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Common scold - The offence and its punishment

Common scold - The offence and its punishment: Encyclopedia II - Common scold - The offence and its punishment

In the Commentaries on the Laws of England, Blackstone says of this offence: Lastly, a common scold, communis rixatrix, (for our law-latin confines it to the feminine gender) is a public nuisance to her neighbourhood. For which offence she may be indicted; and, if convicted, shall be sentenced to be placed in a certain engine of correction called the trebucket, castigatory, or cucking stool, which in the Saxon language signifies the scolding stool; though now it is frequently corrupted into ducking stool, because t ...

Common scold: Encyclopedia II - Common scold - The offence and its punishment

Common scold - The offence and its punishment

In the Commentaries on the Laws of England, Blackstone says of this offence:

Lastly, a common scold, communis rixatrix, (for our law-latin confines it to the feminine gender) is a public nuisance to her neighbourhood. For which offence she may be indicted; and, if convicted, shall be sentenced to be placed in a certain engine of correction called the trebucket, castigatory, or cucking stool, which in the Saxon language signifies the scolding stool; though now it is frequently corrupted into ducking stool, because the residue of the judgement is, that, when she is so placed therein, she shall be plunged in the water for her punishment. (Bl. Comm. IV:13.5.8, p. *169)

The prescribed penalty for this offence involved dunking the convicted offender in water in an instrument called the "cucking stool". The cucking stool, according to Blackstone, eventually became known as a ducking stool by folk etymology. The stool consisted of a chair that was suspended over a body of water into which the prisoner was strapped and dunked into the water for her punishment.

Other writers disagree with Blackstone's assertion equating the two sorts of punishment seat. The Domesday Book notes the use of a cucking stool at Chester, a seat also known as cathedra stercoris, a "dung chair", whose punishment apparently involved exposing the sitter's buttocks to onlookers. This seat served to punish not only scolds, but also brewers and bakers who sold bad ale or bread, whereas the ducking stool dunked its victim into the water.

A scold's bridle or brank consists of a locking metal mask or head cage that contains a tab that fits in the mouth to inhibit talking. Some have claimed that convicted common scolds had to wear such a device as a preventive measure. However, legal sources do not mention them in the context of the punishment of common scolds.

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American, Anne Royall, Benjamin West, Bl. Comm., Blackstone, Chester, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Common law, Domesday Book, England, Equal Protection Clause, Fourteenth Amendment, John Gay, John Holt, King's Bench, Latin, Leominster, Michaelmas, New Jersey, Norwich, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Plymouth, Saxon language, Superior Court, Trinity, United Kingdom, United States, ale, anti-clerical, bakers, blasphemy, brank, bread, brewers, clergymen, common law, constitution of the United States, crime, cucking stool, disorderly conduct, ducking stool, due process, fine, folk etymology, gender, judgement, marks, mask, noise, ordinances, pastoral, penological, profanity, scold's bridle, statutory, term

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The offence and its punishment", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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