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The Public Enquiry Experience Could Learn From Medieval Punishments

by Joanna Gray
30 May 2024 7:00 PM

A medieval whipping post and stocks still remain outside the churchyard of the village where I grew up. My great-grandfather could remember the stump from the ducking stool that once lowered local ‘scolds’ into the pond. I used to sit, bored, in church ignoring the vicar, reading the Book of Common Prayer, fascinated by the service: “A Commination, or denouncing of God’s anger and judgements against sinners,” where, “Such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be more afraid to offend.”

I was reminded of all of this when watching Simon Case limp into the Covid Inquiry the other day. For surely, a public enquiry is our modern day equivalent of the stocks and whipping post, where perceived wrong-doers are publicly humiliated. We delight in the tears of Paula Vennells, show collective disgust at the findings of the infected blood inquiry and tut righteously as Case reveals the Government failed to tell the public about alternatives to lockdown. The Commination service includes the chilling line: “Cursed is he that taketh reward to slay the innocent.” Couldn’t that apply to a great number of public figures?

Yet what the medieval church understood and we have perhaps forgotten is the importance of using the public humiliation of individuals to inspire better behaviour from everyone else. A line in the Commination service reads: “Being admonished of the great indignation of God against sinners, ye may the rather be moved to earnest and true repentance; and may walk more warily in these dangerous days; fleeing from such vices.”

It is of course far too easy to blame Ken Clarke for the infected blood catastrophe, Paula Vennells for the Post Office scandal and Cummings, Gove and Cain for lockdowns. The harsher truth is recognising our own errors and understanding that we are all in some ways responsible for the great vices of our times. 

“I haven’t done anything wrong – don’t get me involved,” my husband shouts over his gin and tonic. That’s of course what we all think. But that can’t possibly be true.

I remind him that he went along with those mask mandates, and I once ran a green initiative for a magazine I used to edit, encouraging everyone to sign up to smart meters in order to reduce their energy bills – ye gods! What balderdash. Neither Vennells, Clarke or the lockdown crew could have succeeded without willing accomplices ‘just doing their job’, ignoring obvious errors or going along with mad ideas in order not to make a fuss.

Our humdrum daily actions may not lead us to the stocks and whipping post of a public enquiry, but it is surely worth a pause to contemplate what we are still doing today, in our private or working lives, that allows greater evils to flourish. 

Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence mentor.

Tags: Book of Common PrayerLockdown InquiryMedieval PunishmentsSimon Case

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