No Iron Maidens Today Steve.

                  The Middle Ages were a pretty messed up time. What with all the raping, crusading, and torturing, it was hard to find the time to waltz down to the market to pick up a fresh batch of slaves!

All little Dave wanted for his birthday was a couple of his very own slaves.
Maybe next year little Dave...

                   As it turns out, the torturing might not have been so bad! The legendarily cruel medieval torture device known as the "iron maiden" or simply "the maiden," probably never existed!

Well then, I guess I'll have to remove my iron maidens from my torture-dungueo...
I... Uhh... mean my... cellar... *cough*

                   Well, technically they do exist, but they were never used as a torture device in the Middle Ages. They started appearing in European literature around the 19th century. And there is definitely no evidence that these devices were used on anybody.

                   "But I've seen iron maidens at plenty of museums!" You may be thinking. Well, that is actually why they exist. The whole "horrors of the medieval times" exhibits were wildly popular in the 19th century. They were especially popular among the English noble class. The iron maidens seen by them were simply thrown together for the exhibit. 

So the band is named after a fake piece of artistic junk from the 19th century to amuse
snobbish, rich, dusty, English people. 

                 These kinds of torture devices supposedly exist because even now, most of us want to believe that history is steadily moving forward. It makes us feel good about ourselves to feel "enlightened." The medieval times were an easy target for our wishful thinking due to its lack of written records about the time.

                So yea, the middle ages were not as brutally metal as you thought they were. They didn't inclose prisoners in spiky death-tombs. They usually just beheaded them with a sword, or locked them away in dungeons until they died of starvation and/or dehydration.