Turku, Finland/Sweden, 1643:
Inside the town hall of Turku, the air felt thick with the weight of impending decisions. The large, dimly lit room was dominated by heavy wooden beams and rough stone walls, casting long shadows over the cobbled floor. At the far end, a massive oak table stood surrounded by high-backed chairs, each occupied by the town’s aldermen, their stern gazes fixed on Henrik as he stepped forward.
Henrik threw a glance at his wife, Lisbet, who sat on a low wooden stool, her hands bound. Her frigthened eyes met his, and his resolve hardened.
His request had been met by surprise. No one had volunteered to be the town’s executioner before. His own father had taken the job to avoid being executed himself. Henrik knew full well what was expected of him in this position. And he knew – or thought he did – the toll it would take on him. But Lisbet had been caught stealing, and sentenced to whipping and then exile. And he could not let that happen.
When the aldermen questioned him, he repeated his request to become Turku’s executioner. He would accept the job of his own free will, but he had conditions. Lisbet would not be punished, and he himself would not be branded, as executioners often were. He was not a criminal, after all.
After a silent deliberation among themselves, the aldermen approved Henrik’s request. Lisbet was saved. But they had a condition of their own; two executions would take place in the city and Henrik would have to carry them out. Today.
The above is the true story of Henrik Bertilsson, who took on the role of executioner to save his wife from punishment. The councilmen were surprised by this offer, but in fact Henrik was not alone in voluntarily taking on this task. Around the same time, all over Scandinavia, a new profession of hereditary executioners emerged.
Probably inspired by similar events in Germany, this new trend worked its way up from Denmark and through the rest of Scandinavia. But why, one might ask, would anyone willingly take the gruesome role of executioner?
The new order seems to have emerged from below, that is, the state had nothing to do with it. Instead, it was the executioners themselves and their families who began to organize. One apparent reason for this was that despite the executioner’s low status, the position provided housing and income during a time when poverty was deep and widespread.
During the century, several ”executioner dynasties” emerged, where the profession was passed down from father to son. There are also examples of how the inheritance could pass through the daughter – even if a woman was not allowed to be an executioner – by the person she married becoming the new executioner after her father.
With this new trend, the executioner were not pardoned criminals anymore, and were spared the humiliating branding of their bodies. And when the executioner no longer could perform his task, he was no longer executed but could retire and pass on the burden to his son.
One might say that the 17th century was the golden age of executions, but still they were not as common as one might think considering over 60 offenses where punishable by death. Although many were sentenced to death, most sentences were commuted to other punishments, usually fines or corporal punishment.
In Stockholm around 4-5 people were sentenced to death annually in the first half of the 17th century. In the average Swedish town it could be years between executions.
However, the executioners had large jurisdictions, and travelled a lot in their work since few cities or regions had their own executioner, so they still had their hands full. According to some executioners own statements, they executed between 6 – 14 people per year.
In the next post, we will look at the rules and ceremonies that surrounded the executions.
Sources:
Ambrius, Jonny. Att dömas till döden. Tortyr, kroppsstraff och avrättningar genom historien. (1996)
Sandén, Annika. Bödlar – liv, död och skam i svenskt 1600-tal. (2017)