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Sprunging-stick

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RedOrc

RedOrc

Magistrate
Sprunging-stick: a device used to hold down a woman so she can be legally raped. In the good old days when marriage gave a husband the right to sex with his wife regardless of her wishes. helpful churchmen would send a posse after a runaway wife and ensure her husband got his conjugal rights. Of course laying hands on another man's naked wife would be a terrible sin, so "sprunging-sticks" were used to hold her immobile. Different types were available: some pinned the woman down directly, others served as attachment points for ropes tied to her limbs.

I found a reference to this entertaining instrument, but cannot find anything more about it (maybe it is misspelt?) I know of woman-specific torture devices like "chastity belts" and "scold's bridles", but this sounds more like a "mancatcher" (a polearm used to capture escaped criminals).
 
RedOrc said:
Sprunging-stick: a device used to hold down a woman so she can be legally raped. In the good old days when marriage gave a husband the right to sex with his wife regardless of her wishes. helpful churchmen would send a posse after a runaway wife and ensure her husband got his conjugal rights. Of course laying hands on another man's naked wife would be a terrible sin, so "sprunging-sticks" were used to hold her immobile. Different types were available: some pinned the woman down directly, others served as attachment points for ropes tied to her limbs.

I found a reference to this entertaining instrument, but cannot find anything more about it (maybe it is misspelt?) I know of woman-specific torture devices like "chastity belts" and "scold's bridles", but this sounds more like a "mancatcher" (a polearm used to capture escaped criminals).
Click to expand...
Never heard of it, but it sounds intriguing. I wonder if there are any in museums etc…
 
RedOrc said:
Sprunging-stick: a device used to hold down a woman so she can be legally raped. In the good old days when marriage gave a husband the right to sex with his wife regardless of her wishes. helpful churchmen would send a posse after a runaway wife and ensure her husband got his conjugal rights. Of course laying hands on another man's naked wife would be a terrible sin, so "sprunging-sticks" were used to hold her immobile. Different types were available: some pinned the woman down directly, others served as attachment points for ropes tied to her limbs.

I found a reference to this entertaining instrument, but cannot find anything more about it (maybe it is misspelt?) I know of woman-specific torture devices like "chastity belts" and "scold's bridles", but this sounds more like a "mancatcher" (a polearm used to capture escaped criminals).
Click to expand...

'Sprunging' is alas unknown to the Oxford English Dictionary, but there is sprong, probably related to 'prong', and used for something like a hay-fork - there's a nice quote about @Jollyrei from 1492:
'When doleful dethe to thee shal come
And smyte thee with his dredeful sprong'
So I think a 'spronging' or, quite possibly, 'sprunging' stick could be something like that, a two-pronged fork that could be used to hold a captive immobile in the ways you describe. :cool:
 
Eulalia said:
'Sprunging' is alas unknown to the Oxford English Dictionary, but there is sprong, probably related to 'prong', and used for something like a hay-fork - there's a nice quote about @Jollyrei from 1492:
'When doleful dethe to thee shal come
And smyte thee with his dredeful sprong'
So I think a 'spronging' or, quite possibly, 'sprunging' stick could be something like that, a two-pronged fork that could be used to hold a captive immobile in the ways you describe. :cool:
Click to expand...
Well, I find 'a sprung' as something fitted with on ore more springs, in translations from English. Or a springy stick.
 
montycrusto said:
Never heard of it, but it sounds intriguing. I wonder if there are any in museums etc…
Click to expand...
The article I read mentioned seeing them in museums in the past, but they were no longer on display for sensitivity reasons.

The first illustration in the Wikipedia article is captioned: "Stocks, unlike the pillory or pranger, restrain only the feet." Anyone know what a "pranger" is? It sounds like it might be related to "sprunging-stick".
 
RedOrc said:
The article I read mentioned seeing them in museums in the past, but they were no longer on display for sensitivity reasons.

The first illustration in the Wikipedia article is captioned: "Stocks, unlike the pillory or pranger, restrain only the feet." Anyone know what a "pranger" is? It sounds like it might be related to "sprunging-stick".
Click to expand...
Re: ”pranger”, I found this on definitions.net:

  1. Pranger
    The pranger is a German physical punishment device related to the stocks and the pillory. The Middle Low German word means "something that pinches badly". The pranger chained the victim's neck to a pair of leg restraints fastened around the ankles. Often the chain was short so that the offender was placed in an uncomfortable half-kneeling position. In another type of pranger, the condemned person was tied to a column that stood in the town center for public view. The pranger was only used for public humiliation as punishment, not for painful interrogation or coercion. In German the word was also used for the scold's bridle.
 
When @RedOrc mentioned “Sprunging Stick” I imagined something like this (from Blake’s 7, BBC series, episode titled “Power”, 1981)..
5E4C1497-0375-41A6-BC77-0EA8A32D0CCF.pngCACB18EC-C46B-45C7-8F91-22B9420DC310.png8F941A04-0AE9-49E2-8E2D-22912B097BA7.pngBBDF5DF7-79C8-4A0D-BA67-FBF80958C3F9.png88E23E02-BD00-457F-9D59-C4FB4ECEFF3E.pngF55C426D-F58C-4CDA-9660-62AB3C79E855.pngEB9AC742-3954-40B3-B8D4-11320046BBFF.png10D36FCD-8F27-4AE7-BFEC-A93134274B59.png
The implement is a long rod with a metal collar on the end, which can be opened and closed from the other end of the rod. Useful for catching women!

