Judicial Corporal Punishment Of Women: Stories And Novels

[elephas]

Feminine Justice in Singapore

A 1995 story from alt.sex.spanking in which five girls (two American and three Swedish) are brought to trial in Singapore on charges of shoplifting. The court sentenced them to severe paddling, although, as we know, caning is officially used in this country.

 

[nsur1]

Would that I were fluent in German and Latin! I do have a limited acquaintance with both, but not to the extent that I would be able to make any headway in the Theatrum Peonarum. I am determined to improve my German, however, and have decided to begin a close study of Mark Twain's The Awful German Language ("Awful," I'm sure, meant in its archaic meaning, i.e. "full of awe") by way of attaining fluency.

Indeed it is. I was especially curious about the following:

I assume this means that the shackles at the galley's rowing benches were more or less permanently welded onto the prisoner. So prisoners were not able to take comfort breaks, coffee breaks, or just get up when things were slow, stretch their legs and admire the view. I would think it would make it inconvenient at best to release a prisoner from his bench when his sentence were over, or if he were sick, or disabled. Maybe instead of cutting the shackles off the prisoner, the prisoner was cut off the shackles? I wonder what the average life expectancy of galley slaves was?

Men and women? They didn't give anybody a break! I've heard about female "circumcision" aka female genital mutilation, but I wonder what Dopler had in mind with castrating women.

When pony play gets real.

Not enough to kill them, you have to embarrass them first. I believe the English philosophy of the 17th-19th century was that a person sentenced to capital punishment could not be subjected to corporal punishment as well. Was that different in Germany? I don't know about America, either, come to think of it, but we Americans usually followed the English model.

I would guess a halter top or apron sort of garment. I've noticed occassionally in other writing of the 1700-1800's, that when a narrator mentions that a woman was stripped of her clothing, it turns out he only means she was stripped to her chemise and skirts. I'm hopeful that that typically was nothing more than a gentle dissimulation to protect the finer feelings of the readers of the time. But no, the idea that a woman might be subjected to a public punishment and yet allowed to protect her modesty really doesn't bear thinking about.

Thanks for your detailed thoughts, Jon!

There are quite a few separate points to comment on -- allow me to disentangle them.

Regarding the various chapter headings in the index, my translations are somewhat loose in that I tried to convey the contents of the chapters along with the literal meaning of the heading without being too verbose. Let me expand on the ones you were curious about:

I assume this means that the shackles at the galley's rowing benches were more or less permanently welded onto the prisoner. So prisoners were not able to take comfort breaks, coffee breaks, or just get up when things were slow, stretch their legs and admire the view. I would think it would make it inconvenient at best to release a prisoner from his bench when his sentence were over, or if he were sick, or disabled. Maybe instead of cutting the shackles off the prisoner, the prisoner was cut off the shackles? I wonder what the average life expectancy of galley slaves was?

The German chapter heading is "Von Schicken und Schmieden der Gefangenen auf die Galeen" [in modern German you would say "Galeeren"], where "Schicken" means "sending" and "Schmieden" is generally translated as "to forge" or "forging", but here is better translated as "to put somebody permanently in irons". I used "welding" as a shorter way of saying that. The chapter is somewhat hearsay, as the author specifically says that it's a common punishment in other countries such as Spain, France and England, but not in Germany. He says it replaces the ancient Roman punishments of "deportation" and "damnationum in metallis" (presumably "put in chains"). And yes, the way he describes it the condemned were permanently chained to their seats in the galleys and he does say that it's somewhat academic whether they are condemned for ten years or for life as they die rowing anyway.

Men and women? They didn't give anybody a break! I've heard about female "circumcision" aka female genital mutilation, but I wonder what Dopler had in mind with castrating women.

Again, "castrating" is my shorthand translation. The German is "Von Auschneidung der Manns- und Weibs-Bilder", which literally translates as "Of the cutting-out of men and women". The chapter then goes on to describe (in 10 pages!) examples from antiquity of making eunuchs for harems by castrating boy servants or prisoners, and of castrating male adulterers, moving on to castration of rapists in medieval Germany, followed by several pages of untranslated Latin which I take to be in the same vein. He then gets very excited (and hard to understand) when he talks of the "cutting out of women", citing various anecdotes from antiquity some of which seem to relate to female circumcision/genital mutilation and others to female sterilisation. He claims that in certain parts of Africa, prior to their first marriage, women are "cut out" by "smearing the place where women are different from men with honey, let it dry out, and then adding ants which are allowed to feed until skin and hair are gone and the parts look like the inside of a tree's bark". I think his imagination went into overdrive here...

When pony play gets real.

That's one of the shortest chapters in the book, at just over a page describing three very fanciful examples: (i) a Persian king nailing horseshoes on a rebel, then binding him for three days on a bird perch (which rather mixes metaphors) and then shooting him dead with arrows, (ii) a confused story of a blacksmith in Prussia whose wife was turned into a horse by satan who then tried to get the husband to put horseshoes on her and (iii) a hard-to-believe claim that the Turks punished some prisoners by nailing horseshoes to parts of their bodies with the nails over the years growing into the flesh.

Not enough to kill them, you have to embarrass them first. I believe the English philosophy of the 17th-19th century was that a person sentenced to capital punishment could not be subjected to corporal punishment as well. Was that different in Germany? I don't know about America, either, come to think of it, but we Americans usually followed the English model.

