the execution and its message ourable death, the goal of the pastoral care could be that the condemned suffered it with joy.137 The message often might have been misunderstood or not at all received, but there were also cases where it seems to have been well received by the public. When in Paris in 1726 the capital sentence and execution by burning of Benjamin Deschaffours was announced, among his many crimes, of which murder was one, his homosexuality was the only specified, and at least some attending thought that he was executed therefore and responded to the execution with fear or anger.138 The scaffold was a stage, the stage of the execution, on which the condemned could also be an actor, a living sermon, acting the story of her repentance and conversion.139 The actor, however much being the main actor, was not the director of this play of education and supremacy.140 The execution of Johann Lau in Itzehoe in 1856 was, because of the season, described as an Advent sermon, an action of God with those present, hopefully not forgotten but dragging many to repentance.141 The executions were often theatrical in character, and have been compared to tragedies, carnivals, passion plays, strictly ritualised feasts of death, or a play describing martyrdom.142 Interestingly, Richard van Dülmen finds the theatrical zenith of the executions in the eighteenth century.143 137 Hardeland 1898 p 469, Rautelin 2009 p 199. 138 Rey 1982 p 117 sq. 139 For the connections between the story of the conversion of the condemned, its performance at the execution, and its subsequent publication, see Williams 1986, particularly p 844 sq. 140 Hellerstedt 2005 p 9. 141 Versmann 1857 p 28 ”Der Herr hatte die Schrecken der Stunde, vor welcher uns bange gewesen war, für uns hinweggenommen. Wir konnten danken! Alles Volk aber ging still und mit großen Ernste heim, denn der Herr hatte geredet. Ach, daß die Adventspredigt, welche er auf der Richtstätte gehalten, nicht vergessen werde, sondern Vieler Herzen zur Buße treibe.” 142 See the opening of M Pichler’s sermon after an execution in Augsburg 1822: ”Ach! – wie entsetzlich ist das Schauspiel – das sich so eben vor unsern Augen ereignete – ein Schauspiel, das unser Augsburg seit dem ersten July 1811, also seit 11 Jahren nicht mehr sah, und auch heute viel zu früh noch, besonders an einem eingebohrnen Bürgers-Sohn sehen mußte. Ein erschreckliches Schauspiel, bey dem ich mehr als zuschauer war.” Pichler s a p 3. When it comes to the theatrical perspective as present in contemporary thoughts see the title of Döpler 1693–1697. See also Lake and Questier 2002 p 274 sq, Bée 1993, and Terry 2009 p 624 sqq, 629. For the other themes in research see e g Bée 1975 p 95 sqq, Lofland 60
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