the execution and its message In Norway, the connection between pastoral care, confession to a crime, and the wish to be executed seem to have come together in the case of Jakob Wallin, executed in Bergen in 1876. Fredrik Brandt, a professor of law in Kristiania, criticised the prison chaplain for urging Wallin to a confession of a crime with the result that Wallin not only confessed but also warmly wanted to be executed.248 That this situation not altogether was Nordic was shown by a conflict in Berlin in 1716–17 about whether the priest in any case could reveal a sacramental confession when the person confessing did not want it to reach the authorities.249 Another German perspective however was given by Christoph Timotheus Seidel, who in his Pastoral-Theologie of 1749 stressed that the priest should not ask the prisoner for the reason for the incarceration, thereby not raising the fear that a confession might be delivered to the judge.250 While theCCCgave three days for the preparation of the condemned, the Swedish Church Ordinance of 1571, written by archbishop Laurentius Petri, the brother of the more active reformer Olaus Petri, recommended that the clergy should strive to secure one or two days for the spiritual preparation of the condemned.251 In Sweden this more modest recommendation would probably have represented an extension of the current practice.252 In time, preparations in Sweden took longer and longer. A delinquent in Halmstad in 1688 was granted five days’ preparation by the local court, 248 ”Tilståelsen er ham afpræsset af fængselpræsten ved en moralsk påvirkning af en temmelig tvivlsom tilbörlighed, hvormed var fremkaldt et brændende önske hos ham om at lide döden.” Letter from Fredrik Brandt 3 april 1877 to Knut Olivecrona G 197 k:6UUB. 249 See the dispute in Kahmann 1716, Schmidt 1761, and Kahmann 1717 and about the conflict see e g Forschungen 1891 p 630, Unschuldige Nachrichten s a p 279 sq, and Hardeland 1898 p 469 sqq. 250 Seidel 1749 p 319: ”Man hütet sich, auf das äusserste, ihn nach der Ursache seiner Gefangenschaft zu fragen, oder die eigentlichen Umstände seines Verbrechen zu erforschen, weil man sich so fort bey ihm in den Verdacht bringt, als ob man ihn ausfragen, und solches den Gerichten wieder melden wolle, woraus denn der größte Widerwille gegen den Prediger entsteht.” See also Hardeland 1898 p 468. 251 Kjöllerström 1971 p 133 Art 20: ”Dock skola prästerna beflita sig där om, att de där sådana människor berättas skola, måga hava en dag eller två till fars eller till handels med dem.” 252 See Kjöllerström 1957 p 51, Levander 1975 p 241, 265. 85
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