Bible bashed

Antithesis's long hot summer outing to Krakow in Poland reveals a useful sub-department of the Jagiellonian University, founded in 1364.

Now a tourist attraction, the university jail was used for imprisoning wrongdoers, since the city authorities had almost no rights to try university staff and students. The 11-metre-long cell had numerous beds, plus a latrine, sewer and (perhaps fortunately) a ventilator. In later centuries the cell was replaced by an open prison consisting of desks in the university library, where the convicts had to sit and be publicly mocked. But one case of students convicted of a violent assault led to a more barbaric sentence - they were forced to attend a course of theology lectures.