the execution and its message the increasing literature of the preparation for death, which raised the interest for and gave precedence to the moment of death as determining the dying’s eternal fate.186 The literature prevailed, as an important theme in spirituality and, coming into the seventeenth century, in the fear of dying suddenly and unprepared was quite common in prayer books.187 In the late Middle Ages, the preparation of those condemned to die took on a more organised form, and a few days could be reserved for the task.188 The clerical presence at the execution was more problematic, however, as the fourth Lateran Council of 1215 had forbidden priests to be present at executions.189 Although the execution of the condemned often became a more prepared event, the development in France and Spain was slower than in many other areas. For example in France, since 1396, through a royal ordinance the confession and Absolution of the delinquent, against opposition among councillors and judges, was required to precede the execution. Communion and extreme unction were denied, however.190 In Spain, it was normal to deny the condemned communion at least until the prohibition of the denial in a law of 1568, and probably longer.191 It was in Spain, too, that the sixteenth-century theologian Dominicus Soto adopted the harsh position that the enemy of the state was the enemy of the church and should be treated as such.192 In the German states the differences between the principalities in medieval times also were visible in differences concerning the practices for the condemned and the sacraments.193 Some examples can be given. In the fifteenth century or even earlier, some states introduced services for the condemned. It seems confession may have been allowed in Goslar from the mid-fourteenth century. In the towns of the diocese of 186 Lindroth 1957 p 38 sqq, see also Huizinga 2007 p 171 sqq. 187 Lindquist 1939 p 374. 188 Brandt 1985 p 57. 189 Friedland 2012 p 45. 190 Vincent-Cassy 1998, Friedland 2012 p 89 sq, Bastien 2011 p 161 sq, Morel 2007 p 348. 191 Haring 1912 p 13 sqq, Browe 1935 p 255. 192 Browe 1935 p 255. 193 Browe 1935 p 258 sqq. 73
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