Cucking Stool, Priory Church, Leominster, Herefordshire, England
N 52° 13.748 W 002° 44.151
30U E 518041 N 5786556
Cucking Stool, Priory Church, Church Street, Leominster
Waymark Code: WMWTEJ
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/11/2017
Views: 1
From wikipedia:
Cucking stools or ducking stools were chairs formerly used for punishment of disorderly women, scolds, and dishonest tradesmen in England, Scotland,[1] and elsewhere.[2] The cucking-stool was a form of wyuen pine ("women's punishment") as referred to in Langland's Piers Plowman (1378). They were both instruments of public humiliation and censure primarily for the offense of scolding or back biting and less often for sexual offenses like bearing an illegitimate child or prostitution.
The stools were technical devices which formed part of the wider method of law enforcement through social humiliation. A common alternative was a court order to recite one’s crimes or sins after Mass or in the market place on market day or informal action such as a Skimmington ride.
They were usually of local manufacture with no standard design. Most were simply chairs into which the offender could be tied and exposed at her door or the site of her offence. Some were on wheels like a tumbrel that could be dragged around the parish. Some were put on poles so that they could be plunged into water, hence "ducking" stool. Stocks or pillories were similarly used for punishment of men or women by humiliation.
A complete ducking stool is on public display in Leominster Priory, Herefordshire.
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