The text of this chapter is mostly in Latin, but in most of the examples given, "degrading" seems to be used in the sense of "stripping the condemned of their rank", i.e. members of the nobility, the clergy, academics or military officers being formally stripped of their title before being executed. That was (and still is, I think) normal practice for court martials in most countries: officers sentenced to death are stripped of their military rank in a separate formal ceremony. However, the book also then cites some examples of "degrading" in its more modern sense of "humiliating" and in the final paragraph of this chapter (and the entire book) recounts the old story that the Romans raped virgin girls before executing them, mentioning Suetonius's story of the rape of the daughter of Seianus as well as Christian martyrs.

I would guess a halter top or apron sort of garment. I've noticed occassionally in other writing of the 1700-1800's, that when a narrator mentions that a woman was stripped of her clothing, it turns out he only means she was stripped to her chemise and skirts. I'm hopeful that that typically was nothing more than a gentle dissimulation to protect the finer feelings of the readers of the time. But no, the idea that a woman might be subjected to a public punishment and yet allowed to protect her modesty really doesn't bear thinking about.

Hard to say how much of this is sparing the feelings of the readers of the time, and how much is actual reflection of practices. I think it is true that in the 18th centrury, a woman wearing only a shift or chemise was considered to be "undressed". I have posted earlier in this thread the Prussian army regulation that says that "whores found in camp or garrison are to be stripped to their shift and forcibly expelled", as well as a citation (from a book by the current director of the Prussian State Archives, no less) to the effect that this particular regulation formed the legal basis for the punishment of Doris Ritter, applied in an aggravated "sharpened" form. Once you have stripped her to her shift, i.e. stripped her of her petticoats and stays, and then strip her to her waist for public flogging (we have a contemporaneous quote from Princess Wilhelmine referring to blood running down exposed white flesh), there is very little cloth cover left to protect her modesty, and not much chance of the lower part of her shift staying in place once she is driven through the streets from one place of flogging to the next, six times in a row.

More generally, I am not sure who was the intended readership for this book, but I would guess it wasn't public hangmen eager to educate themselves as to how they should execute corporal and capital punishments. The hangman's trade was organised along the lines of ancient German guilds of master craftsmen, with journeymen craftsmen travelling to centres of excellence (Hamburg, for example, where a particularly famous Spinnhaus stood) to educate themselves as to how to better torture, maim and kill delinquents, but I nevertheless cannot envisage them having enough Latin to follow the lengthy untranslated quotes from antiquity in this book.

 

[Eulalia]

"to put somebody permanently in irons"

Yes, that was a punishment in itself, obviously uncomfortable, tiring and very restricting on movement. If the galleys were actually working vessels (rather than just static prison-ships, which I think they often were), I guess the irons were on the prisoner's ankles rather than arms - which would have reduced their pulling power (and we've discussed elsewhere the problem of galley-slaves' wrists being chained to the oars, they probably weren't)

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

Would that I were fluent in German and Latin!

I remember back in the Dark Ages, when I was in college and briefly considering a career in Classics. What discouraged me was the requirement for a Classics Doctorate to be fluent in Latin (which I almost was - grammar, then and now, my weak point), Greek (which I found with my reading problems exasperated by the different alphabet, to be maddeningly difficult), and, to add insult to injury, German! So many of the great Classics scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were German, that advanced study was impossible with learning the language. Arrrggghhhh!

 

[elephas]

From "A History of the Rod" (London, 1877) by James Glass Bertram.
Chapter XXI. Whipping in Bridewell and other prisons.

 

[Eulalia]

I remember back in the Dark Ages, when I was in college and briefly considering a career in Classics. What discouraged me was the requirement for a Classics Doctorate to be fluent in Latin (which I almost was - grammar, then and now, my weak point), Greek (which I found with my reading problems exasperated by the different alphabet, to be maddeningly difficult), and, to add insult to injury, German! So many of the great Classics scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were German, that advanced study was impossible with learning the language. Arrrggghhhh!

ironically, most of the great scholars of Old English ('Anglo-Saxon', long a problematic term) in the first half of the 20th century were German too - some, though by no means all, were drawn into the twisted scholarship of the Nazi regime. There were some major scholars from the Scandinavian world too, but it was really only after WW II that the generation among whom Tolkien is now the most remembered began to pay serious and systematic attention to the early history of their own language.

 

[nsur1]

Just a brief update on public flogging today. This is a paragraph from a 1748 German book (18 years after Doris) on "The Recent History or Current State of the Turkish Empire" (Google Books), describing public floggings in Turkey, and in doing so telling us at least as much about then-current practices in Germany:



"The customary corporal punishment in Turkey is the Falaka, whereby the culprit has to sit on the ground and his legs are lifted and he is administered a certain number of lashes with a small rattan or Spanish case the thickness of a finger. For women, they are administered on the bottom, which is covered with trousers or leg clothes: for the Turks are so honorable that they do not expose the naked skin in public in the way it is with us. The number of lashes will be determined by the judge; whereas we leave it to the discretion of the hangman so that one culprit may be flogged to death whereas another is barely touched where the hangman has been bribed or he defies the will of those ordering the execution."

This is fairly explicit: in mid-18th century Germany, women were always flogged on the naked skin and it was worthy of special mention that other countries may not automatically strip the convict before flogging them. Also, the hangman had wide discretion as to the severity of the flogging. This is actually something mentioned in Friedrich Wilhelm I's Prussian Landrecht law book of 1718 (posted earlier in this thread), which has a provision trying to counteract that discretion, saying that the hangman should stick to the number of lashes ordered by the judge and should be neither more nor less strict than the text of the judgment says. Nevertheless, Friedrich Wilhelm's own order for the whipping of poor Doris didn't give a number of lashes, nor indeed a number of separate sets of public whippings: just two initial whippings plus more "at all the corners of the town". The rest was down to the hangman, who I'm sure would have been keen to be seen to adher to the King's obvious wish for a particularly brutal flogging and very very public display of Doris's disgrace.

