207 fromseveral instances, that they should not be laid in public cemeteries. When the decision was made that even executed persons were to be buried in the common graveyards, it was also strictly pointed out that no ceremony was to be held at the grave side. The change this thesis studies can be seen as the slow decline of a system. The execution itself gave an example of both crime and revenge and of repentance and the possibility of a pious death. This example was undermined on account of secularisation inthe meaningthat ‘religion’ was made privatewhile public life became more secular. Part of the process was that the boundaries between State and Church appear and become more distinct. This privatising of religion is to be found in many revivalist’s seeking for religious freedomquite separate from what became the questionable established Church with its creeds and doctrines. This example is attacked from both sides. Enlightened thinkers such as Cesare Bonesana Beccaria and all the modern critics of capital punishment, rejected execution as not serving any purpose in society. From a moralising conception of Christianity with its roots inenlightenment, it was questioned as to whether the criminal could possibly be converted in such short periods of time allowed. Therefore the converted sinner was not the ideal. Church and State were on their guard during the disintegration on all sides which affected both instances. The State kept the warning example, finally in the formof the possibility of punishment’s beingcarried out, while the Church finally relinquished the example completely and engaged in caring for the soul of the individual prisoner. The development can be described as three phases which fit into each other, but also neutralize each other as dominating. The first can be named dyingas an example, with torture as a form of execution as its logo. Suffering is meant to frighten. The condemned’s conversion is yet an other problem. This phase has already been reached when this study continues by leaving power to the next phase; death itself as a warning. Gustaf III adhered to this party. Death may gladly come swiftly, but death and its visible consequences have a message for the living. Punishment itself is a drama. The execution’s publicity is necessary. The condemned’s co-operation is welcome but not most important. The most important is not the fact that he is to be executed, but that he submits. Development leads on to the abstract death as an example. In the modern execution-culture in its entirety, death is a problem. At the same time many adhere to capital punishment as a principle, quite separate from execution’s reality. The result is, quick and simple executions behind prison walls. Also, the condemned who is a concrete person, is a problem. Therefore he is dehumanised as far as possible — not seen as an individual, a person, but as a symbol. He is not to be an active subject, merely an object. Translation: Sr M. Patricia O.Ss.S.
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