PILLORY

PILLORY, a device for publicly punishing petty offenders. The pillory consisted of a frame with holes in which the head and hands of the standing prisoner were locked. This device was not as common in the American colonies as were the more merciful stocks, in which the prisoner sat, fastened by the hands and feet. But one or the other probably existed in every town in which a court sat. Offenders sentenced to the pillory typically included perjurers, forgers, counterfeiters, and blasphemers. Judges based their decisions to use the pillory (and other forms of punishment) on both local tradition and precedent in English criminal law.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pestritto, Ronald J. Founding the Criminal Law: Punishment and Political Thought in the Origins of America. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000.

Clifford K.Shipton/s. b.

See alsoCrime ; Ducking Stool ; Manners and Etiquette ; Prisons and Prison Reform ; Punishment ; Stocks .

pil·lo·ry / ˈpilərē/ hist. • n. (pl. -ries) a wooden framework with holes for the head and hands, in which an offender was imprisoned and exposed to public abuse. • v. (-ries,-ried) [tr.] put (someone) in the pillory. ∎ fig. attack or ridicule publicly: he found himself pilloried by members of his own party.

pillory. Social corrective combining public humiliation and discomfort, occasionally death. The offender's hands and neck were immobilized within a hinged pair of planks attached to an upright post on a platform, erected in open spaces, usually for an hour on market-day. Generally a sentence for acts that aroused common resentment and hostility (e.g. dishonest commerce), it also forewarned potential victims by public identification. The spectators' mood could vary. Defoe found them kind (1703), but taunts and pelting with eggs, vegetables, and vermin were more common; if real anger prevailed, stones could prove fatal. The practice was abolished in 1837.

A. S. Hargreaves

pillory a wooden framework with holes for the head and hands, in which an offender was imprisoned and exposed to public abuse. In Great Britain the punishment of the pillory was abolished, except for perjury, in 1815, and totally in 1837. In Delaware, US, it was not abolished till 1905.

Recorded from Middle English, the word comes from Old French pilori, and probably from Provençal espilori (associated by some with a Catalan word meaning ‘peephole’, of uncertain origin).

pillory sb. XIII. ME. pillori — AL. pillorium (XII) — (O)F. pilori, †pillori, †pellori (XII), prob. — Pr. espilori, of obscure orig.
Hence vb. XVI.