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cahn:) Still talking about Charles XII of Sweden / the Great Northern War and the Stuarts and the Jacobites, among other things!
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Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-08 09:16 am (UTC)Incidentally, what all this underlines is why Dr. Guillontin thought he'd made an invention to benefit humanity, and why the executioner of Paris, Charles-Henri Sanson, heartily concurred and said just this, that it would mean no more tired/worn out/incompetend executioners making the condemned criminals suffer extra long.
Going off on a tangent here: I refreshed my executioner trivia, and it strikes me that this Jack Ketch fellow became proverbial (and a synonym for devil or executioner - if anyone has read Neil Gaiman's "Graveyard Book", the name is used in this capacity there, not meaning the historical person) because he was so bad at his trade, contributing to the executioner = sadist image. Whereas the most famous German executioner I can think of was the diary keeping Franz Schmidt and the most famous French executioner the above mentioned Charles-Henri Sanson, who came from a line of six executioners. Both of whom were also working as doctors (to those who couldn't afford a "real" one, but with arguably much better knowledge of the human body than many a university educated one), neither of whom wanted to the job to begin with, but both were stuck with it because their father had had it, and both in German territories and in France, this meant that executioner's children could not have an "honest" trade, they were pariahs. Franz Schmidt petitioned the Emperor all his life to allow his children to be freed from this and finally succeeded. (His father had not started out a s an executionoer but had been made one by the local Margrave who wanted a man killed, but could not get the actual local executioner to do it, who was sick. So he commissioned a man who until then had been a harmless tradesman and who was thereafter condemned to do nothing else, because like I said, once you were an executioner...) Now, both Schmidt and Sanson at least according to their notes and the account of them did have an understanding of their job that would have precluded this kind of incompetent butchery. They also both had to be apprenticed and learn (the Guillontine not having been invented yet in Sanson's case). So I wonder whether British executioners didn't have to through an apprenticeship but that anyone who wanted to have such job was taken (since not many did), which meant that you got the worst-inclined people for it?
Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-09 04:14 pm (UTC)It's one of my favorite books. That's so cool, thanks for giving us the context!
Whereas the most famous German executioner I can think of was the diary keeping Franz Schmidt
Right, I have a Kindle sample for a book on him thanks to you telling me he's interesting, and it's on my list of books to buy and read someday.
Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-10 05:28 am (UTC)Note that both Russell and Monmouth were executed with the axe, while Katte got his one stroke with a sword. Dimly recalling my Anne Boleyn facts, I think one reason why the sword worked generally better but was far less often used was that precisely because it was used more rarely, a sword was generally sharper, and the executioner had to put more effort and precision into swinging it.
"The Faithful Executioner" by Joel Harrington, right? It's very readable and provides a good general picture of the lives of executioners and their families in the HRE.
Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-10 04:51 pm (UTC)So, caveat one that I've never wielded either weapon, and caveat two that what I'm remembering is probably from historical fiction, because I've never actually sought out information on sword or axe use, but I have an interest in weapons to go with my interest in the military, so when details on using them come up, I pay attention. And what I've learned is that the axe is more counterintuitive to wield in an execution. People want to grab the axe and move it to its destination. But because it's so heavy, that usually means they can't control it with precision, and it goes astray. The technique for wielding an axe during an execution (or chopping wood) that I've read about is to let gravity do the work of moving the axe, and use your muscles to just guide it. This is very counterintuitive because people instinctively try to force the axe to go where they want.
Whereas with a sword, it's very light, and your job is to move it to where you want it to go. So as long as you've got decent aim, getting it into the right place is more intuitive.
Related to this is the fact that people like Anne Boleyn and Katte are described as kneeling down but keeping their backs straight, so the sword moves horizontally. (The executioner is the one moving it.) People being executed by axe are laying their heads on the chopping block, so the axe moves vertically. (Gravity should be moving it, the executioner should be just guiding it.)
This is why the most common failure mode I learned for executions by axe is for the blade to land either at a skewed angle that means the blade can't go straight through the neck, and/or in some part of the body it can't chop through, like the base of the skull or the top of the torso.
The trick to executing someone with an axe is to keep the blade straight and centered while it falls, so it can make a clean cut through the weakest part of the neck. Judging by the description you shared of Monmouth's execution, Ketch failed to do that.
Of course, if you're being made to execute a prodigious number of people per day, you might also not have time to sharpen your axe on a whetstone between executions!
Digression: Speaking of axes being heavier than swords, if anyone has learned that medieval swords were super heavy and difficult to wield, every reliable source I've encountered says (usually ranting about their pet peeve) that this is slander, aka an urban legend. I forget the details but I think someone has traced the historiography of the claim back to the early 18th century or something.
