Editing Executioner

{{Short description|Person who executes a sentence of death}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Redirect|Headsman|the film|The Headsman{{!}}''The Headsman''|the comic book character|Headsman (comics)}}
{{Distinguish|Executor}}
[[File:Палач у экспозиции орудий пыток.jpg|thumb|right|Symbolic robed figure of a medieval public executioner at [[Peter and Paul Fortress]], [[Saint Petersburg]], Russia]]
[[File:The executioner.jpg|thumb|right|Photograph ([[Hand-colouring of photographs|hand-coloured]]), original dated 1898, of the lord high executioner of the former princely state of [[Rewa (princely state)|Rewah]], Central India, with large executioner's sword ([[Talwar|Tegha]] sword)]]
[[File:Thetriumphofdeath - detail.jpg|thumb|right|Depiction of a public execution in Brueghel's ''[[The Triumph of Death]]'' 1562–1563]] 
[[File:Hinrichtung.jpg|thumb|right|Stylised depiction of public execution of pirates in [[Hamburg]], Germany, 10 September 1573]]

An '''executioner''', also known as a '''hangman''' or '''headsman''', is an official who effects a sentence of [[capital punishment]] on a [[Death sentence|condemned]] person.

== Scope and job ==
The executioner was usually presented with a [[Execution warrant|warrant]] authorising or ordering him to ''execute'' the sentence. The warrant protects the executioner from the charge of [[murder]]. Common terms for executioners derived from forms of capital punishment—though they often also performed other physical punishments—include '''hangman''' ([[hanging]]) and '''headsman''' ([[Decapitation|beheading]]). In the military, the role of executioner was performed by a soldier, such as the ''provost''. A common [[stereotype]] of an executioner is a [[hood (headgear)|hooded]] [[medieval]] or absolutist executioner. Symbolic or real, executioners were rarely hooded, and not robed in all black; hoods were only used if an executioner's identity and anonymity were to be preserved from the public. As [[Hilary Mantel]] noted in her 2018 [[Reith Lectures]], "Why would an executioner wear a mask? Everybody knew who he was".

While this task can be occasional in nature, it can be carried out in the line of more general duty by an officer of the court, the [[police]], [[Corrections officer|prison staff]], or even the [[military]]. A special case is the tradition of the Roman ''fustuarium'', continued in forms of [[running the gauntlet]], where the culprit receives their punishment from the hands of the comrades gravely harmed by their crime, e.g. for failing in vital sentinel duty or stealing from a ship's limited food supply.

Many executioners were professional specialists who traveled a circuit or region performing their duty, because executions were rarely very numerous. Within this region, a resident executioner would also administer [[Corporal punishment|non-lethal physical punishments]], or apply [[torture]]. In [[Middle Ages|medieval]] Europe, to the end of the [[early modern period]], executioners were often [[knacker]]s,<ref name="TFTGU">{{Cite book
| title      = Tales from the German Underworld: Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth Century
| url        = https://books.google.com/books?id=tYQB6PItGQ0C
| last       = Evans
| first      = Richard
| publisher  = Yale University Press
| location   = New Haven and London
| date       = 1998
| page       = 145
| isbn       = 978-0-300-07224-2
}}</ref> since pay from the rare executions was not enough to live off.

In medieval Europe executioners also taxed lepers and prostitutes, and controlled gaming houses.  They were also in charge of the latrines and cesspools, and disposing of animal carcasses.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/executioners-who-inherited-their-jobs-180967947/|title=The Executioners Who Inherited Their Jobs|website=Smithsonian}}</ref>

The term is extended to administrators of severe physical punishment that is not prescribed to kill, but which may result in death.

Executions in France (using the [[guillotine]] since the [[French Revolution]]) persisted until 1977, and the French Republic had an official executioner; the last one, [[Marcel Chevalier]], served until the formal [[Capital punishment in France#The abolition process in 1981|abolition of capital punishment]] in 1981.<ref name="Clarke Hardy Williams 2008">{{cite book
| last1        = Clarke
| first1       = P.
| last2       = Hardy
| first2      = L.
| last3       = Williams
| first3      = A.
| title       = Executioners
| publisher   = Book Sales
| year        = 2008
| isbn        = 978-0-7088-0366-0
| url         = https://books.google.com/books?id=8a0l2PYRS-EC
| language    = sv
| access-date = 16 September 2018
| pages       = 374–380
}}</ref>

== 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>

== See also ==
* [[List of executioners]]
* [[Scharfrichter]]
* [[Breaking wheel]]
* [[Executioner's sword]]
* [[Sword of justice]]
* ''[[Pierrepoint (film)|Pierrepoint]]''
* ''[[The Executioner (Kisyov novel)|The Executioner]]''

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:SanMarino-Museum Tortur-executioner.jpg|Robed figure of a medieval public executioner at the Museum of Torture in [[San Marino]]
File:Poland - executioner in Torture Museum.jpg|Robed figure of a medieval public executioner at the Museum of Torture, in [[Żywiec]], Poland
File:The execution of King Charles I from NPG.jpg|Print of Execution of King Charles I of England 1649; the executioner is masked
File:Executioner's sword c. 1600 (25682502534).jpg|17th century executioner's sword, Germany ca. 1600
File:Bishop's staff and executioner's sword (26188605373).jpg|High Court [[Executioner's sword]] with [[Christianity|Christian]] [[epigram]], ca. 1760 [[Salzburg]], Austria, on display next to a Bishop's staff. The executioner's sword is designed as a cutting weapon rather than stabbing, forged of brass and iron.
File:Executioner of Kanagawa with sword and prisoner.jpg|19th-century Japanese executioner with sword and prisoner.
</gallery>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Capital punishment}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Capital punishment]]
[[Category:Executioners| ]]
[[Category:Legal professions]]
[[Category:Penology]]