Foot roasting

Foot roasting is a method of torture used since ancient times. The torture takes advantage of the extreme sensitivity of the sole of the foot to heat[1]. The Romans immobilized the prisoner and pressed red-hot iron plates to the soles of his feet. The Spanish Inquisition bound the prisoner face-upward to the rack with his bare feet secured in a stocks. The soles of the feet were basted with lard or oil and slowly barbecued over a brazier of burning coals. A screen could be interposed between the feet and the coals to modulate the exposure, while a bellows controlled the intensity of the flame. Variants included placing slivers of hot coals between the toes, or suspending the prisoner head-downward and placing hot coals directly on the soles. The destruction of the Order of the Knights Templars is credited largely to these tortures, which were of sufficient cruelty literally to drive their sufferers insane[2], although the Templars were also tortured by having the nails slowly torn from their fingers and toes.

Painting of the Spanish Inquisition where a woman is being prepared for foot roasting.

Foot roasting remains a popular technique of torture to this day. During the Cold War, KGB torturers made use of metal clothes irons heated red-hot and applied directly to the naked soles or explored the delicate webbing between the prisoner's toes using either a soldering iron or an electric wood-burning pencil[3].

Knights Templar

Foot roasting was one of the principal tortures used to extract supposed confessions of heresy and other accusations made against the Knights Templar after their arrest in October 1307. It is recorded that one Templar's feet were so savagely tortured that—as he was being carried back to his cell—various pieces of charred bone fell from his feet to the floor. Prisoners could also be suspended head-downwards from stocks, with hot coals placed directly on the soles of the feet—held in place by gravity—while thin slivers of burning embers were slid between pairs of adjacent toes.

Brittany

In Brittany, an enhanced interrogation chair was used[4] that immobilized the feet and provided a movable tray of coals that could be cranked up and down, eventually making physical contact with the soles of the feet.

Star kicking

A form of torture called "star kicking" supposedly began with Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who would place oiled bits of paper or string between the prisoner's toes and light the material on fire.[5] More recently, five inmates in an Idaho jail enjoyed hour after hour torturing a young teenage boy in their cell by winding toilet paper around and between his toes and setting it on fire, muffling his screams and hiding their activities when patrolling deputies walked past.[6].

References
  1. Schlee, G., et al., Foot sole skin temperature affects plantar foot sensitivity, Clinical Neurophysiology 120(8), August 2009.
  2. Robinson, John J. Dungeon, Fire and Sword: The Knights Templars in the Crusades, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991.
  3. John Barron, KGB , New York: Bantam, 1983.
  4. Geoffrey Abbott, Rack, Rope, and Red-Hot Pincers, London: Trafalgar Square Publishing, 1993, pp. 106-107.
  5. Kimberly L. Craft, Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsebet Bathory, North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2002, p. 232.
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/09/us/idaho-sheriff-says-jail-had-monitor.html
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