Epitomes of Evil: Representations of Executioners in Northern France and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages 2503522784

Citation preview

EPITOMES OF EVIL

SEUH VIII Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800)

Series Editor Marc Boone (Ghent University)

Epitomes of Evil Representation of Executioners in Northern France and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages

Hannele Klemettilä

H

F

Illustration on cover: David, G erard. Judgment of Cambyses. Justice diptych for the Council Chamber of Bruges Town H all. 1498. G roeninge Museum, Bruges

© 2006 – Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2006/0095/110 ISBN 2-503-52278-4 Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper

CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Central Aims and Methodology 1.2 Primary Sources 1.3 Structure and Terminology 1.4 Previous Research

1 2 6 12 16

2 HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION 2.1 The Executioner’s Office and Late Medieval Penal System 2.2 Paradox of the Hangman 3.3 Obsession with Pain

25 25 40 48

3 NAMING THE EXECUTIONER 3.1 Professional Names 3.2 Personal Names 3.3 Namelessness

61 62 80 93

4 THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT 4.1 Striped Garments 4.2 Connotations of Colours 4.3 Shape of Clothing 4.4 Disorder and Nudity 4.5 Accessories as Anathema 4.6 Instruments of Violence

109 110 116 128 135 143 156

5 PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER 5.1 Facial Features and Expressions 5.2 Hair and Beard 5.3 Postures and Gestures 5.4 Size, View and Location

165 165 183 192 204

6 THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE 6.1 Swearwords and Slights 6.2 Professional Jargon 6.3 Jesting about Pain and Death 6.4 Incoherent and Idle Talk

215 216 226 230 241

7 MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER 7.1 Cruelty

263 263

7.2 Vices of the Hangman 7.3 Defective Reason

284 302

8 CONCLUSION

321

BIBLIOGRAPHY

335

PICTORIAL APPENDIX

371

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In 1999–2003, my research work relating to the present study was supported financially by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Academy of Finland, Oskar Öflund Foundation, Finnish Concordia League, TOP Foundation, Turku University Foundation, and by the Finnish Graduate School of History, which are all gratefully acknowledged. I wish to express my sincerest thanks to all those scholars and colleagues in various universities and institutes in Europe and elsewhere who have contributed in some way to this study. My special thanks go to Professor Wim Blockmans (University of Leiden), Professor Esther Cohen (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Professor Hannu Salmi (University of Turku), Professor Jean-Claude Schmitt (EHESS), and Professor Christian Krötzl (University of Tampere).

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION The goal of the present study is to cast light on ways of perceiving and classifying the executioner in the late Middle Ages. Hangmen were familiar characters from urban reality to people of the past. These officers played an essential role in the new penal system; a hangman was considered an indispensable aide to criminal justice, a securer of social and cosmic order. Yet, his status was low and general attitudes towards him were highly ambiguous, often hostile, disparaging or fearful. In medieval imagery, the executioner was regularly linked to ideas of otherness, cruelty, sin and evil. He was identified with criminals, marginal people and demons. For people in the past the executioner was the target of endless speculation. Consequently, different hangman figures had a prominent role in numerous works of fiction: self-assured master hangmen and their cunning valets, pitiless pagan executioners and cruel torturers of Christian martyrs. Geographically, the focus of this study is in Northern France and the Burgundian territories.1 Thus, the choice is the same as in the study by Johan Huizinga, the Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (orig. 1919), considered one of the major classics in the domain of cultural historical studies. My time period extends from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century, an epoch that is particularly interesting when investigating ways of viewing the executioner. It was during this era that the office of the hangman became established in the European penal system. There was an increasing demand for professional executioners as capital and corporal penalties became the responsibility of the state and other public authorities. At the same time, the hangman’s representation was actively exploited, shaped and modified for various reasons by different social and cultural groups in different contexts, religious as well as secular. The purpose of my study is to decrypt the signs connected to hangmen, i.e. the central elements in their representations, and from this perspective shed light on late medieval culture, on past people’s ways of thinking and ways of perceiving the world. On the one hand, my study concerns signs and mental images of the executioner and, on the other, deep background structures, the intellectual and logical equipment that regulated practices, the perception of the world and conceptual thinking, and the interaction between these levels of culture. Accordingly, my study belongs to the field of the anthropological history, sometimes called new cultural history2 or alternatively to that of ‘symbolic history’.3 1 2