I understand the hangman's discretion was an issue during the knouting of Madame Lapuchin in Russia in 1743, who was condemned by the Empress Elizabeth to a public knouting and having her tongue ripped out. Whereas her co-condemned Countess Bestuzheva bribed the hangman and was given only a token punishment of a few idle wavings of the lash and a nick on the tongue, she defied him and was stripped naked, brutally flogged, and had her tongue cut in half and thrown into the crowd.

 

[nsur1]

I understand the hangman's discretion was an issue during the knouting of Madame Lapuchin in Russia in 1743, who was condemned by the Empress Elizabeth to a public knouting and having her tongue ripped out. Whereas her co-condemned Countess Bestuzheva bribed the hangman and was given only a token punishment of a few idle wavings of the lash and a nick on the tongue, she defied him and was stripped naked, brutally flogged, and had her tongue cut in half and thrown into the crowd.

I meant to add these two pictures of Madame Lapuchin's [or Lopukhina's] knouting. I'm not entirely sure what the point is of using a soldier's back as the whipping post, but that seems to be how her punishment is commonly depicted.



And two book extracts (in English) narrating her flogging, from "Terrible Tsarinas" by Henri Troyat, and (more floridly told) from "The Daughter Of Peter The Great" (1900):

 

[elephas]

I meant to add these two pictures of Madame Lapuchin's [or Lopukhina's] knouting. I'm not entirely sure what the point is of using a soldier's back as the whipping post, but that seems to be how her punishment is commonly depicted.

Grammatically correct is Lopukhina (-a is the feminine ending).

 

[nsur1]

Grammatically correct is Lopukhina (-a is the feminine ending).

Yes, indeed, but older 18th/19th century references to her tended to be in a Westernised form as either "Lapuchin" or "Lopuchin". Newer references use "Lopukhina".

 

[specimeat]

lashes with a small rattan or Spanish case the thickness of a finger.

Do you know if this could be a reference to the "modern" so-called Spanish cane, please?

i somewhere read that it's halfway between rattan and bamboo in flexibility, and it could be used as a cheap, easily available "caning cane", but i'm not sure of this! i've had it in my hands but i can't compare with "natural rattan" since i have never touched it.

 

[nsur1]

Do you know if this could be a reference to the "modern" so-called Spanish cane, please?

i somewhere read that it's halfway between rattan and bamboo in flexibility, and it could be used as a cheap, easily available "caning cane", but i'm not sure of this! i've had it in my hands but i can't compare with "natural rattan" since i have never touched it.

Sorry, simply a typo on my part - I meant to write "cane", not "case". The German is "mit einem kleinen Rattan oder spanischen Röhrgen [Röhrchen in modern German] eines Fingers dick".

 

[specimeat]

Sorry, simply a typo on my part - I meant to write "cane", not "case". The German is "mit einem kleinen Rattan oder spanischen Röhrgen [Röhrchen in modern German] eines Fingers dick".

Thank you! This is super interesting because if this were the case, i'm basically surrounded by it! It isn't "Spanish native" (it's Asian, like rattan or bamboo) but it's a strongly invasive plant that colonizes basically everything, so much that there're yearly plans to eradicate the thing. Maybe i have an use for it!!! This would confirm to me that it was here many centuries ago, enough to already have a "Spanish name" in a German mid-18th century book. Thanks again!

 

[elephas]

Women Flogged in German Prisons. -

Women are flogged in Germany to-day, and the punishment excites no popular opposition. The lash is sanctioned not only by law, but by popular ...

trove.nla.gov.au

West Australian Sunday Times, January 14, 1900


Women Flogged in German Prisons
"THE SKIN MUST BE BROKEN AT THE FIFTH BLOW."


Women are flogged in Germany today, and the punishment excites no popular opposition. The lash is sanctioned not only by law, but by popular opinion as well, as is shown by the indifference with which the German newspapers have treated a new and curious work just printed. This is a "Manual for Directors of Prisons," and its chief interest lies in the astonishing revelations which it makes concerning the flogging of prisoners in the penal institutions throughout Germany.

In Prussia alone, according to the official records just published in Berlin, more than 200 women have been punished by the lash during the past 12 months.

The author of the new "Manual" writes to the point with frank brutality. He explains that the regulation "cat" has a handle 37in. long, and ten leather thongs, each 40in. long.

The maximum number of strokes which may be inflicted upon the back of the male or female prisoner varies according to the state. Thus in the grand duchies of Mecklenberg Schwerin and Aldenberg the maximum is fixed at 25, in the kingdom of Saxony at 30, and in the kingdom of Prussia at 60 strokes.

Herr Krohn says :--"The skin must be broken at the fifth blow, and the succeeding blows should widen the break in such a manner as to leave the entire back raw by the time the last blow has been applied." The victim takes the punishment in a recumbent position, being strapped down by hands and feet to a long wooden beach in precisely the same manner as is done in the much denounced prisons of Russia.

The punishment cell is an exceedingly cruel contrivance. It contains no furniture of any kind whatsoever, not even a board bed or a stove, and the floor and walls are constructed of triangular blocks of wood, the points of which are turned upward in the case of the floor and outward in that of the walls. Into the cell thus constructed the prisoner is thrust, clothed only in a thin canvas jacket and trousers, in the case of a man, or a thin dress where the prisoner is a woman.

