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Peine forte et dure

Legal method of coercion, using torture

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Peine forte et dure was a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system, in which a defendant who refused to plead would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon their chest until a plea was entered, or death resulted.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Peine forte et dure” as legal method of coercion, using torture. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Peine, forte and dure.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 46-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Peine, forte and dure providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Peine forte et dure”, the useful work is to connect “legal method of coercion, using torture” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Peine forte et dure primary sources, Peine forte et dure archive and Peine research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Peine forte et dure” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.