Knout

Scourge-like multiple whip

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (September 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,216 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Кнут]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Кнут}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Corporal punishment
Part of a series on

By place
Domestic Judicial School
By implementation
Amputation Belting Birching Branding Caning Cat o' nine tails Flagellation Foot whipping Knout Paddle Scourge Sjambok Slippering Spanking Strapping Switch Tawse Riding crop Whip
By country
Afghanistan Brunei Iran Malaysia Qatar Singapore Taiwan United Arab Emirates United States
Court cases
CFCYL v. Canada Ingraham v. Wright S v Williams Tyrer v. the United Kingdom
Politics
Campaigns against corporal punishment
v t e

A knout /ˈnaʊt/ (Russian: кнут, Russian pronunciation: [knut]) is a Russian whip, that consists of rawhide thong or a rope attached to a long wooden handle; construction varies. Commonly used for prodding horses or cattle, flagellation by a knout has become notorious as a means of corporal punishment in Russian history. The English word stems from a spelling-pronunciation of a French transliteration of the Russian word кнут (knut), which simply means "whip".

Origin

Some claim^[who?] it was a Tatar invention and was introduced into Russia in the 15th century, perhaps by Grand Duke Ivan III the Great (1462–1505). Others^[who?] trace the word to Varangians and derive it from the Swedish knutpiska, a kind of whip with knots. Still others^[who?] maintain it is of generic Germanic origin, not necessarily Scandinavian, comparing it with the German Knute, Dutch knoet (both meaning knout) and with Old Norse knutr, Anglo-Saxon cnotta and English knot.

Knout for corporal punishment

Russian executioner's knouts had different forms. One was a lash of rawhide, 40 cm (16 in) long, attached to a wooden handle, 22 cm (8.7 in) long. The lash ended in a metal ring, to which was attached a second lash as long, ending also in a ring, to which in turn was attached a few inches of hard leather ending in a beak-like hook.^[1] Another kind consisted of many thongs of skin plaited and interwoven with wire, ending in loose wired ends, like the cat-o-nine tails.

A variation, known as the great knout, consisted of a handle about 60 cm (24 in) long, to which was fastened a flat leather thong about twice the length of the handle, terminating with a large copper or brass ring to which was affixed a strip of hide about 5 cm (2 in) broad at the ring, and terminating at the end of 60 cm (24 in) in a point. This was soaked in milk and dried in the sun to make it harder.

Knouts were used in Russia for flogging as formal corporal punishment of criminals and political offenders. The victim was tied to a post or on a triangle of wood and stripped, receiving the specified number of strokes on the back. A sentence of 100 or 120 lashes was equivalent to a death sentence. Even twenty lashes could maim, and with the specially extended Great Knout, twenty blows could kill, with death sometimes being attributed to the breaking of the spine.

Emperor Nicholas I abolished the punishment by knout in 1845, after years of deliberation and replaced it with the pleti,^[1] a lighter whip, commonly with three tails, which was used previously for punishment as well.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b "Кнут, орудие наказания" . Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). 1906.
^ "Плети" . Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). 1906.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Knout". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.