Talk:ferula

At my school in Liverpool, founded and run by Jesuits, a ferula was a piece of leather more or less the shape of a shoe sole, about eight inches long by three inches wide and a quarter inch thick, reputedly with a piece of whale bone within as a stiffener. It was the preferred punishment device, administered to the palm of the hand, in a formalised corporal punishment system whereby a master who wished to punish a boy wrote out a 'bill' specifying the number of strokes to be inflicted. This bill had to be countersigned by a senior teacher. The boy would then take the bill along to the designated room where the assigned teacher would administer the punishment with the aforesaid 'ferula'.

Oisin52 (talk) 16:00, 20 April 2022 (UTC)