Boot (torture)
The term boot refers to a family of instruments of torture and interrogation variously designed to cause crushing injuries to the foot and/or leg. The boot has taken many forms in various places and times. Common varieties include the Spanish boot and the Malay boot. One type was made of four pieces of narrow wooden board nailed together. The boards were measured to fit the victim's leg. Once the leg was enclosed, wedges would be hammered between the boards, creating pressure. The pressure would be increased until the victim confessed or lost consciousness. Newer variants have included iron vises—sometimes armed with spikes—that squeezed feet and metal frames employed red-hot.
Read more about Boot (torture): Spanish Boot, Foot Press, References in Literature and The Cinema
Other articles related to "boot":
... character of Esmeralda is tortured using the boot ... Through Hugo's sketchy description, we learn only the following that the bootis "a heavy block of oak and ironwork" that completely encloses the naked foot that the device is tightened by a ... In the 1939 movie version starring Charles Laughton with Maureen O'Hara as Esmeralda, the bootresembles dissociated planks with spikes scattered here and there we do not see the device actually fitted over ...
Famous quotes containing the word boot:
“The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain.”
—Lu Yu (d. 804)