Context: the story is about a planet where the women have telekinetic powers; the men can only subdue them like this, and then basically enslave them. Blake’s 7 was a kid’s sci-fi show, so nothing much interesting happened after that, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination..

If you’re a masochist or a fan of cheesy dialogue and cheap special effects, here’s the whole episode:
Blake’s 7 “Power” but whatever you are imagining, is better than what they did :doh: :p
 
Here’s another example of this kind of implement (and apologies if this is NOT a sprunging-stick!)

(3 gifs)
B2BEB5B1-8168-4FD5-9A7C-7755FE737B2D.gifE331F89E-20EC-4D72-8373-A471F9239B39.gif13323B8D-5306-4E06-93E5-58B29D38CD62.gif
I think this is simply a pipe with a loop of rope or steel cable passed through it, placed over the head and pulled tight. Certainly seems like an effective control device for wayward wives! :devil:
 
montycrusto said:
Here’s another example of this kind of implement (and apologies if this is NOT a sprunging-stick!)
Click to expand...
I think, any device that is a stick with a spring mechanism, that closes around a catch when the spring is released, and holds it, can be described as a 'spunging stick'. A bit like a mechanical version of a lasso!
For instance, indeed, for catching runaway wayward women.:devil:
 
A traditional shepherd's crook worked in much the same way, the hook made of horn was sufficiently flexible and 'springy' to 'clip' over the sheep's neck and hold it tight. So maybe a primitive sprungle-stick was something similar.
montycrusto said:
Re: ”pranger”, I found this on definitions.net:

  1. Pranger
    The pranger is a German physical punishment device related to the stocks and the pillory. The Middle Low German word means "something that pinches badly". The pranger chained the victim's neck to a pair of leg restraints fastened around the ankles. Often the chain was short so that the offender was placed in an uncomfortable half-kneeling position. In another type of pranger, the condemned person was tied to a column that stood in the town center for public view. The pranger was only used for public humiliation as punishment, not for painful interrogation or coercion. In German the word was also used for the scold's bridle.
Click to expand...
The Germanic verbal root prang- means 'to press tight, squeeze, pinch' Now the OED mentions Dutch pranger as 'a barnacle for a horse'. Barnacle in that context obviously isn't the kind that sticks to rocks and boats, and looking under that word I see it was a kind of bridle-bit for a horse's mouth, but also that it was 'an instrument of torture used by the Saracens'. Now the only English word related to pranger was prangle, and that seems to have been similar, a tight horse-bit or scold's bridle - there's a quote from the Middle English poem 'Havelock the Dane' (which was a set text for the Middle English literature paper in my degree, I'm surprised I didn't remember this gobbet!)

"... Ich am ney ded,
Hwat for hunger, wat for bondes
That thu leidest on min hondes,
And for kevel* at the laste,
That in my mouth was thrist faste.
I was therwith so harde prangled
That I was therwith ney strangled!"
' *kevel is another word for a bit or bridle.

So prangle, barnacle and kevel were all words for a horse-bit, or for a similar means of gagging and tormenting a human.
As you say, Monty, German Pranger was similarly a scold's bridle, but evidently came to be used for different kinds of 'squeezing' apparatus.
Probably not etymologically related to the sprungle-stick,
 
Eulalia said:
A traditional shepherd's crook worked in much the same way, the hook made of horn was sufficiently flexible and 'springy' to 'clip' over the sheep's neck and hold it tight. So maybe a primitive sprungle-stick was something similar.

The Germanic verbal root prang- means 'to press tight, squeeze, pinch' Now the OED mentions Dutch pranger as 'a barnacle for a horse'. Barnacle in that context obviously isn't the kind that sticks to rocks and boats, and looking under that word I see it was a kind of bridle-bit for a horse's mouth, but also that it was 'an instrument of torture used by the Saracens'. Now the only English word related to pranger was prangle, and that seems to have been similar, a tight horse-bit or scold's bridle - there's a quote from the Middle English poem 'Havelock the Dane' (which was a set text for the Middle English literature paper in my degree, I'm surprised I didn't remember this gobbet!)

"... Ich am ney ded,
Hwat for hunger, wat for bondes
That thu leidest on min hondes,
And for kevel* at the laste,
That in my mouth was thrist faste.
I was therwith so harde prangled
That I was therwith ney strangled!"
' *kevel is another word for a bit or bridle.

So prangle, barnacle and kevel were all words for a horse-bit, or for a similar means of gagging and tormenting a human.
As you say, Monty, German Pranger was similarly a scold's bridle, but evidently came to be used for different kinds of 'squeezing' apparatus.
Probably not etymologically related to the sprungle-stick,
Click to expand...
In the Northern Forest I’ll sprungle,
Wave my stick in the thick leafy jungle;
Scots lassies, beware,
For your necks I’ll ensnare;
You’ll be mine if I don’t make a bungle!
 
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