Of course, several chroniclers, writers, and artists served both the French and Burgundian courts in the later Middle Ages. Burgundy was quite a peculiar state, for example, because of its geographical disunity. See Prevenier & Blockmans 1986; see also studies by Vaughan (1962, 1966, 1970, 1973) and Schnerb 1999. On the essential features and goals of new cultural history, see Burke 1992, 2-6; Virtanen 1993, 11-12; Burke 1996, 111-8; Burke 1997, 192-8; Immonen 2001, 21-2. Besides Johan Huizinga (1872–1945), important pioneers in the field of cultural history were Marc Bloch (1886–1944) and Lucien Febvre (1878–1956). Peter Burke has suggested that the new kind of cultural history could be called ‘anthropological history’, because

1

CHAPTER 1

1.1 Central Aims and Methodology The present study examines those operations of reasoning and persuasion that were manifested in numerous verbal (or literary) and visual products and which could serve to define the executioner, give him specific meanings. My aim is to analyse ways of linking the hangman to particular ideas and contexts. It is essential to investigate the diverse factors that nourished and shaped representations and to ask what interests and quarters image-making could serve. By focusing on the signs of executioners, various attributes closely associated with these figures (dress, outward appearance, language, etc.), which may at first hand appear insignificant, it is possible to determine how the people of the past perceived hangmen as a group or as individuals. I understand the concept of representation in the same sense as Roger Chartier, for example, i.e. as a mental image of a certain phenomenon in a certain culture and expressed in linguistic or in visual forms in my source material. Chartier has suggested that the notion of representation is a useful instrument when investigating the various relationships that people cultivate with the reality. It helps to examine those operations of classification and delineation that produce the multiple intellectual configurations by which the world is perceived, constructed, and reconstructed by various individuals and groups. The notion of representation helps to identify and articulate the practices and signs that make a social identity or moral character recognisable and also those institutionalised signs by which individual or collective ‘representers’ manifested social coherence or power relationships, for example.4 An essential part of these representations is that they are never completely neutral. One has to consider the mental equipment, social position and the intentions of the person or group that fashioned the representation being studied. Representations carry with them social, educational, or political strategies and aim to influence the recipient’s conceptions, opinions and ways of deciphering the world.5 Naturally, people in the past were quite capable of understanding any

3 4 5

2

many scholars now view the past as a foreign country, and conceive their task as one of culturally translating the language of the past into that of the present. One reason for the fields of history and anthropology becoming more closely aligned is that scholars share the idea that reality is a social and cultural construction. This discipline still remains to be constructed, as Michel Pastoureau observes in his recent work. Pastoureau 2004, 13. Chartier 1988, 9-10; Chartier 1989; Chartier 1997, 94-5. ‘The representations […] are always a product of the interests of the group that forged them. This means that for each motif, what is said must be related to the social position of whoever says it […] State perceptions of social phenomenon are never neutral. They engender social, educational, or political strategies and practices that tend to impose one authority at the expense of others that are discredited, to lend legitimacy to a project for reform, or to justify an individual’s choices and behaviour.’ Chartier 1988, 5. On the notion of representation as a tool of historical research, see also Schmitt 1990, 21-4. Schmitt reminds us, ‘representations […] sont aussi des interprétations données par la culture qui les a produites’. He also observes, elsewhere, that the concept of representation is close to that of imagery (imaginaire). For Schmitt, imaginaire is ‘une réalité collective qui consiste en récits mythiques, en fictions, en images, partagés par les acteurs sociaux’. The concept of imagery ‘chevauche en partie au moins les notions de représentation, de symbole, d’idéologie qui en désignent certains aspects ou certaines fonctions’. Even if the notion is quite close to that of ideology, however, ‘idéologie suppose une construction plus consciente et plus intellectuelle; l’imaginaire fait plus appel aux passions diffuses, aux réactions émotionnelles.’ As to the imagination, this concept refers to ‘une réalité avant tout psychologique et individuelle’. Schmitt 2002, 345-6. See also Pastoureau 2004, 19. Pastoureau stresses that for the people of the Middle Ages ‘l’imaginaire fait toujours partie de la réalité, l’imaginaire est une réalité.’

