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Stocks are feet restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law describing its use is cited by the orator Lysias: "'He shall have his or her foot confined in the stocks for five days, if the court shall make such addition to the sentence.' The 'stocks' there mentioned, Theomnestus, are what we now call 'confinement in the wood ( Lys. 10.16).
Victims may be insulted, kicked, tickled, spat on, or subjected to other inhumane acts. In the Bible, the treatment of Paul and Silas, disciples of Jesus, was detailed in the Acts of the Apostles: "Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks."Bible, Acts 16:24. This most likely occurred around the year 57. The Old Testament's book of Job also describes the stocks, referring to God:
He puts my feet in the stocks, he watches all my paths.Job 13:27. Biblical scholars are unable to agree on when Job lived. But, it is most likely that he lived somewhere between 2350 and 1400 B.C.
The stocks were employed by civil and military authorities from medieval to early modern times including Colonial America. Public punishment in the stocks was a common occurrence from around 1500 until at least 1748.Earle, Alice Morse. "Curious Punishments of Bygone Days," (1896), available in digitized form through the Gutenberg project. [1]; The stocks were especially popular among the early American , who frequently employed the stocks for punishing the "lower class".Cox, James A., "Colonial Crimes and Punishments" , CW Journal, Spring 2003. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
In the American colonies, the stocks were also used, not only for punishment, but as a means of restraining individuals awaiting trial.
The offender would be exposed to whatever treatment those who passed by could imagine. This could include tickling of the feet. As noted by the New York Times in an article dated November 13, 1887, "Gone, too, are the parish stocks, in which offenders against public morality formerly sat imprisoned, with their legs held fast beneath a heavy wooden yoke, while sundry small but fiendish boys and girls improved the occasion by deliberately pulling off their socks and shoes and tickling the soles of their defenseless feet."David Ker, "England in Old Times" (page 11 of New York Times, November 13, 1887)
England's Statute of Labourers 1351 (25 Edw. 3. Stat. 2) prescribed the use of the stocks for "unruly artisans" and required that every town and village erect a set of stocks. 25 Edward III - Statute 1, Chapter 2 In towns and cities they were commonly placed in prominent central locations, such as the one before Bristol's High Cross. The 1351 act was repealed in England and Wales by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863. Statute Law Revision Act 1863, 26 and 27 Victoria, Chapter 125 Sources indicate that the stocks were used in England for over 500 years and have never been formally abolished.
Their last recorded use in the United Kingdom was on 11 June 1872 at Newbury, Berkshire, England.Unknown, Sheffield Daily Telegraph (Friday 14 June 1872)
In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, court records from 1811 required the building of a set of stocks for punishment.
The Spanish conquistadores introduced stocks as a popular form of punishment and humiliation against those who impeded the consolidation of their settlements in the New World. They were still used in the 19th century in Latin America to punish indigenous miners in many countries for rebelling against their bosses.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, police in Chinu, Colombia, placed residents who broke quarantine in stocks for a few hours.
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