The Law, Crime, Torture and Punishment - Catherine Wheel
There were no laws or rules to protect the treatment of prisoners who faced torture or punishment, such as the Catherine Wheel. No matter what the type of torture or punishment was used it was seen as a totally legitimate means for justice to extract confessions, obtain the names of accomplices, obtain testimonies or confessions or to impose a penalty, sanctioned by law for a wrong committed.The following description provides facts and information about the Catherine Wheel.

Facts and Information about the Catherine Wheel
The Catherine Wheel or Breaking Wheel was an instrument of execution where the unfortunate victim had his limbs systematically broken. Catherine wheel or breaking wheel, an instrument of execution often associated with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and adopted as one of the European execution methods. Medieval Execution by the Wheel was practised in France and Germany. Breaking on the wheel, or Catherine Wheel, was a form of torture and execution where the victim was placed on a cart-wheel and his limbs stretched out along the spokes. The wheel was made to slowly revolve, and the man's bones broken with blows of an iron bar. Sometimes it was mercifully ordered that the executioner should strike the criminal on chest and stomach, blows known as coups de grace, which at once ended the torture, and in France he was usually strangled after the second or third blow.