At the end of 24 hours' confinement in these cells the feet and the portions of the body which have come into contact with the pointed surface of the floor and walls are covered with blood, and it usually takes a full month before the prisoner thus tortured is able to walk again.

If these forms of punishment seem barbarous and out of place it must be borne in mind that they are after all not out of place in a country the statute book of which renders it legitimate for an employer to administer a flogging to his male and female domestic servants. Among the latter are included, according to a recent decision of the Supreme Court, the ladies of title and of rank who fill the position of ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honor to the reigning sovereigns, their consorts and the princes and princesses of their house. These countesses, princesses and duchesses may, therefore, be flogged with impunity, so far as the law is concerned, by their employers.

 

[nsur1]

Women Flogged in German Prisons. -

Women are flogged in Germany to-day, and the punishment excites no popular opposition. The lash is sanctioned not only by law, but by popular ...

trove.nla.gov.au

West Australian Sunday Times, January 14, 1900


Women Flogged in German Prisons
"THE SKIN MUST BE BROKEN AT THE FIFTH BLOW."


Women are flogged in Germany today, and the punishment excites no popular opposition. The lash is sanctioned not only by law, but by popular opinion as well, as is shown by the indifference with which the German newspapers have treated a new and curious work just printed. This is a "Manual for Directors of Prisons," and its chief interest lies in the astonishing revelations which it makes concerning the flogging of prisoners in the penal institutions throughout Germany.

In Prussia alone, according to the official records just published in Berlin, more than 200 women have been punished by the lash during the past 12 months.

The author of the new "Manual" writes to the point with frank brutality. He explains that the regulation "cat" has a handle 37in. long, and ten leather thongs, each 40in. long.

The maximum number of strokes which may be inflicted upon the back of the male or female prisoner varies according to the state. Thus in the grand duchies of Mecklenberg Schwerin and Aldenberg the maximum is fixed at 25, in the kingdom of Saxony at 30, and in the kingdom of Prussia at 60 strokes.

Herr Krohn says :--"The skin must be broken at the fifth blow, and the succeeding blows should widen the break in such a manner as to leave the entire back raw by the time the last blow has been applied." The victim takes the punishment in a recumbent position, being strapped down by hands and feet to a long wooden beach in precisely the same manner as is done in the much denounced prisons of Russia.

The punishment cell is an exceedingly cruel contrivance. It contains no furniture of any kind whatsoever, not even a board bed or a stove, and the floor and walls are constructed of triangular blocks of wood, the points of which are turned upward in the case of the floor and outward in that of the walls. Into the cell thus constructed the prisoner is thrust, clothed only in a thin canvas jacket and trousers, in the case of a man, or a thin dress where the prisoner is a woman.

At the end of 24 hours' confinement in these cells the feet and the portions of the body which have come into contact with the pointed surface of the floor and walls are covered with blood, and it usually takes a full month before the prisoner thus tortured is able to walk again.

If these forms of punishment seem barbarous and out of place it must be borne in mind that they are after all not out of place in a country the statute book of which renders it legitimate for an employer to administer a flogging to his male and female domestic servants. Among the latter are included, according to a recent decision of the Supreme Court, the ladies of title and of rank who fill the position of ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honor to the reigning sovereigns, their consorts and the princes and princesses of their house. These countesses, princesses and duchesses may, therefore, be flogged with impunity, so far as the law is concerned, by their employers.

Great find! I would like to see the actual German "Manual" that the newspaper writer gets so worked up about -- the newspaper writer does seem to have an agenda of his own, so I'm not entirely convinced of the veracity, or whether any "countesses, princesses and duchesses" were indeed flogged by German monarchs in around 1900.

Another German source for judicial corporal punishments in the 19th century is here:

Die Geißler

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www.projekt-gutenberg.org

This is the German Project Gutenberg page for the book "Die Geißler" (The Flagellants) by Otto von Corbin, published in 1860. A strange little pamphlet reviewing various forms of flagellation. The first chapter has a "general review", including judicial floggings, with subsequent chapters dealing with religious and medicinal flagellation. Some passages in the first chapter concerning women are very much along the line of Nell In Bridewell:

"Die alten deutschen Gesetzbücher diktiren Prügel, die in Hinsicht der Qualität nichts zu wünschen übrig lassen. In den neueren Zeiten ist darin zum Nachtheile der Prügel viel verändert worden; allein die Bosheit niederer Beamten, denen diese Milderung schlecht behagt, sorgt schon dafür, daß da, wo es in ihre Willkür gestellt ist, Prügel auszutheilen, diese nicht allein sehr nachdrücklich, sondern auch auf möglichst beschimpfende Weise gegeben werden. Schon aus der Terminologie der Strafanstalten ersieht man, daß den Stockmeistern u. s. w. das Prügeln eine sehr vergnügliche Sache ist. Da giebt es einen »Willkomm und einen Abschied«, das »Krautbänklein« und den »polnischen Bock«, den »Meister Fitz Fetz«, eine »heimliche Staud«, einen »Stockschilling« u. s. w.

Wäre mir ein Blick in die Polizeistuben, Spinn- und Raspelbäuser und Zuchthäuser gestattet, so würde ich sicher noch heute empörende Details erzählen können; das, was man so beiläufig erfährt, macht schon die Haut schauern. Ich könnte Beispiele anführen, daß von gewissenlosen Richtern nicht allein bei überwiesen schlechten Subjekten Peitschenhiebe oder Stockschläge angewendet wurden, sondern selbst bei Personen, die wegen sogenannter demagogischer Vergehungen in Untersuchungshaft gehalten wurden, um sie zum Geständniß zu bringen.

