different realities and reactions somewhat stricter. In it all speeches by the priests at the site of execution were prohibited. They should only care for the condemned and not deal with the crowd. The idea was to make the execution more repellent and rein in the idea of the execution as a road to salvation.523 Beth Grothe Nielsen describe the royal letter as being the result of a double illusion: the condemned was to feel calm, secure in the belief that she would enter heaven, while the spectators would be strengthen in the belief that they were watching somebody leaving for hell.524 As a result of the continuing murders in order to be executed a quite novel punishment was proscribed by a Royal ordinance of December 18th 1767. Among the components of the punishment, we find branding on the forehead, hard labour in chains for life, and corporal punishment every year. After death the dead body would be exposed on poles.525 It is clear enough what this punishment was intended to achieve. It was to be hard and humiliating, a penalty of death permanently postponed until a natural death finally intervened.526 Anders Sandøe Ørsted has made the interesting interpretation of the ordinance and its objective that this legislation and thus this penalty was intended to be used for all murders not committed due to vengeance, mental illness, or some material reason, such as profit. It could thus for example be used on a hired killer. As a fundamental problem with the ordinance, he saw that the difference between murderers seeking to be executed and murderers committing their crime as an emission of their evilness would be difficult to identify as individuals of both groups probably would proclaim that they were of the other type.527 Therefore he 523 Kongelige rescripter 1786VI:1:115 sq, Krogh 2000 p 314. 524 Grothe Nielsen 1980 p 3-20 sq. 525 Chronologisk Register 1795 V:71 sqq. A proposal of legislation on these lines was presented by Henric Stampe in 1757, Stampe 1794II:153 sqq. On the critique on the proposal from the faculty of theology see Holmboe 1961 p 113 sq, 138, 148 and letter from the faculty of theology in København 17 January 1758 in nr 673 1767D19 Danske Kancellie RAK. 526 On how humiliation had in another context been an important part of a penalty see Westerhof 2007 p 103 sqq. See also Krischer 2017 p 86 on how an execution except for the destruction of life and body also could aim for the destruction of the honour and identity of the condemned and in the same process also of the crime. 527 Ørsted 1819 p 139 sqq. 150
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