As seguintes ilustrações e descrições são imprecisas?
For Blasphemers
Called branks, or shames, iron masks were placed on the head of the blaspheming offenders, but they were heated before being fastened. The funnels at the orifices were for the convenience of introducing melted lead, boiling oil, or sharpened instruments through the brank. Often there were also inner sharp, iron spikes which were forced into the heretics' mouths, or shoved through the apertures. From 1500 to about 1800 the branks were most often used against women who were labeled "scolds." In the latter instance, the principle underlying the use of the branks was mulier taceat in ecclesia (Let the woman be silent in church.) This, of course, was finally reduced to the idea of "Let the woman be silent in the presence of the male." George E. Macdonald Thumbscrew and Rack(Austin, 1983).
Witch's Seat
For the female there were no supporting belts or pulleys to bring even temporary respite when the victim's body was pulled up occasionally from the pyramid. Instead weights were attached to both arms and legs. The illustration is one of a "treatment" frequently inflicted on witches. Austrian archival sources, reprinted in Roland Villeneuve La Musee des supplices, (Paris, 1982).
The Water Ordeal
Note the priest taking down the forced confession.
The Water Test
Most (perhaps 85 percent) of the victims of death by torture were women.
It is estimated that during the period 1450-1800 between two and four million women were burnt at the stake. But there were other niceties of killing.
One of these was called the "water test." In this, the victim was usually shackled hands and feet together as in the illustration. She was then thrown into a river. If she sank, and died (foreground) she was innocent. If the water rejected her, this was proof of her guilt. Alan C. Kors & Edward Peters Witchcraft in Europe, 1100-1700 (Philadelphia, 1972).
The Spider
This instrument, a cluster of steel hooks pointed like needles, was designed to be spread over the breast of the woman. The central ring is then pulled, drawing the points together and tearing the flesh away from the breast. The reproductive organs of both male and female were the first objects of torture.
Women's breasts were torn off with the spider rather than cut off cleanly with the sword, or knife. While men were, in the mercy of god, strangled or otherwise killed before being burnt at the stake or wheel, women were fried alive. The most bestial, pain-producing tortures were uniformly reserved for the female, usually after sodomising and raping.
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/abort1.htm