Pillory at Charing Cross, London: view of two offenders in the stocks while the crowd looks on jeering

SOURCE: R. Ackermann. The Microcosm of London (London, 1835), vol. II, pl. 62 NOTES: The most famous pillory, a form of punishment which involved the public shaming of the offender, was at Chraing Cross in London. The word Pillory is derived from the French 'pilleur' or 'pelori' from the Greek, meaning a door, hence the use of the stocks where the offender 'is seen as it were with his head through a door'.