the execution and its message We may make comparisons with the execution sermon in the British colonies of North America. Especially the New England execution sermon has been studied in some detail. It could be given in the church on the Sunday or Tuesday preceding the execution. Most often, however, it was delivered immediately before the execution. It generally took a little less than an hour and its importance in society was demonstrated not only by the large attendance, but also by it being given by some of the most influential and learned preachers.315 The first New England execution sermon was probably given at an execution in 1638 and the first printed sermons are from 1674.316 At least in late seventeenth– and early eighteenth-century Boston it was common for several sermons to be addressed to the condemned.317 The last printed execution sermon in USAis from 1825.318 The condemned performed the role of an example of deterrence and could also here be listening to the sermon standing by the coffin soon to be used.319 The last communion was probably of far greater importance to the prisoner than the condemned sermon ever was. It was often held in the morning of the execution day in the nearest church to the execution site. In eighteenth and early nineteenth century it could be a very well visited service. At the end of the nineteenth century it increasingly became very private, just as executions became non-public and fewer and fewer could and wanted to attend.320 Liturgical ceremonies on the road to executions tended to be more common in urban settings. Thus, in Swedish sources Stockholm is well represented among occurrences of hymn singing along the way.321 The single most frequently told tradition was the ceremony on the road between Newgate and Tyburn in London: at the steps of the St Sepulchre 315 Minnick 1968 p 79. 316 Bosco 1978 p lxxvi sqq. 317 Silverman 1984 p 47, Lazenby 1971 p 52, 54 sq. 318 Cohen 1988 p 147 sq. 319 Rothman 1990 p 15. 320 Bergman 1996 p 177 sqq, see also Bergman 2001 p 103 sqq. 321 Letter from Carl Christoffer Gjörwell to G Ehrensvärd 5 February 1771 in Ep G 8:4KB, letter from Hauswolff to Johan Christopher Stricker 18 January 1771 in Ep S 58:3 KB; see also Jacobsson 1953 p 231, Edvardsson 1978 p 59, 61. 99
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