The Pillory
The Pillory (Fr. pilori, probably from Lat. pila, a pillar) was a mode of punishment by a public exposure of the offender long used in most countries of Europe. No punishment has been inflicted in so many different ways as that of the pillory. Sometimes the machine was constructed so that several criminals might be pilloried at the same time; but it was commonly capable of holding but one at once. Francis Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. i., p. 146, gives six representations of distinct varieties of this instrument. These varieties are all reducible, however, to the simplest form of the pillory. It consisted of a wooden frame or screen raised on a pillar or post several feet from the ground, and behind which the culprit stood supported on a platform, his head and hands being thrust through holes in the screen, so as to be exposed in front. This screen, in the more complicated forms of the instrument, consisted of a perforated iron circle or carcan (hence the name given to the pillory in French), which secured the hands and heads of several persons at the same time.
The Pillory seems to have existed in England before the Conquest, in the shape of the stretchneck, in which the head only of the criminal was confined; but it was usually constructed for the head and hands. It was used for punishing all sorts of cheats; as, bakers for making bread of light weight; fraudulent com, coal, and cattle dealers; cutters of purses; sellers of sham gold rings; forgers of letters, bonds, and deeds; users of unstamped measures, &c. It was also a Star Chamber punishment; and from the time of Titus Oates to its abolition, the pillory was a common punishment for perjury. The usual places where the pillory was pitched were the Royal Exchange, the Old Bailey, Temple Bar, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, Charing Cross, New Palace Yard, and Tyburn. About the year 1812, the writer remembers to have seen four men in the pillory, at the north end of Fleet-market (Holborn-bridge). The last person who stood in the pillory in London, was Peter James Bossy, for perjury, in the Old Bailey, June 23, 1830. A pillory is still standing at Coleshill, in Warwickshire; and in an unused chancel of Rye church, Sussex, is a pillory, last used in 1813. The pillory was abolished in Great Britain in 1837, by stat. 1 Vict., c. 23; and in France in 1832.