Branding

Branding has been practised from very early times. The Greeks marked their slaves with the stigma; in Rome, runaway slaves (fugitivi) and thieves (fures) were branded with the letter F; and the slaves who worked in the mines, and convicts condemned to the games or to the mines, were also branded on the forehead for identification. Constantine limited branding to the hand, arm, or calf; the face had been fashioned in the image of God, and was to be protected from such degradation. The Canon Law provided for this punishment, and in France, down to 1832, galley slaves were marked T F (travaux forcés); but in Germany it has never been recognised by the common law. Under the ancient law of England, branding was practised for various offences by the application of a hot iron, the end of which had the form which it was desired should be left imprinted on the skin. The famous Statute of Vagabonds under Edward VI. authorised the branding of the letter V on the breast of a runaway servant; and where such a servant had been sold, and afterwards escaped, he might be branded with the letter S on cheek and forehead as a slave. In the same reign, Brawling (q.v.) in church was punished by branding with the letter F on the cheek as a fraymaker. During the two centuries of persecution to which the Gypsies were subjected throughout Europe, this was a mild form of punishment; in 1636 some 'Egyptianis' were sentenced at Haddington, 'the men to be hangit, and the weomen to be drowned; and suche of the weomen as hes children to be scourgit throw the burgh and brunt in the cheeke.' In the time of Henry VII. branding had been substituted for ecclesiastical compurgation in the case of all clergiable offences by burning on the hand (see BENEFIT OF CLERGY); and with a view still further to repress theft and petty larceny, it was provided in 1698 that such offenders as had the benefit of clergy allowed them should be 'burnt in the most visible part of the left cheek, nearest the nose.' This additional severity, however, had not the desired deterrent effect, and was repealed in 1707. Cold branding, or branding with cold irons, was a way of nominally inflicting the penalty. Branding was discontinued in the reign of George III., and finally done away with in 1829. Army 'branding' or 'marking' with the letter D, or B. C. (Deserter or Bad Character), by tattooing with needles and Indian ink, not by burning, was abolished in 1879.