Editing Executioner (section)

== In society ==
In [[Western Europe]] and its colonies, [[List of executioners|executioners]] were often shunned by their neighbours, with their work as knackers also disreputable.<ref name="TFTGU" /> In France, executioners and their families were [[Ostracism|ostracized]] and lived in social isolation.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Executioners Who Inherited Their Jobs |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/executioners-who-inherited-their-jobs-180967947/ |work=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] |date=26 January 2018}}</ref> In [[Alexandre Dumas, père|Alexandre Dumas]]' ''[[The Three Musketeers]]'' and in the film ''[[La veuve de Saint-Pierre]]'' (''The Widow of Saint-Peter''), minor character executioners are ostracized by the villagers.

In early modern German society, executioners and their families were considered "dishonourable people" (''unehrliche Leute'').<ref>{{cite book|first=Kathy|last=Stuart|title=Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts – Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany|publisher=Cambridge University Press| url = https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/98053585.pdf | year=2000}}</ref>

The profession of executioner sometimes ran through a family, especially in France, where the [[Charles Henri Sanson|Sanson family]] provided six executioners between 1688 and 1847 and the Deibler dynasty provided five between 1879 and its 1981 abolition. The latter's members included Louis Deibler, his son Anatole, Anatole's nephew Jules-Henri Desfourneaux, his other nephew [[André Obrecht]], and André's nephew [[Marcel Chevalier]].<ref name="Gerould 1992 p. 78">{{cite book
| last        = Gerould
| first       = D.C.
| title       = Guillotine, Its Legend and Lore
| publisher   = Blast Books
| year        = 1992
| isbn        = 978-0-922233-02-1
| url         = https://archive.org/details/guillotineitsleg00dani
| url-access  = registration
| access-date = 16 September 2018
| page        = [https://archive.org/details/guillotineitsleg00dani/page/78 78]
| quote       = The job of executioner had become part-time. Henri Desfourneaux's two assistants also worked as a butcher and a hairdresser — fitting sidelines to their decapitating functions. The last guillotine operator, Marcel Chevalier, incumbent from ...
}}</ref>

In Britain, the most notable dynasty was the Pierrepoints, who provided three executioners between 1902 and 1956 – Henry, his brother Thomas, and Henry's son [[Albert Pierrepoint|Albert]]. Unlike in France and many other European countries, far from being shunned, British executioners such as [[William Marwood]], [[James Berry (executioner)|James Berry]], [[Albert Pierrepoint]], and [[Harry Allen (executioner)|Harry Allen]] were widely known and respected by the public.

In Korea, the ''[[Baekjeong]]'' were an "[[Untouchability|untouchable]]" group who traditionally performed the jobs of executioner and butcher.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/252782 |title=Untouchables of Korea or: How to Discriminate the Illusive Paekjong? |first=Ruthie |last=Kotek |website=www.academia.edu}}</ref> In Japan, executioners have been held in contempt as part of the ''[[Burakumin]]'' class (today [[Capital_punishment_in_Japan#Execution|executions in Japan]] are not carried out by professional executioners, but by prison guards). In ''Memories of Silk and Straw'', by Junichi Saga, one of the families surveyed in the Japanese village of Tsuchiura is that of an executioner family ("The Last Executioner", p.&nbsp;54). This family does suffer social isolation, even though the family is somewhat well-off financially.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meerman |first=Jacob |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UgmUAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA98 |title=Socio-economic Mobility and Low-status Minorities: Slow Roads to Progress |date=2009-06-02 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-97281-3 |pages=98 |language=en}}</ref>

In the [[Ottoman Empire]], the role of executioners was given to the [[Bostanji|Ottoman gardeners]], bodyguards who guarded the sultan's palace. Members of the gardeners conducted executions of anyone whom the sultan wanted executed, but the most senior officials who were sentenced to death were dealt with by the head of the gardeners ({{langx|tr|bostancıbaşı}}) in person. Bostancibaşi would give the person sentenced to death a cup of [[sherbet (frozen dessert)|sherbet]], and if the sherbet was white, they would avoid death, but if it was red, they would be executed on the spot by [[janissary|janissaries]]. [[List of Ottoman grand viziers|Grand viziers]] could avoid execution by racing the bostancibaşi. If they reached the Fish Market Gate (on the southern side of the palace complex) from the Central Gate of the palace complex before the bostancibaşi, they would be banished instead of being executed. If they were slower than the bostancibaşi, they would be executed and their body would be thrown into the sea. This custom lasted until the nineteenth century. The last recorded person to participate in a race with the bostancibaşi was grand vizier Hacı Salih Pasha who, in November 1822, outran the bostancibaşi and saved his life. He was so widely esteemed for winning the race that he got appointed governor general of the Damascus province.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dash |first1=Mike |date=22 March 2012 |title=The Ottoman Empire's Life-or-Death Race |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ottoman-empires-life-or-death-race-164064882/ |journal=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] |access-date=14 July 2024}}</ref> Executioners had their own graveyards, with uncarved and unpolished simple rough stones used as gravestones. The biggest of these graveyards is part of the [[Eyüp Cemetery]] in [[Istanbul]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.haberturk.com/yasam/haber/667994-cellat-mezarligi-yok-oluyor-galeri |title=Cellat mezarlığı yok oluyor! GALERİ |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=9 September 2011 |website=Habertürk |publisher=[[Habertürk]] |access-date=14 July 2024 |language=tr}}</ref>

The town of [[Roscommon]] has the distinction of having had [[Ireland]]'s most notorious hangwoman, [[Elizabeth Sugrue|Lady Betty]], who was given the post in exchange for her life being spared when the hangman due to execute her death sentence took ill on the day that she and 25 others were due to be hanged. Lady Betty offered to carry out the task in exchange for her death sentence being commuted to a life sentence, and she acted as [[County Roscommon|the county]]'s hangwoman from then on.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web |title=How Ireland's only female executioner got the job |url=https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/features/how-irelands-only-female-executioner-got-the-job-918685.html |website=Irish Examiner |date=18 April 2019 |access-date=18 October 2019}}</ref>
An unidentified woman hanged two men for murder on 13 November 1782 at [[Kilmainham]], near Dublin. The men were also [[Dismemberment|quartered]]. The sheriff received abuse for making a hangman of a woman.<ref>{{cite news|title= on the 13th|newspaper= Oxford Journal|date= 23 November 1782|page= 1}}</ref>