the execution and its message relation authored by one of the attending clergy, Johan Tvet, being of great interest when studying an execution process from a liturgical perspective.148 Before the transport to the site of execution the four received communion. In Sweden as in Germany, an ideal, often but not always upheld, was that each condemned should be accompanied by two clergymen. At this execution, this resulted in eight priests, assembled from the town and different parishes in the neighbourhood, accompanying four delinquents.149 After the arrival, a kind of service began. A hymn was sung. Then one of the priests read a prayer and the story of the two criminals crucified with Jesus from the Gospel of St Luke. Then another hymn was sung and the second prayer was read by another priest. Next, athird hymn was sung and Tvet doesn’t give its name, which he does with the others. Possibly this could be an indicator that a choir was present. Then Tvet himself read the third prayer and the male delinquent read a short sermon ’from a paper’ and a long prayer. The fourth and fifth hymn then was sung and during the singing of the latter, the executions took place. This hymn was sung twice, probably because of the number of condemned.150 Hymnal singing was quite popular at executions up to the early nineteenth century, not least in Lutheran environments.151 A possible explanation not of the crimes themselves but of their visibility is offered by the development of the fundamental interpretation of the execution. The existence of a system of ideas which held liturgy and execution together, and which later slowly dissolved, has been advocated by several researchers.152 Although the present study concerns the epoch when this system reached that peak and then began to wane, its origins 148 Johan Tvet: Desse4s ExecutionNordin 1398UUB. Johannes Tvet (1680–1748) was the rector of Rångedala from 1723 until his death, Warholm 1984II:469 sq. On the case see Forssell 1952 p 302 sqq and Håkansson 1943 p 59 sqq. A more thorough study of this execution can be found in Bergman 2011b p 93 sqq. 149 Bergman 1996 p 107 and Gade 1956 p 106. 150 Johan Tvet: Desse4s ExecutionNordin 1398UUB. 151 Bergman 2011b p 129. 152 See e g Lebrun 1971 p 417, Martschukat 2000a p 52 sq, Merback 1999 p 127 sq, Sharpe 1985 p 165, Bergman 1996 p 196 sqq, and Bergman 2011b p 158 sqq. 62
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