When crimes began to occur more often, people tried to create ways to prevent the offenses from happening.

There were various ways of preventing crime in the medieval world and one was executing a curfew. This meant that people were expected to be within their homes by approximately 9:00 pm or 8:00 pm. Another way was that convicted criminals were executed and put on display in iron cages or punished in plain sight of the public. Often torture was used to gain a confession from a serious crime offender. Some ways of torture were being drowned by water torture, being hung by the hair and flogged, being stretched on a rack or suffering the thumbscrews.

Punishments were made to fit the crime and were usually more humiliating than painful. A villager whose livestock had damaged another person’s crops had to pay a fine or carry out more duties and stealing firewood from the lord’s forest had the same consequence. A woman guilty of gossiping had to wear the scold’s bridle on the other hand a woman who was accused of constantly nagging her husband was tied to a ducking stool and dunked into a body of water. A baker who was accused of cheating his or her customers had a loaf of brad tied around the neck and was dragged around the town on a sledge. Other offenses could result in being put in stocks and the townspeople could throw rotten food or faeces at the offender. Harsher punishments were whipping, the severing of hands, and the cutting of the tongue or an ear. Sometimes a hot, sharp rod was used to burn out a person’s eyes. There were worse consequences for crimes like witchcraft, treason and murder.

People believed witches used their special powers to bring unhappiness and suffering into the world. They believed they were the followers of the devil and were the causes for natural occurrences like plague, famine, failure of crops and drought. Sometimes people falsely accused others of witchcraft for reasons being desire for revenge or jealousy. The punishment for witchcraft was being burnt alive; people believe that burning would cleanse the soul. This was not the only punishment that involved religious beliefs.

People believed they could ask god for a judgement by hurling the accused offender into the ‘holy waters’ with their feet and hands tied together. If the person was innocent they would sink, if the person would float they would be punished, either way the person would suffer.

As you can see, law, order and crime control in the medieval ages was different in many ways compared to the society of the world we see today. People had to endure pain and humiliation; they were tortured in various ways, could be put into stocks and could be executed for reasons being witchcraft, treason and murder.