The Rack

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The rack is a notorious torture device made up of a sturdy rectangular frame, usually constructed from wood, that stands slightly elevated above the ground with a roller at one or both ends. The victim's ankles are securely fastened to one end and their wrists to the roller. As the interrogation intensifies, a handle and ratchet mechanism attached to the top roller is used to steadily retract the chains, gradually increasing the strain on the prisoner's shoulders, hips, knees, and elbows, resulting in excruciating pain. By utilizing pulleys and levers, this roller can be rotated on its own axis, causing the ropes to stretch until the sufferer's joints are dislocated and eventually separated. Furthermore, if muscle fibers are overstretched, they lose their ability to contract, rendering them ineffective. One of the most distressing aspects of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud cracking noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments or bones. A powerful method for applying pressure on prisoners was to force them to watch someone else being subjected to the rack. By confining the prisoner on the rack, further tortures could be simultaneously applied, typically including burning their flanks with hot torches or candles or using "pincers made with specially roughened grips to tear out the nails of the fingers and toes" or sliding thin slivers of red-hot coal between pairs of adjacent toes. Usually, the victim's shoulders and hips would be torn apart and their elbows, knees, wrists, and ankles would be dislocated.