The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
Joel F.
One day, Vanderbilt University history professor Joel Harrington discovered the diaries of Meister Franz Schmidt, written in the 16th century in the city of Nuremberg, on the dusty shelves of a second-hand bookshop in Germany. For 45 years Mr. Schmidt killed and maimed hundreds of people. He worked as an executioner. A unique historical document should not just disappear. Thus was born this book about a deeply religious man who dreamed of practicing medicine, a wonderful family man and a real serial killer by profession. This book seriously stands out from the whole series of works on the Middle Ages that has fallen upon us in the last couple of years. Here is not just the most interesting history of its time, but also very modern issues - the morality of the use of the death penalty, human cruelty and retribution. The sincere and detailed diaries of the executioner reflect Franz Schmidt's painful attempts to reconcile the craft with faith, tell about the understanding of justice, punishment and humanity in the 16th century and at the same time show how close our ideas have gone from the Middle Ages.
