The Faithful Executioner by Joel Harrington
In the late 1500s a Nuremberg man named Frantz Schmidt began to do something utterly remarkable for his era: he started keeping a journal. But what makes Schmidt even more compelling to us is his day job. For forty-five years, Schmidt was an efficient and prolific public executioner, employed by the state to extract confessions and put convicted criminals to death. In his years of service, he executed 361 people and tortured, flogged, or disfigured hundreds more. Is it possible that a man who practiced such cruelty could also be insightful, compassionate, humane - even progressive? In his groundbreaking book, the historian Joel F. Harrington looks for the answer in Schmidt's journal, whose immense significance has been ignored until now. Harrington uncovers details of Schmidt's medical practice, his marriage to a woman ten years older than him, his efforts at penal reform, his almost touching obsession with social status, and most of all his conflicted relationship with his own craft and the growing sense that it could not be squared with his faith.
Joel F. Harrington is Centennial Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He is the author or editor of six books on the social and religious history of pre-modern Germany, including The Faithful Executioner, which has been translated into twelve languages. He lives with his family in Nashville.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780809049929 |
| ISBN 10 | 0809049929 |
| Title | The Faithful Executioner |
| Author | Joel Harrington |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Hill & Wang Inc.,U.S. |
| Year published | 2013-03-19 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |