Easter W/E visit to A 12th Century Norman Fortification Outdoor Museum

The Manor house in the Inner Bailey...no serfs were permitted in here unless they were servants

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I would really have loved to visit this place, Holly, but thanks to your superb photo collection, I would think that there wouldn't be too much more to see, so, you have saved me the time and expense of going there, thank you for sharing.....:)
 

Ferocious said:
I would really have loved to visit this place, Holly, but thanks to your superb photo collection, I would think that there wouldn't be too much more to see, so, you have saved me the time and expense of going there, thank you for sharing.....:)
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Well it's a long way for you to come to here ferocious, so I've saved you the cost of the travel.. ;)...but actually there's quite a bit more to see, there's a Toy museum there too which we didn't go into as it was Easter hols and it was full of kids and mums and dads
 
One little church with only one Pew....

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Coffin outside the church... I'm thinking the child standing at the entrance to the church was only about 5 feet tall, and probably in the middle ages the average person was only around that height, hence the small coffins..

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hollydolly said:
Oooh between the ducking stools, the man traps, the guillotines, the hanging drawn and quartering...and also they had a stone pit covered in iron railing, about 6 feet by 3..where they threw people to rot and be eaten by rats..the medieval ages were probably the most brutal..

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This is even worse than the one I just replied to....eaten by rats!!!! My worst nightmare!
 
CeeCee said:
Interesting! First Ive heard of that, I would think it was a successful deterrent....not a pleasant way to die.
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In the London Dungeons Museum they have ancient torture and punishment items that would make you scream that people could be so inhumane to other humans.

One very similar one they have to the Gibbet, was something which was in the dungeon, and only 3 feet high. They would fold the prisoners body up into it in the dark disgusting foul smelling dungeon, then chop a finger or a hand off, so that every rat in the dungeons would come running to eat the prisoner alive!!

Some of the Instruments of torture in the middle ages, made the Brit Hierarchy look like the most evil people on the planet!!...
 
hollydolly said:
In the London Dungeons Museum they have ancient torture and punishment items that would make you scream that people could be so inhumane to other humans.

One very similar one they have to the Gibbet, was something which was in the dungeon, and only 3 feet high. They would fold the prisoners body up into it in the dark disgusting foul smelling dungeon, then chop a finger or a hand off, so that every rat in the dungeons would come running to eat the prisoner alive!!

Some of the Instruments of torture in the middle ages, made the Brit Hierarchy look like the most evil people on the planet!!...
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Hard to even imagine...was it effective though or did people commit crimes anyway?
 
Regarding the Hell Hole. If one of the prisoners were bitten by any of the vermin and they ended up with an infection, then were set free (a prisoner), couldn’t they infect other people and eventually start an epidemic? Wasn’t a plague started by infected rats?

Did you know that there is a Hell Hole on most airplanes? In case the landing gear does not extend or drop down, one of the pilots can open a floor panel in the cockpit, crawl down inside the Hell Hole and crank down the landing gear into position. It’s a very tight small space and it’s very cold down there. Just imagine, at 35,000 feet the outside temperature is about -40F.
 
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CeeCee said:
Hard to even imagine...was it effective though or did people commit crimes anyway?
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Well given that people were tortured and imprisoned to death for the most minor of crimes, I don't suppose they could be counted as being able to commit any more crimes.. and I have no idea if the general populace knew what hell awaited them especially within the dungeons of a Castle for example...

Further to that a lot of innocent people were imprisoned too.. if your face didn't fit for any reason, then trumped up charges would be made against you..

Oldman : Good question, but to my understanding the ''Hell Hole'' was a permanent situation..once you went in there you were never coming out alive... ( as you can see by the skeletons lying at the bottom of the cage)

Interesting titbit about the Hell Hole on Planes..I didn't know that!!:)
 
Holly, besides being able to crank down the landing gear, there are other problems that can be resolved down there because depending on what size aircraft, other flight controls may be accessed.

I only went down down a few times during my training. It’s not a place you would want to be for a long flight.
 
Do you think exhibits like this overstate the grim part to make it more interesting? I don't doubt that all these punishments existed at one time or another but their use might have been rare. Think about it. The serfs were essentially the lord's property. He needed them. I'm sure severe punishment was used occasionally to keep them in line. That was done in the U.S. to control slaves. But, you don't destroy your property more than you have to.

Don
 
Grampa Don said:
Do you think exhibits like this overstate the grim part to make it more interesting? I don't doubt that all these punishments existed at one time or another but their use might have been rare. Think about it. The serfs were essentially the lord's property. He needed them. I'm sure severe punishment was used occasionally to keep them in line. That was done in the U.S. to control slaves. But, you don't destroy your property more than you have to.

Don
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No I know from history that there were a surfeit of serfs, and lower class peasants, so they were easily replaceable, and were punished severely at the whim of their ''master''... In fact what you see here in my pictures is just a very pale example of the punishments dished out to ordinary people by their so called Lords and masters...
 
Interesting to see these pictures of the things we talked about back in school, except for the Bailey.
 
Can you all believe this was over a year ago?.... I'm very pleased we got to see this last year when we did, given that now we'll not know the future of these outdoor museums which can get very crowded during the summer months..
 
Despite my bad knee, I was able to walk to the top of this outpost on the very steep stairs and look out where they would have aimed arrows, and spears...

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Looks like , back in the middle ages the village Pie-eater got the job of Look-out... :D

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