The Aqueous Abuse of the Scolding Shrews

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n Sometimes a single letter can make a difference.nThere was once a punishment called a Ducking Stool and there was anothernpunishment call a Cucking Stool. You may be familiar with the Ducking Stool, asnyou may have seen old engravings of them, with a crowd of picturesquely dressednpeople ducking an unfortunate woman sitting in one into the village duck pond.

To the Ducking Stool

nIt’s a moot point if the name comes from the act of the ducking or if it comesnfrom name of the ponds where the ducks did their dabbling. The Cucking Stoolnwas slightly different. There is a folk etymology that the name derives from ‘cuckold’nand it was a punishment for unfaithful wives who cuckolded their husbands butnthis is false.

Rustic Ducking Stool

nThe name comes from cukken, an old word meaning ‘tondefecate’, and derives through the Dutch word kakken, the Latin cacāren(both having the same meaning) and back to the Greek κακός ‘kakos’ which means ‘bad, worthless,nvile’, (and incidentally, it is found in the euphemistic word poppycock,nwhich is really pappe kak – ‘soft faeces’).

Cucking Stool from Scarborough

nA cucking stoolnwas, originally, a stool with a hole cut into the seat and was used as ancommode. From at least the time of Edward the Confessor, and maybe well backninto the time of the Saxons, the punishment for brewing bad ale at Chester wasnto be placed in the cathedra stercoris (‘the dung chair’) and tonbe placed either outside your own door or in a public place (this chair isnrecorded in the Domesday Book entry for Chester,

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n“Similiter malamncervisiam faciens, aut in Cathedra ponebatur stercoris, aut iiii. solid, dabnprepositis.).

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nIt was a deliberately degrading punishment, caught ‘at stool’non the stool, so to speak.

A Vision of Piers Plowman

nIn A Vision of Piers Plowman (c. 1360-87), a wyuennpyne (woman’s pain i.e. punishment) is mentioned, in a couplet usuallyntranslated as

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n“Thomas Stowe he taught to take two staves,

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nAnd fetch Felicenhome from the ducking stool.”

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nA local authority directive from Leicesterndated 1457, orders,

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n“…scolds to be punished by the mayor on a cuck-stoolnbefore their own doors, and then carried to the four gates of the town.”

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nBad ale wives and ‘itinerant singing women’ were sentenced to be placednon the cucking stool throughout Scotland, and a statute of Henry VIII orderedncarders and spinners of wool who were convicted of fraudulent practices

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n“…tonbe sett upon the pillory or the cukkyng-stole, man or woman, as the case shallnrequire.”

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Ducking Stool

nIt became the normal practice, over the years, for men to benplaced in the pillory or the stocks and for women to be placed on the cuckingnstool, (also called, on occasion, a ‘thewe’). James Boswell, in his Lifenof Dr Johnson, records Johnson in conversation with Mrs Knowles,

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n“Madam,nwe have different modes of restraining evil: stocks for the men, anducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts.”

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nIt seems, from the earlyndescriptions, that those on the cucking stool were not ducked, but as timenpassed the two names became synonymous.

M Misson – Travels over England – 1719

nFrom 1719 we have an account from anFrenchman, M. Misson, in his Travels over England,

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n“The way ofnpunishing scolding women is pleasant enough … They place the woman in this chair,nand so plunge her into the water, as often as the sentence directs, in order toncool her immoderate heat.”

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nHowever, the punishment was not always ‘pleasant’,nas an undated chapbook called Strange and Wonderful Relation of the OldnWoman who was Drowned at Ratcliff Highway a fortnight ago tells how thenunfortunate old woman was ducked too often for too long and was killed.

Old Woman Drowned at Ratcliff Highway

nIt cannbe seen in the woodcut taken from this chapbook, the ducking stool was fittednwith wheels, indicating that it could be brought out of storage when required,nbut in some places it was a permanent fixture. William Cole, the antiquaryn(born 1714), wrote that when he was boy, he saw a woman ducked for scoldingnfrom a bridge in Cambridge. A beam of timber was fixed to the middle of thenbridge and a chair was hung from one end; the woman was tied into the chair andnit was let down into the river three times.

The Cucking Stool at Sandwich

nThe chair at Sandwich was decoratednwith images of devils punishing scolds and was engraved with the words,

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n“Ofnmembers ye tonge is worst or best,

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nAn yll tonge oft doeth breede unrest.”

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Tumbrel style ducking stool

nAnvariation was the tumbrel, a wheeled chair that was driven through the streetsnbefore being pushed into the water and the seat tipped backwards, thus duckingnthe victim (the tumbrel, or tip cart, later gained notoriety when it was usednto transport victims of the French Revolution to the guillotine). The duckingnstool was mostly used on the Xanthippic, punishing scolds and shrews for theirnnagging, gossiping and rumour-mongering, although the mothers of illegitimatenchildren, drunken women, strumpets and prostitutes were also sentenced to bendunked.

Ducking Stool from Ipswich

nAt Beverley, Yorkshire, there are records of scolds being ducked,ntogether with brewers of bad ale and bakers of bad bread. In July 1694, atnLeeds, it was ordered that Anne Saul,

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n“…a person of lewd behaviour, benducked for daily making strife and discord amongst her neighbours.”

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Ducking Stool – Plymouth

nTherenis a ducking stool preserved at Leominster, Herefordshire, and it was here thatnthe last recorded ducking took place in England, in 1809, when a notorious nagncalled Jane Corran, also known as Jenny Pipes, was paraded through town in thenchair and then ducked by the Kenwater Bridge, by order of the magistrates. Anneyewitness recorded that her first act, after being released, was to launch antirade of oaths and curses at the magistrates.

Ducking Stool at Leominster

nIn 1817, Sarah Leeke was alsonparaded through town but she was not ducked, as the level of the water was toonlow. In 1824, a woman was sentenced to be ducked three times in Pennsylvania,nUSA, but the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rescinded the sentence after theyndecided that the punishment was obsolete and ‘against the spirit of the age.’

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