Joel F. Harrington

This book is based chiefly on the diary of Nuremberg executioner Frantz Schmidt, who worked in this capacity for the city from 1588 to 1617. It also uses other contemporary sources to depict not only a life of the protagonist, but the picture of late medieval Europe.
While there are some gruesome details of the trade, they aren’t the point. The executioner himself says almost nothing about the executions and nothing at all about tortures, which he had to perform.
There are several works of fiction that attempt to look in the executioner’s mind, to show either his cruelty, or more often his dignity in performing the necessary albeit unpleasant job. Not in this case: Frantz disliked the job, or more precisely the low status associated with it: hangmen had to live outside the city, they weren’t allowed to enter a church, could be stoned to death by a mob, etc. He became the executioner because his father was pressed into the job and all other trades were closed for him. Therefore, his lifetime goal was to save his children from the similar fate.
One of the more surprising discoveries (for me) was that he also worked as a healer, which makes sense if you this about it – the knowledge of anatomy and healing external wounds are essential for a torturer. The number of his patients was around 15000, which it much more than 394 persons he executed.
A great window into the late medieval Europe.
… (mehr)

The Faith­ful Exe­cu­tioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Tur­bu­lent Six­teenth Cen­tury by Joel F. Har­ring­ton is a biog­ra­phy of a Ger­man exe­cu­tioner, based on his diary.

he Faith­ful Exe­cu­tioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Tur­bu­lent Six­teenth Cen­tury by Joel F. Har­ring­ton is a won­der­ful book based on a remark­able jour­nal kept by the exe­cu­tioner of Nurem­berg, Meis­ter Franz Schmidt. Along with the “work” of Meis­ter Schmidt, the author vividly re-creates life in six­teenth cen­tury Nurem­berg and its surroundings.

The biog­ra­phy recounts the stigma an exe­cu­tioner had dur­ing his life­time. The exe­cu­tioner was an out­cast of soci­ety, even though a good one was dif­fi­cult to find and much appre­ci­ated, and so was his fam­ily. The stigma helped cre­ated a lin­eage of exe­cu­tion­ers since that was one of the few jobs they were able to hold in such a class con­scious society.

Mas­ter Schmidt kept his jour­nal for the main pur­pose of restor­ing honor to his fam­ily from the hor­ri­ble career which they were forced into. This is a fas­ci­nat­ing book, not for the squea­mish but the hor­ror is not there for horror’s sake, but instead to help the reader under­stand the time and the tech­niques used by the biogra­phies subject.

I was sur­prised to learn that many exe­cu­tion­ers at the time con­sid­ered them­selves pro­fes­sion­als and were proud of how lit­tle their “clients” suf­fered, unless instructed by the state to pro­long their death. An exe­cu­tioner which botched an exe­cu­tion could be fired (good luck inte­grat­ing into soci­ety) or even lynched by the angry crowd.

Meis­ter Schmidt would also tor­ture and patch crim­i­nals up if needed even though, it seemed, he under­stood the effec­tive­ness of psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture bet­ter than some con­tem­po­raries of ours. Because of his inti­mate knowl­edge of anatomy, the exe­cu­tioner, an out­cast I must remind you again, was some­times called upon to heal the sick and injured of the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. Many took great pride in that sec­ond profession.

This is a won­der­ful book, at times unpleas­ant to read because of the hor­ren­dous crimes or some­times equally hor­ren­dous pun­ish­ments. The world was very bru­tal in the six­teenth cen­tury, the author makes that clear, and Meis­ter Schmidt was an inte­gral part of the state to keep order and rel­a­tive safe.

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Quite a good biographical microhistory based around the remarkable journal of a Nuremberg executioner. Harrington uses Frantz Schmidt's lengthy account of his life and of the executions he carried out over many years to explore the crimes and punishments of sixteenth-century Nuremberg (and surrounding areas). More than that, though, he also examines the official social stigma that attached to executioners and their families, and Schmidt's long effort to restore his family's honor.

Gets a mite slow at times, but overall this is very much worth a read.… (mehr)