Punishment: Its Method and Purpose 55
as earlier. Executions were by strangulation or drowning, and also sometimes held secretly.”
The justification for its use was the removal of evil from the community. Others saw it as a way of frightening potential criminals. Often the right to execute had to be authorized by the local ruler or the king. There is no way of knowing how frequently the death penalty was used. Our sources deal primarily with the best known scholars; they refer to this sentence as nothing unusual. We should remember that the medieval period was much more violent than our times in urban areas and on the roads, as contemporary non-Jewish sources attest.
Added to the list of punishments was maiming, which was unknown in biblical or talmudic times. It was used in both Spain and Poland for a variety of crimes, a habitual Polish thief had both ears cut off. As one respondent indicated, this was more feared than death, as it was a reminder to the world of criminal acts for the rest of the individual's life.®
Prisons were used in the Middle Ages in all lands except France and Germany . In Spain imprisonment occurred only for serious crimes such as murder. We even have an inquiry about the need for a mezuzah for a prison. House arrest with a guard posted outside the house was also used, especially in Spain. ®
A method of punishment influenced by the surrounding society was the placement of offenders into iron stocks before the entrance of main synagogue as in Lvov and other Polish cities, a procedure known to us through the pinkasim(communal records) of the cities.” Another unusual penalty was branding the letter tav for prostitution, theft, and/or informing as reported from Spain , Prague , and Cracow .” Equally shaming was the shaving of all hair and the beard; this was not known in Gaonic times, but Was later used in all lands.”
Whipping was the most frequent physical punishment. Mai Monides provided a long and detailed list of crimes for which Whipping was the punishment; twenty-one were crimes against communal morality in which the Torah stipulated karet, a divine Punishment of unknown meaning, but not death; eighteen dealt with priestly wrongs and matters connected with sacrifices; 168 Covered everything from slander and perjury to dietery and Sumptuary laws. This was a much more thorough list than presented by anyone earlier.” The medieval punishment of lashes Was not governed by the earlier rules which limited it to forty,