INTRODUCTION

representation as a premeditated interpretation of a certain phenomenon, and not as its neutral portrayal. This study focuses on the signs and representations related to the hangman, transmitted and fashioned in various forums of late medieval culture. These representations will be examined as interpretations produced by different individuals and groups that aimed, for example, to influence and shape the institution of executioner that was establishing itself at that time, to define the boundaries of acceptable violence and hierarchies of society, and to transmit moral judgments. The figure of the hangman also served as an instrument by means of which various new trends or popular practices in contemporary society and culture in general could be commented on. Thus, the executioner often functioned as a vehicle for various and complex efforts to exert influence. All in all, one is dealing here with quite dynamic processes, where mental images of hangmen were constructed and reconstructed again and again. As the present study focuses on the late medieval period, it is essential not to ignore the metaphysical dimension, either. The medieval mind was strongly directed towards the hereafter. One aspect of the hangmen’s representations and depictions was to signal Christian values to the Almighty; the executioner played an important role in religious pictures and dramatic works with a ritualistic function. When studying representations I deem it necessary to explore their complicated relationship with past reality. Whenever possible, I will compare and juxtapose the mental images and their external expressions with historical facts and details concerning actual hangmen6 and various topical issues and phenomena epitomised and treated via the figure of the executioner, and also pay attention to possible analogies, differences and contradictions. I am convinced that this procedure will not confuse my readers but, on the contrary, will keep them alert and help them to observe and appreciate the complexity of the phenomenon under investigation and of interactions between the different spheres in the medieval universe. On a practical level, in exploring representations of the hangman I have focused in my source material on central constitutive elements, i.e. signs. I do not speak of signs in the same sense as is usual in the tradition of semiotics, but rather as a cultural historian, who understands signs as ‘clues’, or essential keys to past culture.7 I have analysed those attributes that were characteristic of executioners in late medieval imagery and that gave them a special meaning. I have often dealt with small components that might easily pass unnoticed as insignificant details to a person living in our modern culture with its own coded language. Some of the hangman’s signs were only typical attributes, whilst some of them were symbols or emblems with a more permanent and specific content. For example, the ladder of 6

7

There does not exist much source material from the late Middle Ages that would make it possible to thoroughly investigate to what extent the representations of the executioner corresponded with actual historical persons: what they looked like physically, how they spoke, or how they perceived their own function or attitudes of their contemporaries – unfortunately, those hangmen who were literate did not express themselves in writing: there do not exist, for example, any journals written by these professionals. Therefore, we do not have access to their personal thinking. See, for example, Darnton 1984, 4-5; Ginzburg 1998.

3

CHAPTER 1

justice depicted in the official hangman’s professional badge (often together with a gallows) was not only an emblematic attribute that identified a public executioner and distinguished him from all other office holders. It was also a symbolical object expressing certain ideas about communal justice.8 As I have used both textual and pictorial source materials in my work, I had to take into consideration not only verbal and literal but also visual signs. Alternately examining textual and visual material is a demanding but also rewarding task. What makes things easier is that the analytical approaches in both are, in fact, quite similar. Yet, at the same time it is important to remember that pictorial and textual sources are two different categories: the historian should always respect their coherence and own ways of argumentation.9 When examining signs it is important to remember that they always include the possibility of ambiguity. A balding head, for example, was a sign that acquired a negative meaning when it appeared – simultaneously with several other stigmatic attributes – on some low or evil figure. It could refer to various unpleasant ideas such as defective wit and moral depravation. However, in connection with such figures as pious monks and apostles, and surrounded by other positive indicators, a balding head was understood as a sign of virtue and wisdom, or of the dignity of old age. Ruth Mellinkoff has stressed that the task of examining signs is challenging just because they always contain and send out complex and ambiguous messages, the significance of which arises from an entire configuration (of which the sign is part), from the subject of the image or the text, and other contexts. Signs are not independent elements that can be interpreted according to one simple principle, but they are parts of a larger whole.10 On the other hand, a detailed examination of individual elements makes it possible to find out how the larger configuration was constructed. The main method in finding and identifying the signs of any figure is a close, detailed, and repeated examination of wide and varied source materials. This is the only way to perceive the repetitions and trends and to discover what is ‘typical’, ‘usual’, ‘common’ and, on the other hand, ‘exceptional’, ‘rare’, and ‘unusual’ when one is exploring the choice of words in textual sources, for example, or some bodily features in iconographical sources. When a certain element appears in the same manner as a part of a certain figure repeatedly, one may assume that it has a special meaning in the work of some individual writer or painter, or in a whole group of 8

