medieval

Hanging, Burning, Beheading… Images of Execution Through The Ages
Execution has always been a popular form of entertainment. Whether it was a ritual to please the gods or a punishment ordered by the crown, people have flocked to witness the solemn event of death by cruel and painful means. In the centuries before photography, the only means of documenting

The Terrifying, Mythical Chastity Belt Was a Joke
Chastity belts are things of legend, and looking at one of these penis bear traps is pretty awe-inspiring and scary. The idea of a man locking up his wife while he went away to fight valiant wars has captured the imagination of people for centuries. But it turns out that

The Hammer of the Witches
“In the year 275 an Iranian Aryan publicly rejected the scriptures and Jesus Christ as being divine. For his outspokenness, he was arrested, crucified, skinned, stuffed, and hung from the city gates as a macabre warning to any would-be skeptics. Of course, all faiths have killed for their gods; the

Strange and Bugged Out SEX Pictures…
From Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts
These illuminated medieval manuscripts give us a look into the minds of the monks who created them, and how they viewed sex, demons and hell fire…Get your trip on and peep some medieval porn and demon weirdness! via Flashbak

Mors Medicina: Cannibalistic Healing Practices in the Civilized World
As British colonialist expansion brought traders, whalers and missionaries to the South Pacific, gruesome tales of cannibalism among the savage natives they encountered began to trickle back to a horrified public at home. To the civilized sensibilities of the British, the thought of ‘godless men’ consuming the flesh of their

Wretched of the Earth: Peasant Armies, Apocalyptic Prophecies and the Christian Atrocities of the First Crusade
“In the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.” – Deuteronomy, 20:16 If the history of holy wars has taught us anything, it is that the most direct path to God is through rivers