Scold's Bridle: False Measures

What happens when a woman talks back, spreads gossip, or simply refuses to stay quiet in the medieval UK?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan explore the disturbing history of the scold’s bridle, also known as the branks, a punishment designed to silence people, particularly women, by physically restraining the tongue and publicly humiliating the wearer.

We’ll look at why women were labeled “scolds,” how accusations of gossip, arguing, defying authority, and even witchcraft could lead to punishment, and how town councils, kirk sessions, and local courts in Scotland used the bridle despite it never being formally established as a legal punishment.

We’ll follow documented cases including Bessie Telfer, who was branked and chained to Edinburgh’s market cross for allegedly slandering a local official, Dorothy Waugh, the young Quaker preacher subjected to hours in the bridle and then imprisoned and whipped, and a much later case in 1789 where a woman was forced to wear the device while local children mocked her.

We’ll also examine the different versions of the bridle, including those fitted with spikes designed to punish any attempt to move the tongue, the supposed use of the device against men, and why this symbol of public humiliation eventually began disappearing in the 19th century.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring their own particularly sharp sense of humor to a device whose entire purpose was essentially to tell someone, “You know what? We’ve heard enough from you.”

If you’re interested in the scold’s bridle, branks, Scottish history, women’s history, witchcraft accusations, medieval and early modern punishment, public humiliation, historical torture, and the bizarre ways authorities have tried to shut people up throughout history, this episode is going to leave you speechless.

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