the execution and its message Konstanz from around 1400, the condemned could confess and receive Communion. Any who genuinely repented were buried in consecrated ground.194 In fifteenth century Lübeck, most of the condemned did not receive Communion, but on their way to execution they were taken to the church of the Dominicans, where they were blessed by the Host in a monstrance. Similar blessings took place in churches in Bremen, Braunschweig, and Hamburg.195 Elsewhere in Europe, in Strasbourg in 1461 a majority in the council were uneasy about the practice of allowing the priest to start preparations the evening before the execution, once the sentence had been announced to the condemned, and then hearing confession and giving Absolution during the night. Their solution was to allow the preparation only in the morning. Eventually, this decision was in turn questioned, and from 1480 the condemned who repented were allowed to see the Host.196 Then in 1485 the receiving of communion was allowed. This step changed how executions were timetabled in Strasbourg. Friday still was the day of execution, but earlier the sentencing had occurred on the Thursday. That now took place on the Tuesday followed by communion on Wednesday.197 In Bologna communion in the late fifteenth century probably was a normal part of the preparation198 Interestingly it was said that the condemned later between the formal sentencing and arriving to the site of execution, was brought to the church of S. Giovanni Decollato, and there knelt on the threshold while Mass was celebrated.199 The long history of denying the condemned the sacraments Adriano Prosperi understands as a method for the secular authorities to make their punishment appear even more terrifying: 194 Schuster 2007 p 702. 195 Browe 1935 p 261 sq, Martschukat 2000a p 40. 196 Schuster 2007 p 703 sq. 197 Dacheux 1876 p 46 sqq, Cohen, E 1993 p 200. 198 The Bologna Comforters’ Manual 2008 p 266. Nicholas Terpstra suggests that the text is from the late fifteenth or the sixteenth century, Terpstra 2008b p 188. 199 The Bologna Comforters’ Manual 2008 p 272 sq. 74
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