An original ducking stool ...

I know I shared this in the previous post  on the Welsh Marches / Shropshire churches but I feel it deserves its own story. 

St Peter's Church in the pretty village of Myddle just oozes old charm - the tiled floor, the black roof beams in a lovely pattern, the font in the bell tower, the list of Rectors stretching back almost a 1000 years, it all speaks of being the centre of a community, of history & continuity. 

However, I did not initially take in the importance of the wooden chair up high on the wall, out of reach above a cabinet. 

At first, I did not recognise it as such, but while reading the 'Short history of the church' booklet on the way back to the car, I realised what it was - a ducking stool. I had never seen an original one which is why I did not register what it was. 

I just had to return to do a better photo & to take in the history of it because I was quite shocked to see it in St. Peter's Church in Myddle. 

Myddle is one of the ancient Shropshire villages named in the 1086 Doomsday book, a type of early census which took account of people, livestock etc. 

Some early history of the village of Myddle 

The village of Myddle was occupied by 1066, with a manor house for Siward, Earl of Northumbria completed in the 1050s.^[3]

By 1086, the year of the Domesday Book under William the Conqueror, the manor house was occupied by Rainald the Sheriff. During the 12th century, the Fitz Alan family of Clun occupied the manor house, with John Le Strange acquiring it around 1165.

In 1234, Myddle was the location of the signing of a treaty between King Henry III and Welsh Prince Llewellyn.

In September 2005 and September 2007 a detectorist uncovered a small number of hammered gold coins dating back to the 14th century.

The Le Strange's dynasty ended in 1580 due to the lack of male heirs to the estate, and Myddle passed to the Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby after he married Joan Le Strange. Their son, Thomas, became the second Earl of Derby.

Elizabeth I granted Thomas Barnston a licence to sell land in Myddle in 1596, and in 1600 Sir Thomas Egerton purchased the village. Egerton's son was created by James I the first Earl of Bridgewater in 1617.

During the English Civil War in 1642, Charles I recruited 20 men from Myddle, with 13 killed

Myddle suffered an earthquake in 1688, but continued to expand throughout the coming centuries, with butchers' shops, taverns, fishmongers and masons inhabiting the village by about 1850.

With such a long history, there will be outdated practices but ones which were in keeping with the times. 

Ducking stools were medieval chairs used to publicly punish,  humiliate & censure women for offences such as scolding, sexual offences such as illegitimate children, backbiting, prostitution & more. 

They were enforcement of social norms through public humiliation. Some were humiliated after mass through the public reading of their 'sins'

The construction of the chairs were usually of local manufacture with no standard design. Most were simply chairs into which the offender could be tied and exposed at her door or the site of her offence. Some were on wheels like a tumbrel that could be dragged around the parish. Some were put on poles so that they could be plunged into water, hence "ducking" stool. Stocks or pillories were similarly used for the punishment of men or women by humiliation.

The number of duckings was determined by the magistrate who presided over the sentence.   

Usually, the chair was fastened to a long wooden beam fixed as a seesaw on the edge of a pond or river. Sometimes, however, the ducking-stool was not a fixture but was mounted on a pair of wooden wheels so that it could be wheeled through the streets, and at the river-edge was hung by a chain from the end of a beam. In sentencing a woman the magistrates ordered the number of duckings she should have. Yet another type of ducking-stool was called a tumbrel. It was a chair on two wheels with two long shafts fixed to the axles. This was pushed into the pond and then the shafts released, thus tipping the chair up backwards. Sometimes the punishment proved fatal and the subject died.

These were grim times for women who had no rights of their own, they were at the mercy of the men around them. Look at the images on wiki to see how the chairs worked. 

The use of ducking stools during witch trials which gripped England in ancient times is better known. They would be tied to the chair or hand to foot & plunged in to water. If they floated, they were guilty (in league with the devil) if they sank (drowned) they were innocent; so either way they died. 

These were grim times indeed & being so close to one in a church was really sobering. I knew of the dark history of the chairs, especially during the witch trials, so it was, for me, a moment to reflect on how far we have come to entrench women's rights. 

An ancient object which symbolises so much. I hope you have found this account interesting too, thank you for stopping by, reading  & leaving a comment too.  

Dee