In any case, if you think about what it takes to wield a sword in cold blood, even in the name of the law (and especially if you don't agree with the law), executioners being 1) under the influence, 2) from out of town, i.e. less likely to know the person they're executing, makes perfect sense.
One fascinating historical document: the diaries of the executioner of Nuremberg, one Frantz Schmidt, in Renaissance times. There's an English language book about him, "The Faithful Executioner", about which more here. The diary itself has been published, and I've read it; not an easy reading, and it stays with you. Back then, executioners also doubled as medics for the underprivileged, i.e. the ones not able to pay the more expensive fees for doctors, or were members of scorned professions themselves; it was a second income, and the executioners did have a lot of anatomical knowledge. (Both Frantz Schmidt and Charles Henri Sanson, who started in his family's trade as a teenage assistant during the gruesome execution of the wannabe assassin of Louis XV and ended up as the executioner during the French Revolution, actually had wanted to become real Doctors, but were stuck with their father's jobs due to executioner families having no choice there.)
Since I've also read accounts of bungled executions with many blows necessary - Thomas Cromwell and Margaret de la Pole come to milnd - I'm really glad that whoever killed Katte at least managed to do it in one go.
Second photo: I feel I should know the lady, but my mind is blackening right now.
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Re: Wanderungen: Katte-Richtschwert
Date: 2020-01-05 05:32 pm (UTC)One fascinating historical document: the diaries of the executioner of Nuremberg, one Frantz Schmidt, in Renaissance times. There's an English language book about him, "The Faithful Executioner", about which more here. The diary itself has been published, and I've read it; not an easy reading, and it stays with you. Back then, executioners also doubled as medics for the underprivileged, i.e. the ones not able to pay the more expensive fees for doctors, or were members of scorned professions themselves; it was a second income, and the executioners did have a lot of anatomical knowledge. (Both Frantz Schmidt and Charles Henri Sanson, who started in his family's trade as a teenage assistant during the gruesome execution of the wannabe assassin of Louis XV and ended up as the executioner during the French Revolution, actually had wanted to become real Doctors, but were stuck with their father's jobs due to executioner families having no choice there.)
Since I've also read accounts of bungled executions with many blows necessary - Thomas Cromwell and Margaret de la Pole come to milnd - I'm really glad that whoever killed Katte at least managed to do it in one go.
Second photo: I feel I should know the lady, but my mind is blackening right now.