Scold’s bridle: the humiliating punishment for women who spoke in the 1500s
The telephone. The television. Penicillin. The bicycle. Colour photography. All inventions that we can thank the great men and women of Scotland for.
Legitimately, there are few countries in the world that have contributed more to the world despite their size than Scotland, yet they can’t all be winners, can they? For every ‘Hey Jude’ there must also be an ‘Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da’. For every Apocalypse Now, there must also be a Jack. And for every Irn-Bru there must also be a scold’s bridle, otherwise known as the branks. A torture implement so plainly designed to hurt women, it’s a wonder it wasn’t invented for The Handmaid’s Tale.
In any other situation, I would push back on this being so explicitly a Scottish invention, and not just because of my Caledonian heritage. Yes, I’m doing fine in this 35 degree weather we’re having at the time of writing, why do you ask? Seriously, though, I’m not naive enough to believe that nothing so blatantly misogynist could ever be Scottish, but more so that the idea that no country in the world has a monopoly on the concept, surely other countries have done the same?
Well, yes, but the Scots did it first. We have reports dating back to the late 1500s that pretty much all villages in Scotland had a branks. Oftentimes, they were perched on top of the villages mercat cross for all to see. A branks is a set of metal headgear with a flat piece of iron pressing inwards.
If a man decided that one of the women in his life was “talking too much”, which often in practise meant “talking at all”, she would be clapped in the branks and paraded about town. More often than not, with a sign around her chest proclaiming her a “scold”.
If it sounds like I’m simplifying this, I’m really not. It was entirely that simple and entirely that disgusting.
There were variations of it, of course. There were some where the headgear was more like an iron mask that prevented the wearer from seeing anything. Some were even crueller than that, where the flat iron piece that went into the victim’s mouth was a blade, forcing the victim not to move their tongue at all or risk permanent injury. What’s more, their use spread over Hadrian’s Wall and into England, Wales, Europe and their colonies in the New World.
Because if there’s one thing that can unite men who’ve hated each other as much as Englishmen and Scotsmen historically, it’s hatred, suspicion and fear of women. Especially the idea of a woman speaking their mind. Something that men have been so scared of that they literally made it a crime. That’s right, this wasn’t a social punishment either, the way that the drunkard’s cloak was. The use of the term “scold” was specifically because being a “scold” was against the law.
And remained against the law until 1967. Fucking hell.
