introduction ferent death penalties – five methods of execution.28 Esther Cohen interestingly sees often similar methods of execution for the same crime over large parts of Europe as firmly grounded in symbolism and thereby ”tools of communication between ruler and ruled”.29 Most countries were slow to move to only one form of executions. Hence, probably the last woman in Sweden to be beheaded and then burnt was Maria Johansdotter, who was executed in Växjö on 3 July 1839.30 Multistage or especially painful forms of execution or using methods such as drowning in the sack or being torn apart by horses sent a message about the nature of the execution. These forms can be called qualified executions. Exactly where the boundary ran between an ordinary execution and a qualified one is debatable. Roland Borgards, for example, sees a difference in the added degrees of pain in what he calls a qualified execution. Pain is according to him the added quality.31 For example humiliation or degradation could also be added. If such additions should be called qualifications is a question of limitation not of interest here. Dwight Conquergood makes the illuminating point that ”The death penalty cannot be understood simply as a matter of public policy debate or an aspect of criminology, apart from what it is pre-eminently: performance.”32 Public executions were nothing if not symbolic actions. Any wish to deprive execution of its symbolic character was dismissed as unreasonable, and at most another symbolic message was conveyed. Although the actions and symbols were constantly changing, their existence and the messages they conveyed were continual. The actions most often had both spiritual and civil ends, such as retribution or deterrence. The dual aim was plain in a late fifteenth–century instruction for comforters in Bologna. As lay members of religious confraternities who helped steady criminals’ nerves before and prepare them for the execution, comforters were directed to use suitable means to distract the criminal during 28 Porret 2012 p 29 sq. 29 Cohen 1989 p 410 sqq (quotation p 410). 30 Bergman 2011a p 549. 31 Borgards 2002 p 77. 32 Conquergood 2002 p 342. 28
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