Taunting Persons in the Stocks.details

“The “Cambridge Trinity College Psalter”—an illuminated manuscript—presents some curious illustrations of the manners of the earlier half of the twelth century. We give a reproduction of one of its quaint pictures. Two men are in the stocks; one, it will be seen, is held by one leg only, and the other by both, and a couple of persons are taunting them in their time of trouble.

Stocks were not only used as a mode of punishment, but as a means of securing offenders. In bygone times, every vill of common right was compelled to erect a pair of stocks at its own expense. The constable by common law might place persons in the stocks to keep them in hold, but not by way of punishment.” (pp. 173, 4)