the execution and its message legal procedures were so strong they no longer required theology and liturgy as supports.172 Both Sharpe and Krischer study England, also the place for cruel religious battles and, despite that, early religious disparity. Perhaps this special environment was damaging to a seemingly stable system displaying the image of unity? In a strong theological interpretation, the important questions focused on the condemned. Is this a person going to heaven or hell? How successful has the preparation been? In the centre of it all stands the condemned – confession, conversion, comfort, pastoral care, pain, death – everything revolved around the condemned. The condemned embodied the system, and the system disintegrated when the condemned came to be conceived as a problem. Krischer sees this system as the background for the strengthening of the role of deterrence in the execution.173 When deterrence was the primarily concern, the focus shifted from the condemned to the crime committed – could more crimes of the same type be avoided? One can wonder if this change of focus from the condemned to the crime is at least in part the reason why legislators in several countries in the eighteenth century set out to hinder these crimes? Could one even say that until the focus moved to the crimes, these crimes were somewhat invisible? We can try to understand the system from the positions of the two parties in it. The state became generally more powerful, eventually fully getting rid of any competition in most parts of Europe. In exceptions such as the Holy Roman Empire power instead came to be expressed by smaller states and cities. The ecclesiastical field increasingly also became an area under government control. Did this mean that the churches became only entities used by the state? Yes and no, for established church it could be an advantage that the competition from other religions and confessions was disadvantaged or often forbidden. It eventually transpired to be a bad deal, though: the state became less interested in promoting the message of the churches, but nevertheless retained more or less control. 172 Krischer 2013 p 93, 95 sq (quotation p 93). 173 Krischer 2013 p 95 sq. 68
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