Anexecutioner, also known as ahangman orheadsman, is an official who effects a sentence ofcapital punishment on acondemned person.
The executioner was usually presented with awarrant authorizing or ordering him toexecute the sentence. The warrant protects the executioner from the charge ofmurder. Common terms for executioners derived from forms of capital punishment—though they often also performed other physical punishments—includehangman (hanging) andheadsman (beheading). In the military, the role of executioner was performed by a soldier, such as theprovost. A commonstereotype of an executioner is ahoodedmedieval or absolutist executioner. Symbolic or real, executioners were rarely hooded, and not robed in all black; hoods were only used if an executioner's identity and anonymity were to be preserved from the public. AsHilary Mantel noted in her 2018Reith Lectures, "Why would an executioner wear a mask? Everybody knew who he was".
While this task can be occasional in nature, it can be carried out in the line of more general duty by an officer of the court, thepolice,prison staff, or even themilitary. A special case is the tradition of the Romanfustuarium, continued in forms ofrunning the gauntlet, where the culprit receives their punishment from the hands of the comrades gravely harmed by their crime, e.g. for failing in vital sentinel duty or stealing from a ship's limited food supply.
Many executioners were professional specialists who traveled a circuit or region performing their duty, because executions were rarely very numerous. Within this region, a resident executioner would also administernon-lethal physical punishments, or applytorture. Inmedieval Europe, to the end of theearly modern period, executioners were oftenknackers,[1] since pay from the rare executions was not enough to live off.
In medieval Europe executioners also taxed lepers and prostitutes, and controlled gaming houses. They were also in charge of the latrines and cesspools, and disposing of animal carcasses.[2]
The term is extended to administrators of severe physical punishment that is not prescribed to kill, but which may result in death.
Executions in France (using theguillotine since theFrench Revolution) persisted until 1977, and the French Republic had an official executioner; the last one,Marcel Chevalier, served until the formalabolition of capital punishment in 1981.[3]
InWestern Europe and its colonies,executioners were often shunned by their neighbours, with their work as knackers also disreputable.[1] In France, executioners and their families wereostracized and lived in social isolation.[4] InAlexandre Dumas'The Three Musketeers and in the filmLa veuve de Saint-Pierre (The Widow of Saint-Peter), minor character executioners are ostracized by the villagers.
In early modern German society, executioners and their families were considered "dishonourable people" (unehrliche Leute).[5]
The profession of executioner sometimes ran through a family, especially in France, where theSanson family provided six executioners between 1688 and 1847 and the Deibler dynasty provided five between 1879 and its 1981 abolition. The latter's members included Louis Deibler, his son Anatole, Anatole's nephew Jules-Henri Desfourneaux, his other nephewAndré Obrecht, and André's nephewMarcel Chevalier.[6]
In Britain, the most notable dynasty was the Pierrepoints, who provided three executioners between 1902 and 1956 – Henry, his brother Thomas, and Henry's sonAlbert. Unlike in France and many other European countries, far from being shunned, British executioners such asWilliam Marwood,James Berry,Albert Pierrepoint, andHarry Allen were widely known and respected by the public.
In Korea, theBaekjeong were an "untouchable" group who traditionally performed the jobs of executioner and butcher.[7] In Japan, executioners have been held in contempt as part of theBurakumin class (todayexecutions in Japan are not carried out by professional executioners, but by prison guards). InMemories of Silk and Straw, by Junichi Saga, one of the families surveyed in the Japanese village of Tsuchiura is that of an executioner family ("The Last Executioner", p. 54). This family does suffer social isolation, even though the family is somewhat well-off financially.[8]
In theOttoman Empire, the role of executioners was given to theimperial guard, calledbostanji (literally, "gardeners"). Senior officials who were sentenced to death were personally executed by the head of the guard (Turkish:bostancıbaşı). By the late 18th century, a custom had developed wheregrand viziers could avoid execution by racing the bostancibaşi to the Fish Market Gate, the traditional place of execution. If the deposed vizier reached the Fish Market Gate before the bostancibaşi, his sentence was commuted to mere banishment. But if the condemned man found the bostancibaşi waiting for him at the gate, he would be executed. The last recorded person to participate in a race with the bostancibaşi was grand vizier Hacı Salih Pasha who, in November 1822, outran the bostancibaşi and saved his life. He was so widely esteemed for winning the race that he got appointed governor general of the Damascus province.[9] Executioners had their own graveyards, with uncarved and unpolished simple rough stones used as gravestones. The biggest of these graveyards is part of theEyüp Cemetery inIstanbul.[10]
The town ofRoscommon has the distinction of having hadIreland's most notorious hangwoman,Lady Betty, who was given the post in exchange for her life being spared when the hangman due to execute her death sentence took ill on the day that she and 25 others were due to be hanged. Lady Betty offered to carry out the task in exchange for her death sentence being commuted to a life sentence, and she acted asthe county's hangwoman from then on.[11]An unidentified woman hanged two men for murder on 13 November 1782 atKilmainham, near Dublin. The men were alsoquartered. The sheriff received abuse for making a hangman of a woman.[12]
.jpg)
.jpg)
The job of executioner had become part-time. Henri Desfourneaux's two assistants also worked as a butcher and a hairdresser — fitting sidelines to their decapitating functions. The last guillotine operator, Marcel Chevalier, incumbent from ...
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
