the execution and its message cette vie avec joie, car je vais dans un monde meilleur.”352 A speech conveying exactly the message most opponents of speeches surrounding executions dreaded. There was also an example from 1723 of the executioner giving a short speech of warning to the assembled crowd at Borna in Saxony.353 In the Netherlands there are some printed examples of judges making speeches of similar type when passing the death sentence.354 Over time, speeches and sermons became rarer and finally were forbidden or petered out. Silence became the norm at the execution, but not at other places. Sermons dealing with an execution in the vicinity have also been given. As with some crimes also the execution often has been an upsetting event, especially if they have been rare. People sought help to understand. There is one such printed sermon from Sweden, but the genre seems to have been much more prolific in Germany and existed also in England.355 In Amberg in Bavaria as late as 1873 a sermon was given as a reaction to an execution.356 In England a special tradition as in many other cases seems to be at work. Around 1826 an execution took place in Bury S:t Edmunds. The next day the priest having prepared the condemned preached ”the funeral sermon” in the home parish of the executed.The church was said to be one of the largest in the country but was so filled with people that the priest had difficulties to pass from the vestry to the pulpit.357 Edifying biographies and autobiographies, sometimes primarily centred around the preparation for death and, in cases of persons condemned to death, often culminating in describing the execution as a moment of deliverance and salvation were published not least in Germany, with roots primarily in the pietistic tradition. It was also quite customary for 352 ‘My friends, I leave this world with joy, because I go to a better world.’ Borel 1850 p 33. 353 Neues Archiv für Sächsiche Geschichte 1888 p 157. 354 Stukken s a p 3 sqq, La Pierre s a p 3 sqq. 355 Lindblom 1828, Neues Magazin für Prediger 1796 p 324 sqq, Beckhen 1716, Walser s a, Funk 1884 p 126 sqq, Trinkler 1834 p 101 sqq, Struensee 1776 p 593 sqq, Chadwick 1960 p 113 sqq, Gerlach 1850. 356 Overath 2001 p 193 note 332. 357 Tayler 1849 p 207 sq. A story of a priest in the same way not gaining entry into the church at a similar occasion in Chadwick 1960 p 113 sq. 106
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