From the 14th century onwards, the Aldermen’s Bench (predecessor of the current College of Mayor and Aldermen) exercised local government.

The Aldermen’s Bench consisted of seven, nine or eleven persons appointed by the local lord of the castle. The task of the Aldermen’s Bench was, among other things, to record everything administratively, to appoint the constable, the messenger, the teacher, the midwife and to rule on minor offences. The head of the Aldermen’s Bench was the schout or scholtis. Napoleon sent the aldermen home and replaced them with the elected city council.

While I was looking for jurisdiction in criminal cases, I noticed that expressions from that time are still used to this day.

If you had been up to something, you could be condemned to spend an afternoon tied to the flogging pole. It was in the middle of the village, then you were on display. Preferably on market day, so that many could look at you and laugh at you. Or you were sentenced to an afternoon in the pillory. Then you were literally standing in front of a pole. The sinner was thus put on the spot. You couldn’t leave. Everyone was allowed to pelt you with rotten fruit, excrement and other unsavory things: you got all kinds of things thrown at you.

But it also happened that if someone had a score to settle with you, he would start throwing stones, which was not the intention. If that danger threatened, someone from the militia was called in to make sure that this did not happen and then you were embarrassed.

At the post or in the block seems like a light punishment, but that was experienced as extremely humiliating at the time. This punishment could be even more severe: a nail was driven through your ear so that you could no longer dodge the projectiles and then you were pilloried. When your punishment was over, sometimes the nail was pulled out of the ear, sometimes the ear was just cut off. You had to take your ear off the pillory yourself and find a surgeon. Then you had an ear sewn on.

Fortunately, we have fines these days. Not so cumbersome and the village doesn’t get to know. In our museum, at the medieval farmhouse, there is a pillory. You can take nice pictures.

Gérard Achten