Die Corrections- und Arbeitshäuser sind die Schauplätze der nichtswürdigsten Schandthaten gewesen, an denen Grausamkeit und lüsterne Wollust gleichgroßen Antheil haben. Besonders hart verfuhr man stets gegen die Personen weiblichen Geschlechts, wenn sie mit den Zuchtmeistern nicht die Sünde wiederholen wollten, wegen welcher sie meistens eingesperrt waren. In manchen Städten hatte man Maschinen, in welche man die Weiber hineinsteckte, so daß sie sich nicht sträuben konnten und Alles mit sich vornehmen lassen mußten. Wo es anständig zuging, ließ man ihnen zur Bedeckung wenigstens das Hemde, und Weiber vollzogen die Strafe, aber meistens hielt man solche Schonung für höchst überflüssig, denn die rohen Schergen wollten ihren Spaß haben.

Dergleichen Züchtigungen fanden manchmal öffentlich in dem Hofe des Polizeigebäudes statt, und zu diesem Festtage wurden die Familien und die Freunde der Anordner förmlich eingeladen. In einer süddeutschen Stadt gab es einen Polizeidirektor, dessen größtes Vergnügen es war, Mädchen auspeitschen zu sehen, und seine polizeiliche Willkür wußte die Gelegenheit hierzu sehr häufig herbeizuführen. Damen seiner Bekanntschaft wohnten dem Schauspiele mit bei und eine davon, die eine wahre Prügelleidenschaft hatte, nahm oft mit Erlaubniß des Polizeidirectors dem Büttel die Ruthe aus der Hand, um selbst zu schlagen. Der Polizist gönnte ihr nicht allein diese Freude, sondern erklärte auch, daß ihre Hiebe nicht mitzählen sollten!"

"The old German law books specify beatings which leave nothing to be desired in terms of severity. In recent times, much has been changed to the detriment of beatings; however the malice of low-level civil servants who do not like this mildness ensures that wherever it is in their power to administer beatings, they are delivered not only very emphatically but also in the most degrading manner possible. It may be seen from prison terminology alone that delivering beatings is a most enjoyable matter to the wardens etc. There is a "Welcome and Farewell", the "little herb bench" and the "Polish horse", the "Master Slash-Slash", a "secret birch", a "cane shilling" etc.

If I were permitted a view into the police stations, Spinnhäuser and prisons, I would surely even today be able to recount scandalous details; what incidental aspects emerge are enough to make the skin crawl. I could tell of examples whereby certain unscrupulous judges apply whippings or canings not only to proven delinquents but even to persons held on remand for so-called demagogic offences, to obtain a confession.

Houses of corrections and work houses have been the places of the most abhorrent abuses, in which cruelty and perverse lust have equal part. Persons of female sex have always been treated especially harshly if they were unwilling to repeat with the wardens the sins for which they were for the most part imprisoned. In some towns, they had machines into which the women were strapped so that they could no resist and would have to suffer whatever was to be done to them. Where there was some decency, they were at least left with their shift to cover themselves and punishments were delivered by women, but for the most part such mildness was considered most unnecessary as those rough knaves wanted to have their fun.

Such corporal punishments sometimes took place in public in the courtyard of the police buildings, and for those holidays the families and friends of the officials were formally invited. In one Southern German town there was a director of police whose greatest pleasure it was to have young girls whipped, and in his abuse of power knew how to create the opportunity to do so very often. Ladies of his acquaintance attended these spectacles and one of the who have a true passion for flagellation took -- with the director's permission -- the cane from the beadle in order to beat the delinquent herself. The beadle not only allowed her that pleasure but also declared that the lashes administered by her would not count towards the total."

 

[elephas]

Die Geißler

Projekt Gutenberg | Die weltweit größte kostenlose deutschsprachige Volltext-Literatursammlung | Klassische Werke von A bis Z | Bücher gratis online lesen

www.projekt-gutenberg.org

This is the German Project Gutenberg page for the book "Die Geißler" (The Flagellants) by Otto von Corbin, published in 1860. A strange little pamphlet reviewing various forms of flagellation. The first chapter has a "general review", including judicial floggings, with subsequent chapters dealing with religious and medicinal flagellation. Some passages in the first chapter concerning women are very much along the line of Nell In Bridewell:

Thanks for posting the book by Otto von Corbin, I have never heard of it before. An interesting addition to the 19th -- early 20th century bibliography on the history of flagellation. Here is a small list:
Cooper, W. M. [James Glass Bertram]. Flagellation & the flagellants: A History of the rod. London: William Reeves, 1877.

Flagellation & the flagellants [electronic resource] : a history of the rod in all countries from the earliest period to the present time : Bertram, James Glass, 1824-1892 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Rev. Wm. M. Cooper is the pseudonym of James Glass Bertram

archive.org

Flagellation in France from a medical and historical standpoint. Paris: Charles Carrington, 1898.
Villiot, Jean de. Étude sur la flagellation à travers le monde. Paris: Charles Carrington, 1899.
Villiot, Jean de. Curiosités et anecdoctes sur la flagellation. Paris: Charles Carrington, 1900.
Virmaître, Charles. Les Flagellants et les flagellés de Paris. Paris: Charles Carrington, 1902.

