Strappado and Squassation.
Strappado. This was a common form of torture to force confessions and naming of accomplices. The prisoner's arms were tied behind his back with a rope attached to a pulley, and he was then hoisted in the air. Frequently, weights were attached to his feet to pull his shoulders from their sockets without leaving visible
marks of rough treatment. Sometimes toe-screws and thumbscrews were applied while the victim was suspended.
Strappado (from Latin, strappare == to pull) was customarily one of the "lighter" measures used by the
Inquisition and civil authorities, but could easily develop into squassation, a more severe variant.
Squassation differed from strappado in that the victim was suddenly dropped from a height to within a few
inches of the floor; the consequent jerking of his trussed-up limbs caused even more intolerable pain. Limborch, quoting Julius Clarus {Practica Crimina), lists strappado as the second degree of torture used by the
Inquisition—the first being stripping and severe binding, and the third squassation.
"Strappado," said Limborch, "is done by hoisting a person up, and keeping him hanging for a considerable time," and is for the purposes of interrogation rather than torture (History of the Inquisition, 1692). Lea suggests that the tratti di corde (Ital. for strappado) was first used in witch trials in 1474 in Piedmont.
Strappado was
not used in England, but was used (e.g., in 1652) in Scotland.
Squassation. In the question extraordinaire, the final torture designed to make prisoners inform on their alleged accomplices, the accused was hoisted as in strappado, his hands bound behind his back to a cord secured to a pulley in the ceiling of the torture chamber.
The victim was raised off the ground, and then suddenly released a few feet so that he almost, but never quite, touched the ground. This jerking caused intense pain and complete dislocation of the limbs.
The higher the drop, the greater the pain. More than three applications ("severe torture") usually caused death. "Very severe" torture consisted of adding weights to the feet of the prisoner as he hung, and twisting the ropes
binding his hands.
In France, stones or lead weighing from 40 to 220 pounds were employed; at Macon, 660-pound weights were attached to the hanging body. Philip Limborch, in his History of the Inquisition (1692), has left a detailed description :
The prisoner hath his hands bound behind his back, and weights tied to his feet, and then he is drawn up on high, till his head reaches the very pulley. He is kept hanging in this manner for some time, that by the greatness of the weight hanging at his feet, all his joints and limbs may be dreadfully stretched, and on a sudden he is let down with a jerk, by the slacking the rope, but kept from coming quite to the ground, by which terrible shake his arms and legs are all disjointed, whereby he is put to the most exquisite pain —the shock which he receives by the sudden stop of his fall and the weight at his feet stretching his whole body more intensely and cruelly.
Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology ... Rossell Hope Robbins (1959)