Torture

CUT AND THRUST
The human anatomy seems to have been expressly designed to be pierced. Had it been an amorphous mass like that of a jellyfish, or enclosed in a shell, other punitive methods would have had to be devised. As it was, the human body's soft, yielding flesh, with vulnerable parts such as fingers and toes, ears and noses sticking out, positively invited the attention of the torturers' keen-edged blade and sharpened spike.
That this was recognised as early as the eleventh century is evidenced by an edict of William the Conqueror, ordering the maiming of criminals, while Henry I (reign: 1100–35) ordained that those guilty of counterfeiting the nation's currency should be rounded up and taken to Winchester, where they were to have their right hands severed and afterwards be castrated.

a mean room, stopped from the light, and shall there be laid on the bare ground without any litter, straw or other covering, and without any garment about him except something about his middle. He shall lie, a stone beneath his back, his head shall be covered and his feet shall be bare. One of his arms shall be drawn with a cord to the side of the room, and the other arm to the other side, and his legs shall be served in the same manner. Then there shall be laid upon his body as much iron or stone as he can bear, and more. And the first day after he shall have three morsels of barley bread, without any drink, and the second day he shall be allowed to drink as much as he can, at three times, of the water that is next the prison door, except running water, without any bread. And this shall be his diet until he dies.

less night nor even when wearing a blindfold, but an almost tangible, impenetrable thickness of heavy nothingness, a sensation akin to being submerged in black treacle.
Starvation also played a great part in breaking a prisoner's morale. This inhuman treatment was decreed during the reign of Edward I in an act of 1275 entitled 'The Punishment of Felons refusing Lawful Trial', which stated:

It is provided also that notorious Felons which openly be of evil Name, and will not put themselves in Enquests of Felonies (so that they may be charged) before the Justices at the King's Suit, shall have la prisone forte et dure, as they which refuse to stand to the Common Law of the Land. And let their penance be this, that they be barefoot, ungirt and bareheaded, in the worst place in the prison, upon the bare ground continually, night and day. That they eat only bread made of barley or bran, and that they drink not the day they eat, nor eat the day they drink, nor drink anything but water, and that they be put in irons.