Les Flagellants et les flagellés de Paris - Wikisource

fr.wikisource.org

Dumarchey, Pierre. Les Grandes flagellées de l'Histoire. Paris: Jean Fort, 1909.

Judicial Corporal Punishment Of Women: Illustrations

Pierre Dumarchey (Pierre Mac Orlan, Jean Macorlan) (1882-1970), a French writer and illustrator http://www.bibliocuriosa.com/index.php/Dumarchey,_Pierre Les Grandes Flagellées de l'Histoire (Paris, 1909) http://www.bibliocuriosa.com/index.php/Les_Grandes_flagellées_de_l'Histoire

www.cruxforums.com

Les Grandes flagellées de l'Histoire - BiblioCuriosa

www.bibliocuriosa.com

Jean de Villiot was a collective pseudonym in Carrington's publications (Hugues Rebell, Hector France and Charles Carrington himself).
I have all these books in PDF, except the Dumarchey's volume, and can post them if interested.

Great find! I would like to see the actual German "Manual" that the newspaper writer gets so worked up about -- the newspaper writer does seem to have an agenda of his own, so I'm not entirely convinced of the veracity, or whether any "countesses, princesses and duchesses" were indeed flogged by German monarchs in around 1900.

I was also interested in this "Manual". I tried to find something like "Handbuch für Gefängnisdirektoren / Zuchthausdirektoren", but nothing came up.

 

[elephas]

An English Doctor. How Women are Flogged in Russian Prisons. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1899.

Charles Carrington Collection: An English Doctor: How Women are Flogged in Russian Prisons, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1899

This one is for the bibliophiles, no illustrations! A very rare item, effectively a pornographic novelette, written in letter form, a salacious account of an alleged visit by an English doctor to …

parisolympiapress.com

Unfortunately we do not have the English text, but there is a French version, which was published by Charles Carrington in "Curiosités et Anecdotes sur la flagellation" (1900) under the pseudonym "Jean de Villiot". A young English doctor visits a penitentiary in Tomsk in 1880 and is present at the official birching of a 25-year-old girl.

Une visite dans une prison en Sibérie - Jean de Villiot

Une visite dans une prison en Sibérie : histoire érotique de Jean de Villiot

eros-thanatos.com

 

[The Beast]

An English Doctor. How Women are Flogged in Russian Prisons. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1899.

Charles Carrington Collection: An English Doctor: How Women are Flogged in Russian Prisons, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1899

This one is for the bibliophiles, no illustrations! A very rare item, effectively a pornographic novelette, written in letter form, a salacious account of an alleged visit by an English doctor to …

parisolympiapress.com

View attachment 910555
Unfortunately we do not have the English text, but there is a French version, which was published by Charles Carrington in "Curiosités et Anecdotes sur la flagellation" (1900) under the pseudonym "Jean de Villiot". A young English doctor visits a penitentiary in Tomsk in 1880 and is present at the official birching of a 25-year-old girl.

Une visite dans une prison en Sibérie - Jean de Villiot

Une visite dans une prison en Sibérie : histoire érotique de Jean de Villiot

eros-thanatos.com

View attachment 910556

Nice story. Old Russia had a good punishment tradition.

 

[nsur1]

Going back to Doris, here is a still from the 1921 silent movie "Fridericus Rex" showing Doris and the Prince playing music together. As they cast Doris presumably they also showed the whipping, but the film is not online and there are no stills of any whipping scene. It was remade in 1935, and that version is online but they cut the entire Doris storyline.

View attachment 881585

I haven't posted about Doris Ritter for a while -- real life has intervened -- but I'm still looking into factual and fictional material on her fate. Here are two fictionalisations I have come across.

The first is the 1921 silent movie "Fridericus Rex" which I mentioned in the previous post quoted above. The film is not online, although it does appear to have survived -- a restored version was shown at an Italian film festival a few years ago. There are 22 stills from the film at this Italian site. As we know that they did cast Doris Ritter (played by Lilly Alexandra), I have thought from the outset that the whipping must be part of the plot and that it must have been shown on screen -- it's a silent movie, so you have to show everything in the absense of explanatory dialogue. Looking closer, I now found confirmation of that. Firstly, I found several mentions of the movie causing a scandal with press articles complaining not only about the movie being pro-monarchy propaganda (the monarchy having been toppled only three years previously) but also specifically about the brutality of the on-screen execution and flogging scenes, presumably referring to Katte and to Doris, respectively, which the papers say should never have been cleared for juvenile viewers. One article mentions that the flogging shows the lashes on her bare back, although it says that the girl herself cannot be seen (presumably meaning we just see the back, not the entire body or face). There is no still of the flogging scene, but we do have one of Katte's execution, which gives some idea of the scale of the production -- that was an expensive film to make in 1921!:


Secondly, I found the plot summary as published in 1921 in the Illustrierter Film-Kurier. These were published for every silent movie at the time for sale in the cinema in the same way as an opera programme, to help the audience understand the plot of what happens on screen. The plot summary for Fridericus Rex is here. From this, the film makers took considerable liberty with the historical events, and in particular reversed the cause and effect of Doris's flogging:

