Foot roasting

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Painting of the Spanish Inquisition where a woman is being prepared for 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. A version that consisted of a chair with an integrated foot stocks was referred to as the Spanish chair,^[2] but this is readily confused with the Iron chair. By way of contrast, in the Brittany chair, the coals were held in a movable iron tray which could be cranked upward until it actually made contact with the feet.^[3] Added diversions 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 foot roasting, which was committed with savagery literally sufficient to drive the sufferers to insanity; to add to the hideous cruelty, many Knights also had their toes denailed.^[4]

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.^[5]

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.

Roman Empire[]

The litany of ancient Roman tortures included the use of iron slippers, heated red-hot, into which a prisoner's bare foot was thrust and which was left in place while the prisoner was forced to dance.^[6]

Brittany[]

In Brittany, an enhanced interrogation chair was used^[7] 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 derived sadistic pleasure from placing oiled bits of paper or string between her prisoners’ toes and lighting the material on fire, inflicting savage burns.^[8] The name of the torture is presumably reflective of its victims' pathetic efforts to kick the offending material loose, showering the vicinity with sparks. As recently as 1982, five inmates in an Idaho jail tortured a younger boy in their cell for over four hours 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.^[9]

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