Doris Ritter story, but in trying to get the historical background right for a fictionalisation, I have now found the relevant passage from Voltaire's "Memoirs" (somewhat of a misnomer, as it's actually a postumous publication of a private and wonderfully gossipy account of his trip to Prussia in 1740, unfortunately of dubious factual accuracy). Voltaire is scathing about the reign of Frederick William I, whom he paints as a boorish mysogynistic miser only interested in money and collecting extremely tall soldiers. Violence to women was a speciality. According to Voltaire:

"After Frederic-William had reviewed his giants, he used to walk through the town, and everybody fled before him full speed. If he happened to meet a woman, he would demand why she stood idling her time in the streets, and exclaim, 'Go - get home with you, you lazy hussy; an honest woman has no business over the threshold of her own door;' which remonstrance he would accompany with a hearty box on the ear, a kick in the groin, or a few well applied strokes on the shoulder with his cane."

Here is Voltaire's account of the punishment of Doris Ritter:



"The prince had a sort of mistress, the daughter of a schoolmaster, of the town of Brandebourg, who had settled at Potzdam. This girl played tolerably ill upon the harpsichord, and the prince accompanied her with his flute. He really imagined himself in love, but in this he was deceived; his avocation was not with the fair sex. However, as he had pretended a kind of passion, the king, his father, thought proper that the damsel should make the tour of Potzdam, conducted by the hangman, and ordered her to be whipped in presence of his son. (...) The father was present at [Katte's subsequent execution], as he had been at that of the girl's whipping-bout."

So, not much detail but lots of innuendo about the prince's sexual inclinations being "not with the fair sex" (note later on the same page his reference to his "young, well made handsome" servant in captivity having "more than one way of amusing the royal visitor"), all in Voltaire's inimitable writing style. The reference to Doris's "tour of Potzdam, conducted by the hangman" does confirm the ritual humiliation aspect of the punishment, painting the picture of her being driven in undress and shame through the streets from whipping post to whipping post. Despite Voltaire's claims, it's pretty certain that neither King nor Prince were present in person.

Voltaire of course wasn't an eye witness, so he is relaying (and relishing in sharpening) gossip he picked up when he visited some years later. However, I have now also found the full text of the King's actual cabinet order by which he convicted Doris, in the form it was first published a century later, in 1823:



There are two orders: one to the lord mayor (and chief magistrate) of Potsdam, Counsellor Klinte, to have Doris whipped, and the other to the governour of the Spandau Spinnhaus to incarcerate her "for ever".

Translated:

"His Royal Majesty orders Counsellor Klinte, that he should tomorrow arrange the whipping of the Cantor's daughter here incarcerated, and the same then deliver forever to the Spinnhaus in Spandau. Firstly shall she be whipped in front of the Town Hall, thererafter in front of the Father's house, and then at all corners of the Town. Potsdam, the sixth day of September 1730."

"To the Government at Spandau. His Majesty orders the Governour hereby that the daughter of the Cantor here, once she is being sent over, shall be admitted for ever to the Spinnhaus there."

 

[Harsh Martinet]

I'm probably boring everybody by now with the Doris Ritter story, but in trying to get the historical background right for a fictionalisation, I have now found the relevant passage from Voltaire's "Memoirs" (somewhat of a misnomer, as it's actually a postumous publication of a private and wonderfully gossipy account of his trip to Prussia in 1740, unfortunately of dubious factual accuracy). Voltaire is scathing about the reign of Frederick William I, whom he paints as a boorish mysogynistic miser only interested in money and collecting extremely tall soldiers. Violence to women was a speciality. According to Voltaire:

"After Frederic-William had reviewed his giants, he used to walk through the town, and everybody fled before him full speed. If he happened to meet a woman, he would demand why she stood idling her time in the streets, and exclaim, 'Go - get home with you, you lazy hussy; an honest woman has no business over the threshold of her own door;' which remonstrance he would accompany with a hearty box on the ear, a kick in the groin, or a few well applied strokes on the shoulder with his cane."

Here is Voltaire's account of the punishment of Doris Ritter:

View attachment 878220

"The prince had a sort of mistress, the daughter of a schoolmaster, of the town of Brandebourg, who had settled at Potzdam. This girl played tolerably ill upon the harpsichord, and the prince accompanied her with his flute. He really imagined himself in love, but in this he was deceived; his avocation was not with the fair sex. However, as he had pretended a kind of passion, the king, his father, thought proper that the damsel should make the tour of Potzdam, conducted by the hangman, and ordered her to be whipped in presence of his son. (...) The father was present at [Katte's subsequent execution], as he had been at that of the girl's whipping-bout."

So, not much detail but lots of innuendo about the prince's sexual inclinations being "not with the fair sex" (note later on the same page his reference to his "young, well made handsome" servant in captivity having "more than one way of amusing the royal visitor"), all in Voltaire's inimitable writing style. The reference to Doris's "tour of Potzdam, conducted by the hangman" does confirm the ritual humiliation aspect of the punishment, painting the picture of her being driven in undress and shame through the streets from whipping post to whipping post. Despite Voltaire's claims, it's pretty certain that neither King nor Prince were present in person.

Voltaire of course wasn't an eye witness, so he is relaying (and relishing in sharpening) gossip he picked up when he visited some years later. However, I have now also found the full text of the King's actual cabinet order by which he convicted Doris, in the form it was first published a century later, in 1823:

View attachment 878221

There are two orders: one to the lord mayor (and chief magistrate) of Potsdam, Counsellor Klinte, to have Doris whipped, and the other to the governour of the Spandau Spinnhaus to incarcerate her "for ever".

Translated:

"His Royal Majesty orders Counsellor Klinte, that he should tomorrow arrange the whipping of the Cantor's daughter here incarcerated, and the same then deliver forever to the Spinnhaus in Spandau. Firstly shall she be whipped in front of the Town Hall, thererafter in front of the Father's house, and then at all corners of the Town. Potsdam, the sixth day of September 1730."

"To the Government at Spandau. His Majesty orders the Governour hereby that the daughter of the Cantor here, once she is being sent over, shall be admitted for ever to the Spinnhaus there."

Do we know exactly how Fraulein Ritter was stripped for her whipping? Completely naked to the waist, only her back bared, entirely naked?