"Fritz, der das Bild seiner zukünftigen aus London schon in der Tasche hat, eilt allabendliche mit der Flöte unter dem Mantel zu Dorris Ritter, der schönen Kantorstochter. (...) Am Morgen auf dem Exerzierplatz erregt er den Zorn des Königs, und ehe er sich versieht, sitzt er in Stubenarrest. Aber es gibt noch Fenster, schnell die Flöte her und dann zu Dorris, während der König in der Tabagie seinen Groll in großen Wolken von sich bläst und denkt, sein Sohn werde wohl verwahrt und zur Reue geneigt. Gumbkow aber hat einen Brief des Kronprinzen nach England aufgefangen, indem Fritz einen höchst aufsässigen Standpunkt in der er Heiratsgeschichte vertritt. Der König will seinen Sohn zur Rede stellen. Aber das Zimmer ist leer. Der Adressant ist entflohen. Der König schäumt! Patrouillen werden in Trab gesetzt. Der treue Katte bekommt Wind von der Sache, er eilt und reißt Fritz vom Spinett. Die Wache findet nur die arme Jungfer und schleppt sie vor den König. „Auspeitschen“ befiehlt der außer sich, und schon sausen die Hiebe auf einen harten Rücken. Da stürzt Fritz hinzu und springt den Vater fast an die Kehle. Ein Bruch nicht mehr zu kitten! Fritz will fliehen. Preußen ist für ihn ein Gefängnis. Also fort! Katte ist dabei. Auch ihn lockt Freiheit und Gefahr. Zwei Koffer sind schnell gepackt."

"Fritz, a picture of his future bride from London already in his pocket, rushes every evening with the flute hidden under his coat to Doris Ritter, the beautiful daughter of the cantor. That morning he arouses the ire of the King on the parade ground, and finds himself confined to his chamber. But there is a window, so he grabs the flute and heads for Doris's while the King sits in his smoking room puffing out his wrath in a cloud of tobacco and thinks his son is well confined and rueful. Minister Gumbkow has intercepted a letter by the Crown Prince to England where he takes a most rebellious position on the marriage front. The King wants to confront his son. But the chamber is empty. The delinquent has fled. The King is outraged! Patrols are sent out. Faithful Katte hears of it, he rushes and drags Frits away from the harpsichord. The guards find only the poor maiden and drag her to the presence of the King. "Flogging" he orders in high rage, and immediately the lashes rain down onto a hard back. At that moment, Fritz stroms into the room and almost jumbs at his father's throat. The falling-out cannot be mended any more! Frtis wants to run away. Prussia is a prison to him. So, let's be away! Katte is willing. He is also tempted by liberty and danger. Two suitcases are quickly packed."

So, here Doris is flogged for making music with Fritz against the King's orders, which in turn leads to the quarrel between Prince and King and to the Prince's and Katte's attempted desertion, which ends in the Prince's arrest and Katte's execution. That would put the flogging immediately after this sedate scene:



Another fictional treatment is from around 1853, in the play "Prinz Friedrich" by the German dramatist and theatre director Heinrich Laube. The play is on Google Books in its entirety as a free PDF (link), and its main characters are all the names I have posted in this thread: apart from the royal family, we have Katte, Doris, Eversmann und Grumbkow all in major speaking roles -- indeed the very first scene is a meeting of Katte and Doris.

The key confrontation is in Act 3, Scene 9, where the King has a stand-off with Friedrich and Doris in front of the Queen, Eversmann and Grumbkow in a scene very reminiscent of Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe" (a play that as I posted earlier is in my opinion based on the Doris Ritter story). At one point, the King grabs Doris and drags her over to the Queen, shouting "Do you know this girl? Did you know that she is your son's harlot?" triggering emotional protestations of innocence from Prince and Doris, and then later speaks the verdict "This girl, demurely clad in gray linen, is to be paraded in front of all folk on the market square to stand in the pillory, and then she is to suffer the Staupenschlag (public flogging)." The scene (and the act) end with the Prince and Doris both asking to be killed outright rather than her having to suffer this shame. In a later scene, Doris begs the Prince to save her "from the pillory and the mob, who will shame and dishonour her and driver her father to despair" by giving her a dagger so that she can kill herself. At that very moment, they hear Katte's execution off-stage. However, on my reading of the play, the King and his son get reconciled in the final act without Doris ever getting actually flogged, which is a bit of an anti-climax.

Altogether, I have to say for a woman who has supposedly been forgotten, Doris has notched up an impressive number of fictional appearances. Clearly, in the 19th and early 20th century her role in the quarrel between King and Prince (an integral part of the foundation myth of the Prussian state) was still universally known in popular culture, always closely associated with the unjust flogging. She has only become obscure in more recent times.

 

[Jon Smithie]

S

I haven't posted about Doris Ritter for a while -- real life has intervened -- but I'm still looking into factual and fictional material on her fate. Here are two fictionalisations I have come across.

The first is the 1921 silent movie "Fridericus Rex" which I mentioned in the previous post quoted above. The film is not online, although it does appear to have survived -- a restored version was shown at an Italian film festival a few years ago. There are 22 stills from the film at this Italian site. As we know that they did cast Doris Ritter (played by Lilly Alexandra), I have thought from the outset that the whipping must be part of the plot and that it must have been shown on screen -- it's a silent movie, so you have to show everything in the absense of explanatory dialogue. Looking closer, I now found confirmation of that. Firstly, I found several mentions of the movie causing a scandal with press articles complaining not only about the movie being pro-monarchy propaganda (the monarchy having been toppled only three years previously) but also specifically about the brutality of the on-screen execution and flogging scenes, presumably referring to Katte and to Doris, respectively, which the papers say should never have been cleared for juvenile viewers. One article mentions that the flogging shows the lashes on her bare back, although it says that the girl herself cannot be seen (presumably meaning we just see the back, not the entire body or face). There is no still of the flogging scene, but we do have one of Katte's execution, which gives some idea of the scale of the production -- that was an expensive film to make in 1921!:

