Public humiliation was often used by local communities to punish minor and petty criminals before the age of large, modern prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

s (imprisonment was long unusual as a punishment, rather a method of coercion).
This involved a variety of methods, most often placing a criminal in the center of town and having the local populace enact a form of "mob justice" on the individual. The punishment of public humiliation could be, amongst other things, an offender being forced to relate his crime, such as by exaggerated physical parody: a 'shame flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

' for a bad musician or a wearing giant rosary

Rosary

The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...

  for someone late to church.