Executioner (Vorarlberg)
Woodcut depicting various death and body punishments, from a pirated print of the Laienspiegel ( Strasbourg , 1510).
Executioners in Vorarlberg , as everywhere in the Holy Roman Empire , only existed as a separate, special profession since the rise and institutionalization of state jurisdiction. The executioner - naming motive is that he judges with the sharpness of the sword - has carried out embarrassing punishments up to the death penalty in Vorarlbergsince the Middle Ages .
Development of the office and local jurisdiction
In Bregenz its own executioner since 1565 first documented, Master Mathis plow. He was responsible for the Austrian rulers in front of the Arlberg, in the first decades also for the County of Vaduz and for Churrätien , as well as in the Hohenems area immediately outside the empire. Previously, executioners from other cities were hired. The place of execution for the rulership of Bregenz was on the Galgenbihl in the municipality of Lochau .
1471 is documented for Bregenz that the executioner of Ravensburg was requested by Ammann to execute a man. Since this failed the orderly execution with the sword, he was killed himself by the spectators. In 1474 the executioner from Chur was hired by Eberhard von Sonnenberg for an execution.
It was not until 1649 that a separate executioner was hired in the imperial county of Hohenems , the office then existed there until 1789. In the middle of the 17th century, master Michel Reichle held it. He was responsible for Hohenems, Lustenau and at times also for Feldkirch . It has been assumed that the employment of own executioners in Bregenz and Hohenems was connected with the first wave of local witch hunts.
On April 8, 1695 an instruction was issued for the executioners of those four lordships in Vorarlberg .
tasks
The official duties of the executioner in Vorarlberg included, as everywhere, according to legal regulations
- killing people
- the torture to Geständniserzwingung as part of the court proceedings,
- the implementation of corporal and honor punishment .
As elsewhere, in Vorarlberg the office of the executioner was partially combined with that of the knacker ( flayer, rascal or wasen master ).
As a result of their work, executioners were able to acquire knowledge in the field of anatomy in Vorarlberg and became a competition for resident doctors . B. 1695 in Bregenz was considered necessary to officially forbid the executioner of Bregenz to offer medical services and medicines.
In Vorarlberg, putting in the pillory, putting down the neck violin , the straw wreath or the lascivious stone, or the blow of the distemper was not always entrusted to the executioner, but sometimes also to the bailiff or weibel . However, if the punishment also violated the honor of the person to be punished, it was always carried out by the executioner. It was also always up to him to post the names of (minor) punishments on the gallows.
Reward
The executioner's remuneration was set in their own rules. The Bregenz resident received a “basic wage” in 1695, which consisted of a vacant service apartment and 52 guilders “waiting money”. For his other services he received a flat rate per case based on expenditure:
- “Great judging” ( wheeling , quartering , burning , buried alive ): 6 guilders, for wealthy people 8 guilders
- "Small judging" ( beheading , hanging , drowning ): 4 guilders
- Execution of corporal punishment (cutting off ears or fingers, branding, etc.): 2 guilders
- Washing away, burning or burying a suicide : 6 guilders, for wealthy people 8 guilders, plus horse and food for the journey
- Embarrassing questioning ( torture ): 15 cruisers per day
- As compensation for further expenses such as the rope, gloves, executioner's meal, the executioner received 40 kreuzers per execution , plus the clothes and money of the killed (excluding gold ). If the executioner worked outside of Bregenz, he received an additional 1 guilder 30 kreuzer per day waiting allowance.
Social status
Executioners mostly came from the lower classes. They mostly entered into marriages within the executioner's class and with people from other “dishonorable” fringe classes, which resulted in “executioner dynasties” in Vorarlberg as elsewhere.
place of residence
Own executioner's houses are known in Vorarlberg in Bregenz, Feldkirch and Hohenems. At that time, these executioners' living quarters were remote and remote in the desert .
See also
literature
- Wolfgang Scheffknecht, executioner, a fringe group in early modern Vorarlberg , Konstanz 1995, Universitätsverlag, ISBN 3-87940-494-1
- Wolfgang Scheffknecht, The Vorarlberg Executioners - Punishments and Exclusion in the Early Modern Age , ARGE Historiker AHS / BHS.
- Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Travelers and Executioners: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginalized groups in the history of Vorarlberg , in Dornbirner Schriften: Contributions to Stadtkunde , Dornbirn 1990, Vorarlberger Verlagsanstalt, Vol. 8, pp. 23-51.
- Manfred Tschaikner, The first known execution of a sorceress in Vorarlberg and the first executioner handed down by name (1539) , in Bludenzer Geschichtsblätter, Bludenz 2007, Geschichtsverein Bludenz, vol. 86, pp. 36-39.
Web links
- Entry on Executioner (Vorarlberg) in the Austria Forum (in the Heimatlexikon)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, The Vorarlberg Executioners - Punishments and Exclusion in the Early Modern Age , p. 371.
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Traveling People and Executioners: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginalized groups in the history of Vorarlberg , p. 38 and the same: The Vorarlberg executioners - punishments and exclusion in the early modern period , p. 371.
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, The Vorarlberg Executioners - Punishments and Exclusion in the Early Modern Age , pp. 371, 373.
- ^ Executioners in "Vorarlberg Chronik" and Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Die Vorarlberger Scharfrichter - Punishments and Exclusion in the Early Modern Era , p. 371.
- ↑ Erwin Bennat: Municipal Chronicle Lochau, published by the municipality of Lochau 1986, p 68th
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Traveling People and Executioners: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginalized groups in the history of Vorarlberg , p. 43 and the same in Die Vorarlberger Scharfrichter - Punishments and Exclusion in the Early Modern Age , p. 373.
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Fahrende Menschen und Scharfrichter: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginal groups in the history of Vorarlberg , p. 41. See also: Christiane Wagner; Jutta Failing, hacked on the head many times ... gallows and executioner in Hesse . Naumann, Nidderau 2008, ISBN 978-3-940168-17-7 .
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, The Vorarlberg Executioners - Punishments and Exclusion in the Early Modern Age , pp. 373, 374.
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Fahrende Menschen und Scharfrichter: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginalized groups in the history of Vorarlberg , p. 43.
- ↑ Novosadtko: Executioner and Skinner. The everyday life of two “dishonest professions” in the early modern period. 1994, p. 216.
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Fahrende Menschen und Scharfrichter: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginal groups in the history of Vorarlberg , pp. 39, 42.
- ↑ Wolfgang Scheffknecht, Fahrende Menschen und Scharfrichter: Examples of non-sedentary and sedentary outsiders and marginal groups in the history of Vorarlberg , p. 39.