View attachment 929098
Secondly, I found the plot summary as published in 1921 in the Illustrierter Film-Kurier. These were published for every silent movie at the time for sale in the cinema in the same way as an opera programme, to help the audience understand the plot of what happens on screen. The plot summary for Fridericus Rex is here. From this, the film makers took considerable liberty with the historical events, and in particular reversed the cause and effect of Doris's flogging:

"Fritz, der das Bild seiner zukünftigen aus London schon in der Tasche hat, eilt allabendliche mit der Flöte unter dem Mantel zu Dorris Ritter, der schönen Kantorstochter. (...) Am Morgen auf dem Exerzierplatz erregt er den Zorn des Königs, und ehe er sich versieht, sitzt er in Stubenarrest. Aber es gibt noch Fenster, schnell die Flöte her und dann zu Dorris, während der König in der Tabagie seinen Groll in großen Wolken von sich bläst und denkt, sein Sohn werde wohl verwahrt und zur Reue geneigt. Gumbkow aber hat einen Brief des Kronprinzen nach England aufgefangen, indem Fritz einen höchst aufsässigen Standpunkt in der er Heiratsgeschichte vertritt. Der König will seinen Sohn zur Rede stellen. Aber das Zimmer ist leer. Der Adressant ist entflohen. Der König schäumt! Patrouillen werden in Trab gesetzt. Der treue Katte bekommt Wind von der Sache, er eilt und reißt Fritz vom Spinett. Die Wache findet nur die arme Jungfer und schleppt sie vor den König. „Auspeitschen“ befiehlt der außer sich, und schon sausen die Hiebe auf einen harten Rücken. Da stürzt Fritz hinzu und springt den Vater fast an die Kehle. Ein Bruch nicht mehr zu kitten! Fritz will fliehen. Preußen ist für ihn ein Gefängnis. Also fort! Katte ist dabei. Auch ihn lockt Freiheit und Gefahr. Zwei Koffer sind schnell gepackt."

"Fritz, a picture of his future bride from London already in his pocket, rushes every evening with the flute hidden under his coat to Doris Ritter, the beautiful daughter of the cantor. That morning he arouses the ire of the King on the parade ground, and finds himself confined to his chamber. But there is a window, so he grabs the flute and heads for Doris's while the King sits in his smoking room puffing out his wrath in a cloud of tobacco and thinks his son is well confined and rueful. Minister Gumbkow has intercepted a letter by the Crown Prince to England where he takes a most rebellious position on the marriage front. The King wants to confront his son. But the chamber is empty. The delinquent has fled. The King is outraged! Patrols are sent out. Faithful Katte hears of it, he rushes and drags Frits away from the harpsichord. The guards find only the poor maiden and drag her to the presence of the King. "Flogging" he orders in high rage, and immediately the lashes rain down onto a hard back. At that moment, Fritz stroms into the room and almost jumbs at his father's throat. The falling-out cannot be mended any more! Frtis wants to run away. Prussia is a prison to him. So, let's be away! Katte is willing. He is also tempted by liberty and danger. Two suitcases are quickly packed."

So, here Doris is flogged for making music with Fritz against the King's orders, which in turn leads to the quarrel between Prince and King and to the Prince's and Katte's attempted desertion, which ends in the Prince's arrest and Katte's execution. That would put the flogging immediately after this sedate scene:

View attachment 929097

Another fictional treatment is from around 1853, in the play "Prinz Friedrich" by the German dramatist and theatre director Heinrich Laube. The play is on Google Books in its entirety as a free PDF (link), and its main characters are all the names I have posted in this thread: apart from the royal family, we have Katte, Doris, Eversmann und Grumbkow all in major speaking roles -- indeed the very first scene is a meeting of Katte and Doris.

The key confrontation is in Act 3, Scene 9, where the King has a stand-off with Friedrich and Doris in front of the Queen, Eversmann and Grumbkow in a scene very reminiscent of Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe" (a play that as I posted earlier is in my opinion based on the Doris Ritter story). At one point, the King grabs Doris and drags her over to the Queen, shouting "Do you know this girl? Did you know that she is your son's harlot?" triggering emotional protestations of innocence from Prince and Doris, and then later speaks the verdict "This girl, demurely clad in gray linen, is to be paraded in front of all folk on the market square to stand in the pillory, and then she is to suffer the Staupenschlag (public flogging)." The scene (and the act) end with the Prince and Doris both asking to be killed outright rather than her having to suffer this shame. In a later scene, Doris begs the Prince to save her "from the pillory and the mob, who will shame and dishonour her and driver her father to despair" by giving her a dagger so that she can kill herself. At that very moment, they hear Katte's execution off-stage. However, on my reading of the play, the King and his son get reconciled in the final act without Doris ever getting actually flogged, which is a bit of an anti-climax.

Altogether, I have to say for a woman who has supposedly been forgotten, Doris has notched up an impressive number of fictional appearances. Clearly, in the 19th and early 20th century her role in the quarrel between King and Prince (an integral part of the foundation myth of the Prussian state) was still universally known in popular culture, always closely associated with the unjust flogging. She has only become obscure in more recent times.

Strong work, nsur! One can only hope there will be yet another celluloid retelling of the Doris Ritter story, only including the whipping. I think it's an equally compelling story to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace incident of pre-revolutionary France that has also spawned film treatments.

One can only hope that perhaps you're working on a historical/fictional retelling yourself?