- Bernkastel-Kues
Punishment of honour and a sign of jurisdiction: the pillory Minor offenders such as slanderers, whingers and drunkards were pilloried.
In addition, adulterers, procurers, fornicators and also quarrelsome women. The punishment consisted mainly of public disgrace. The offenders were also allowed to be spat on and insulted by passers-by.
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‘The town hall façade is a magnificent work of the late German Renaissance, probably the work of the Trier sculptor Hans Ruprecht Hoffmann or created by Trier masters of his school. Hoffmann's patron and sponsor was the then Archbishop Lothar von Metternich (1599 to 1623), whose coat of arms with the three conch shells and the Electorate of Trier cross adorns the town hall oriel on the outside next to the Bernkastel town coat of arms. This beautiful oriel, similar to a Renaissance monstrance, rests on a basalt column standing in front of the centre pillar of the ground floor; it is divided into windows and bears a stone figure of the Salvator mundi, the Saviour of the World with the globe, on the baroque curved roof, a work that is also attributed to the sculptor Hoffmann. The ground floor of the façade shows a round arch to the left and right of the oriel column of the once open hall, half of which served as a fire station and the other half housed the flour scales. The pillory with chains and handcuffs, to which offenders were once shackled to the public pillar of shame or pillar of shame, was located on the corner pillar to the left of the spectator, as the inscription ‘Hochgerichtliche Straff und Bürgerliche Züchtigung’ (High Court Punishment and Civil Punishment) engraved above it reports. Two massive yet graceful skylight structures stand in front of the hipped roof, which ends with a spiral-decorated iron flower at the top.’ Source: Chronicle of the town of Bernkastel, Franz Schmit
