In the German milieu instead a dominating idea was that the church and the priest were to keep a clear distance to the state and therefore in no way help with the killing of the condemned. It is in the early nineteenth century said to have occurred that the priest at the execution site prayed and continued to pray without ending. Therefore it could be recommended that the executioner interrupted the priest so that the execution could proceed.227 It is important to note that some Catholic milieus offered a special form for care for the condemned that had started in the fourteenth century: certain confraternities had assumed the task of caring for the condemned and accompanying them through their final hours, often from the evening before the execution.228 The time for preparation available to them was not always so short. For example, for centuries in Palermo it was three days and three nights.229 It could occur that a priest came in the evening or early in the morning to hear confession and giving a host as communion, but they could also be more involved in the more problematic cases. From the mid-sixteenth century the role of the priest generally increased.230 No debate about the suitability of or timing of communion for the condemned is known from any of the Lutheran regions, although the sanctity and solemnity of communion was upheld. In the church ordinances of the Lutheran reformation, the preparation of the condemned was a frequent element with several goals. One of them was that the condemned was to be displayed as an example aimed to warn the public attending the execution, while another, even more important one was to bring the condemned to the forgiveness of God and, ultimately, to salvation. According to the Swedish Church Law from 1686 the aim of the prepaAmong Lutherans the execution and its message 227 Stuart 2023 p 71. 228 Falvey 1991 p 33. 229 Di Bella 2017 p 248 sq, Friedland 2012 p 105 sq. 230 Falvey 1991 p 33, 41, Nordberg 1993 p 234. 80
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