introduction The theological aspects of execution were especially conspicuous before the deliberately secularising ideas, so manifest in the French Revolution, gained a greater and eventually decisive influence on the executions in many countries. Those who saw the role of capital punishment mainly as deterrence increasingly fought against all other possible interpretations, whether of the execution or of any and everyone present. When describing the history of execution in European countries in recent centuries, one cannot but notice the frequent attempts of some states to wheel it away from theological interpretations. There are more perspectives besides these in the study of executions. Executions can also be seen as expressions of power and the body of the executed seen as communicating the message of the state.40 However, the entire idea of a duality of the more theological, spiritual and secular, legal perspectives on execution is questioned by Paul Friedland, who sees several forms of penalties being carried out – not only those resulting in death – as secular expiation, penance, and Passion Plays. Friedland’s explanation is ingenious and interesting, but also problematic in his modern, enlightened puzzlement at aspects of premodern punishment.41 Theological ideas are now as then to a large extent advocated in sermons and speeches of similar type. Important when using material referring to them and other utterances are to remember that the written word can differ considerably from what was said, and the spoken word from what listeners heard and remembered. In Christian theology for many a fundamental idea with many variations in the context of these crimes is that the relationship someone has with God at the moment of death is decisive for their eternal fate – salvation or damnation, heaven or hell. Much of the importance of extreme unction and final Communion, not least in popular belief, probably derived from this idea. Yet it was also the source of a longing; a longing for the power to control and decide that moment of death as auspiciously as possible. In late sixteenth–century Italy, a person about to be executed 40 Borgards 2002 p 85 sq. On the struggle concerning the interpretation of executions in postreformation England see e g Lake and Questier 2002 p 231 sqq. 41 Friedland 2003 esp p 312 sqq. 30
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