Anyway, the medievals were very competent at killing people and did not make swords that were borderline impossible to lift. If you're used to fencing with a rapier and you try out a medieval broadsword, it will feel heavy at first, but only in the sense that a tennis racquet will feel heavy to someone used to playing ping-pong. It doesn't mean a tennis racquet weighs ~10kg/20 lbs. According to the numbers I always see, medieval broadswords are usually about 1-1.5 kg/2.5-3.5 lbs, not usually more than 2 kg/4.5 lbs.
#petpeeve
(Yes, I wrote a class paper on this in grad school, comparing this to the claim by archaeologists that members of some societies in the Aegean Bronze Age were using chariots inefficiently to conduct their warfare. My argument was basically, "Bronze Age warriors weren't likely to have been idiots any more than medieval knights were idiots. Here's an analysis of how chariot warfare as practiced in these locales could have been very efficient indeed.")
"The Faithful Executioner" by Joel Harrington, right? It's very readable and provides a good general picture of the lives of executioners and their families in the HRE.
Yep, that one! I liked the Kindle sample, so I'm glad the book itself gets a thumbs up from you. That bumps it up my wishlist slightly. (Slightly because so many books have thumbs up from you. :D)
Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-11 04:50 am (UTC)Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-11 04:01 pm (UTC)Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-11 04:15 pm (UTC)Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-11 04:23 pm (UTC)LOLOL, no, I was totally assuming it was only the technique that was deterring you. *g*
I wonder if the axes were heavier than normal wood-chopping axes, to get through better.
Maybe! Also, notice that with wood-chopping axes you have to distinguish between felling axes, which are meant to be swung horizontally, at a vertical tree, and are lighter (like swords), and splitting axes, which are meant to be swung vertically at a horizontal log, and can be a bit heavier.
Random googling concurs that beheading axes are indeed a significant step up in weight even from splitting axes! Which yes, means a major failure mode is going to be landing the axe in the wrong place and/or at the wrong angle, and hitting bone (that isn't a vertebra).
(Guys, I'm not an axe murderer, I promise. :D)
Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-11 05:22 pm (UTC)Oh, that makes sense.
(Guys, I'm not an axe murderer, I promise. :D)
It's okay, you have convinced me that if you're going to murder someone you would prefer a sword over an axe! : P
Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-11 06:15 pm (UTC)Re: Axes and swords
Date: 2021-11-17 06:05 am (UTC)Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-09 07:52 pm (UTC)Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-10 05:47 am (UTC)A more fortunate (if the term can be used) product of an executioner family was Karl Huß, though like Charles-Henri, he had to leave school when word of his father's profession got out. He did the usuall apprenticeship (this included a first execution when he was 15), but he finally had a lucky break by the fact that the town who had hired him as their executioner, Eger, later abolished the death penalty in 1788, so Karl Huß was the last executioner of Eger, and Huß, born 1761, was still young enough then do do something with his life. He practised medicine, was a passionate amateur historian and collected coins, minerals and antiquities, which was one of the reasons why he befriended Goethe who visited and stayed at his house six times overall.
Ketch is the first executioner I've read about who apparently didn't practice a side job as doctor, but given his butchery as an executioner, I can't say I'm surprised. Even the poorest of the poor would probably avoid getting patched up by him.
Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-11 04:47 am (UTC)also I spent way too long reading about evidence for and against consciousness after guillotiningWow, poor Franz Schmidt :( I'm glad he was eventually successful! (Argh, the Margrave couldn't have waited until the actual executioner got well??)
Guillotine
Date: 2021-11-11 04:11 pm (UTC)I have also read these debates, especially the ones focusing on Lavoisier!
About Dr. Guillotin, though, Wikipedia has always told me that he didn't invent the guillotine, that that was a popular myth. (French wiki agrees.)
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a French physician, politician, and freemason who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a device to carry out death penalties in France, as a less painful method of execution than existing methods. Although he did not invent the guillotine and opposed the death penalty, his name became an eponym for it.
Lolsob at this, though:
In Paris, Guillotin became a well-known physician. By 1775, he was concerned with issues of torture and death. That year, he wrote a memo proposing that criminals be used as subjects in medical experiments. Although he recognised that as cruel, he considered it preferable to being put to death.
The physician thinks medical experiments are less cruel than the death penalty. No conflict of interest here! I mean, it depends on the medical experiment, but I'm thinking of Maupertuis and his interest in vivisection.
Also interesting, Wikipedia says it wasn't just the feelings of the executed criminal Dr. Guillotin was thinking of, but the social effects as well:
Guillotin was opposed to the death penalty, and hoped that a more humane and less painful method of execution would be the first step towards total abolition. He also hoped that, as the decapitation machine would kill quickly without prolonged suffering, this would reduce the size and enthusiasm of crowds that often witnessed executions.
Well, it didn't stop the Reign of Terror, but there were also other social factors at work there.