A bridge may be mostly associated with horses. But from at least the 16th century and well into the 19th, the so-called Scold’s Bridle was also used on people. This iron mask, fitted with a gag, was usually strapped onto women accused of gossiping, quarreling, or committing blasphemy.
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The device had two purposes. The first, obviously, was to silence the wearer. The second was to humiliate them. People clad in a Scold’s Bridle were often paraded around town, where townspeople could jeer and throw things.
But as bad as that sounds, the Scold's Bridle was hardly the only — or worst — punishment for women accused of speaking out of turn.
For hundreds of years in the British Isles, one of the worst things someone could be was a “scold.” This was a term used for women — and sometimes, but rarely, men — who gossiped, slandered others, fought loudly, or, basically, spoke out of turn.
To punish scolds, local entities like town councils and judges sometimes decided that the offending party must wear a Scold’s Bridle.
These devices varied in design but were often quite similar. They were iron masks which, according to the BBC, resembled “a muzzle or cage for the head.” A lock at the back held the bridle in place, and most had a metal gag to hold the tongue down.
As the National Trust for Scotland notes, some of these gags were spiked so the wearer's tongue would be cut if they tried to speak.
According to the Museum of Witchcraft And Magic, the first reference to a Scold’s Bridle appears to date back to the 14th century, when one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s characters notes “would she were bolted with a Bridle.”