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These devices, which existed in a vast profusion of fantastical and sometimes downright artistic styles from about 1500 to 1800, were used to punish those who, by their words, had transgressed against prevailing conventions, against the arrogance of the male power structure, or against the state of things in general. In the course of four centuries, millions of women decried as scolds and shrews because domestic slavery and incessant pregnancy had reduced and tortured; political power thus held up to public ridicule the petty disobedient and the nonconformists; ecclesiastical power thus punished a long list of lesser infractions.The overwhelming majority of victims were always women, and the operative principle was mulier taceat in ecclesia, �Let the woman be silent in church�, �church� here meaning the ruling ecclesiastical and secular hierarchies, both constitutionally gynaecophobic; the sense was thus �Let the woman be silent in the presence of the male�. Many branks had inner iron projections that were forced into the victim�s mouth, and some of these permanently mutilated the tongue with sharp spikes and blades.
The victims, locked into the masks and staked out in the town square, were also treated roughly by the crowd. Painful beatings, besmearing with faeces and urine, and serious, sometimes fatal wounding �especially in the breasts and privates� was their lot.
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