Stretching the truth? the 'rack' in Anglo-Saxon England

The conceived history of the torture rack delineates a clear line of descent from classical Greece, through ancient Rome, and into the Middle Ages where it becomes synonymous in the popular imagination with the dungeon and the inquisition. This paper questions that history. There is little proof that the rack was used in Greece and strong evidence that it was not used in Rome. Moreover, an examination of the translation practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would seem to illuminate a critical moment at which these facts were obscured. The specific focus of this paper is on the ways in which this translational shift affected Anglo-Saxon studies, although there is also a considerable discussion of sources from the classical period and from Late Antiquity.