The Iron Maiden: Medieval torture device or modern myth?
The Iron Maiden's grisly reputation may be an 18th-century invention. Here's what the evidence actually says about medieval torture devices.
Image: Shutterstock.com
When people think of the Middle Ages, they usually imagine hardship, hunger and horror. Understandable, as the period from the 5th century to the late 15th century was especially brutal. The Black Death killed off around one-third of Europe's population and crop failures caused widespread starvation. Against this backdrop, authorities often used brutal punishments and public executions to preserve order.
One of these punishments was said to have been the Iron Maiden torture device, an ominous-looking iron cabinet with a spike-covered interior, tall enough to trap a human being. Gruesome replicas have made their way into countless museums around the world, but was the Iron Maiden really used during the Middle Ages, or is it simply a modern myth?
Sky HISTORY separates the medieval reality from the Victorian invention.
What was the Iron Maiden?
During the Medieval period, one punishment supposedly struck fear into the hearts of its victims: the Iron Maiden. A coffin-shaped metal cabinet with two hinged doors, tall enough to enclose a human. The inside walls were lined with sharp spikes pointing inwards, carefully positioned to pierce the victim without killing them instantly.
19th-century accounts became extremely graphic about how the device worked. The famous Iron Maiden of Nuremberg was said to have spikes positioned around the eyes, chest and back, essentially impaling the victim while they were immobilised. Prisoners were helpless, and their screams supposedly reverberated around dungeons.
Despite the Iron Maiden’s enduring infamy, there is one problem with this terrifying story: there’s no evidence the device actually existed during the Middle Ages.
Johann Philipp Siebenkees: The man responsible for the Iron Maiden myth
So, if there’s no evidence the Iron Maiden torture device existed during the Medieval period, how on earth has it become so ubiquitous? We can largely blame a man called Johann Philipp Siebenkees, a German philosopher who claimed the grisly device had been used in Nuremberg on 14th August 1515 to execute a coin forger.
According to Siebenkees, the man was forced inside before the doors were closed 'so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms, and his legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulder, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him, and so he remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died.'
However, Siebenkees’s account was published in 1793, almost 300 years after the event supposedly took place. Historians haven't found any other contemporary record of the execution or any evidence that an Iron Maiden existed in Nuremberg at all at the time.
Was the Iron Maiden real?
It’s impossible to tell whether Siebenkees invented the story or genuinely believed what he was writing. Either way, his account helped establish the Iron Maiden as a popular medieval torture device, despite very little concrete evidence of its existence.
The Iron Maiden, as we traditionally understand it, almost certainly wasn’t a Medieval torture device. Punishments at the time were often much simpler, and the most nightmarish contraptions seem to have been invented centuries later, feeding a morbid fascination with Medieval brutality.
However, that doesn't mean Iron Maiden-like devices didn't exist. Throughout history, echoes of the contraption keep cropping up, from the Iron Apega to the alleged torture of Marcus Atilius Regulus.
The Iron Apega
The Iron Apega is perhaps the most compelling parallel to the Iron Maiden. It was supposedly created by Nabis of Sparta, who ruled from 207 to 192 BC, more than a millennium before the Medieval period.
The Greek historian Polybius described how Nabis created a mechanical figure resembling his wife, Apega. When wealthy citizens refused to hand over money, Nabis used the contraption to extort them. The figure was beautifully dressed, but beneath its clothing, its arms, hands and breasts were covered with sharp iron nails. According to Polybius, mechanical arms pulled the victim into its embrace, pressing the spikes into their body until they agreed to Nabis’s demands.
However, archaeologists have never found physical evidence of the Iron Apega, and some historians believe Polybius’s account may have been intended to emphasise Nabis’s cruelty rather than describe a literal torture device.
There are plenty of myths surrounding torture in the Middle Ages and plenty of other devices that have made their way into the history books without much evidence that they were ever actually used. The Iron Maiden torture device is arguably the most famous of them all.
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