the execution and its message Secular and theological ideas could function together and did so in many arenas other than executions – hence Randall McGowen’s comment that the English assize sermon in the eighteenth century was a ”demonstration of the cooperation between church and state.”161 Even though the system eventually crumbled, I would argue, as Annika Sandén does, that in the meantime both state and Church painted executions in mutually acceptable colours. When the condemned, thanks to the ministrations of the priest, looked calm and submissive through forgiveness and in the hope of soon reaching heaven, the execution was an expression of justice and moral edification combined instead of cruelty.162 The research used here to describe the system concerns France, Germany, England, and Sweden. Could one therefore say that such a system was primarily afeature of Northern Europe? That was not the case. Mary Elisabeth Perry comments on the executions in sixteenth–century Seville: ”Religious symbolism in executions reinforced political authority because it sanctified the government’s power to define crime and punish offenders.” And: ”An execution without a crucifix was as unlikely as an execution without a victim.”163 Perry also gives us a fascinating view of the possible double interpretation of one aspect of the event: Although extreme in his views, the philosopher Joseph de Maistre provides an example of not only practice, but also the ideas found among Catholics. He saw all punishment as indirectly delivered by God, as all authority and all executions came from Him. This could even and ulti161 McGowen 1987–88 p 194. 162 Sandén 2016 p 49: ”De offentliga avrättningarna skulle sända ett budskap till folket om maktens ordning och rättvisa, inte att den var grym och grundlös. Prästen hade med andra ord en viktig roll eftersom han genom beredelsen fick dödsfången att känna lugn inför dödsstraffet. Gick denne fram till stupstocken lugnt och undergivet i förvissningen om sin skuld, men i tro på att Gud förlät en ångrande syndare och väntade på andra sidan, gav det hela arrangemanget just den rätta auran av moralisk uppbyggelse och rättvisa.” 163 Perry 1980 p 143 sq, see also p 146. 164 Perry 1980 p 119. 65 One view of the priest with a condemned man at the gallows is that he was returning a stray sheep to the flock; another view is that he was mesmerizing the sheep, so that the creature would accept its fate as a sacrificial victim.164
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