Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 15, 2020 14:27:47 GMT -5
The ‘Shame Flute’: Torture Device for Bad Medieval Musicians
The device above, on display in the Medieval Crime Museum in Rothenburg, Germany, is a “Shame Flute,” a contraption contrived to shame bad musicians. Miss too many notes on your lute or cornett? Shame flute. Beat your drum like the devil overpowering other musicians? Shame flute.
But the shame flute wasn’t reserved solely for musicians. Fumbling jugglers, clumsy dancers, poor singers, jesters whose jokes and antics fell flat and any other entertainer who didn’t please his audience could find a shame flute clamped around his neck.
And not only was the heavy iron instrument of shame locked around the neck of the offending entertainer, there was a second device attached to the body of the “flute” to hold his fingers in position. Once the contraption was in place, the man was either paraded through the village, or ordered to stand in a public location, so that his shame could be witnessed by all and sundry. No doubt, there were those who threw unsavory items – rotten fruit and worse – at the poor sap and because his hands were immobilized, he was unable to wipe away the offensive matter or even slap at the flies it attracted.
More than likely, a single gambol through the village in a shame flute was enough to ensure any budding musician or other entertainer made certain he was adept at his chosen endeavor before attempting to entertain in public again.
Believe it or not, the shame flute actually inspired the name of a modern-day Finnish musical group: The Flute of Shame, an acoustic three-piece band. It seems that one night when the men were searching for a bar in Amsterdam, they came upon the city’s torture museum, which has a shame flute on display, and viola! they had their name.
Sources: Maddy Shaw Roberts, Discover Music, January 9, 2020, and Open Culture, January 23, 2020.
