the explanations of the acts Melancholiker’, tended to see death as a sacrifice.898 One can then also wonder if this idea, if significant, also related to the execution? It has been noticed that in German and Scandinavian countries the crimes used could be “child murder, blasphemy, and bestiality” while in England “property crimes or forgery” together with murder were more popular.899 A difference here is the method of execution. In England almost all were hanged, while in German and Scandinavian countries crimes of property resulted in hanging and crimes of violence sometimes in being broken on the wheel, but mostly in decapitation. Did some individuals seek a bloody sacrifice?900 Or had they learnt how to kill at slaughter? It has been noted that somewhere between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century both the problem of troubled consciences and literature dealing with it reached its peak.901 The sincerity of every human’s choice between heaven or hell was underlined in books just as in sermons. Of even greater importance than the theology of writers and preachers was its reception. Logical impediments for murder came to disappear by further emphasising the two roads and their disparate eternal ends, up to the point where this idea was given such a value that other theological truths, such as the love of God for mankind and the unlimited value of the life given by God to every human being, virtually disappeared in comparison. There was no reason not to kill, at least not the right person. Therefore, this idea could be the source of alonging for the power to control and decide that moment of death as fortunate as possible. Subsequently, for certain individuals, the psychological impediments also gave away, while others still struggled with their limitations. A couple of days after an execution, not including any sermon, hymns, or public blessing of the condemned, a craftsman approached the Lutheran priest in Kiel Claus Harms and inquired what he should do to be publicly executed 898 Lind 1999 p 333, 336, Lind 2004 p 74 sqq ’religious melancholiacs’. 899 Stuart 2023 p 30. 900 Against the idea of the significance of the blood there is the man in Württemberg in 1673 confessing both the murder of a child, whose corpse could be presented, and also bestiality some years ago. When he was sentenced to death only for the murder he protested and wanted to be burned, Stuart 2023 p 48 sq. 901 Saurer 1992 p 219. 252
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