Were peasants in the middle ages tortured often?

Answer 1

I would say medieval peasants were not normally tortured during the Middle Ages. Stocks were used for some crimes, and these constrained the person being punished while passersby might throw things at them. During the Middle Ages, this was probably not considered torture, though it might be today.

The Church made a number of somewhat effective bans on torture at various times during the Middle Ages. The result of this was that in many places, but not all, torture was only used in situations where it was considered important enough to risk running afoul of the Church authorities. This meant that torture was often used only in cases of treason. Peasants were nearly never accused of treason because they were nearly never in a position to commit treason. They could rebel or revolt, but that is not the same thing.

There were exceptions that involved secular authorities, but these were mostly cases where the ruler was unusually arrogant and cruel.

On the other hand, there were times during the Middle Ages when officers of the Church itself might have been guilty of torture while they were prosecuting people accused of heresy. Some of these people were doubtless peasants. They were normally given some chance to avoid punishment by recanting, so they could avoid punishment, but I suppose that did not always happen. There were a few among them accused of witchcraft, but this was very unusual during the Middle Ages, as the witch hunts we hear about all took place after the Middle Ages ended.