Such as the idea of immanent justice – i.e. that all crimes and faults automatically launched powers that would, sooner or later, destroy the culpable. On the other hand, the ladder was also an equivalent for the scales, another symbol of justice, which indicated equity, impartiality, prudence, and equilibrium. For the symbolical meanings of the ladder and the scales, see for example Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 99-100, 383-7. Another example that casts light on this matter is the main de justice, one of the regalia of the French monarch. The main de justice distinguished the King of France from all other rulers, who never employed it. At the same time it was an object heavily charged with symbolical content, crystallising central ideas concerning the French monarchy. See Pastoreau 2004, 13. 9 Martin 1996, 82, 117, 122. On challenges in studying late medieval iconographical material, see also Panofsky 1955, 26-54; Schmitt 2003, 19-44. In his article, Schmitt has presented a synthesis of major principles and aids for the analysis of pictorial materials. 10 Mellinkoff I 1993, LI-LVIII. I have profited greatly from Ruth Mellinkoff’s explanation of her method of examining various signs of otherness visible in late medieval pictorial material. My methodology and approach also come quite close to that described by Michel Pastoureau in Le symbole médieval in Une histoire symbolique du moyen âge occidental (2004), 22-5.

4

INTRODUCTION

individuals, or as a historical tradition.11 A quantitative analysis can be very helpful in this kind of a project.12 However, my study is qualitative, since the hangman’s principal signs had already been identified in previous research.13 The main purpose of my work is to suggest an overall interpretation and analyse the possible connotations and meanings, to produce a more detailed and extensive study (synthesis) of these signs than other scholars have been able to do in their studies where the executioner’s figure was not the central focus. As Ruth Mellinkoff has observed, in examinations of signs, the opposite of ‘typical’ – the ‘exceptional’ – can also carry a special message.14 Medieval artists and writers used exceptions in traditional contexts because of their effectiveness: an unusual feature forced spectators, readers, or listeners to focus on the portrayed individual or object with particular intensity and to contemplate its meaning. Contrasts within individual works are often especially expressive and pregnant with meaning. Hangmen were regularly contrasted in multiple ways with everybody (and everything) else in the same work; their one essential function was to incarnate ‘the other’. After having confirmed a certain attribute as a sign, the next step in the investigation process is to focus on the context15 and to try to figure out the various factors and circumstances that could explain its logic. This means searching for and finding answers to the questions: Why is this element in particular a good sign? What are the different ideas that this attribute can symbolise or refer to in images or texts with different functions (political, cultural, religious or ideological)? What meanings and interpretations could this mark include in the thinking of people in the past? (One must stress the plurality in order to not to forget the fact that even if late medieval society was unified by Christian doctrine, it was unified only on a general level, and the viewpoints of its members (individuals and groups) could differ significantly from one another, or be totally opposite.) A good example from pictorial source material is such a typical feature of a hangman’s clothing as its striped pattern. This sign will open up completely (and will get its full meaning) only after proper examination of the significance of striated design in the wider context of the iconographical tradition and of the dress codes of late medieval society. One 11 As Schmitt stresses, ‘representional figures, ornamental motifs, forms, and colours acquire full meaning only when compared in relationship: their relative positions; contrasting or comparative features; the distance separating them; or else the ways in which they come together, are juxtaposed, or even blend on with the other.’ He also reminds us that no image is ever present in isolation but often forms part of a series, for example, of full-folio miniatures in a single manuscript. In fact, the only meaningful work is perhaps that of the entire ‘original’ series. (These must be distinguished from those ‘constructed’ by the historian.) Schmitt 2003, 34. 12 A large-scale serial analysis can help the historian not only to determine major ‘signs’ relating to a certain figure but also to observe variations and changing trends, for example, in tens of thousands of miniatures preserved. 13 See section 4 of the present chapter. 14 Mellinkoff I 1993, LI-LVIII. See also Pastoureau 2004, 19-21. ‘Cet écart par rapport a l’usage ou à la norme permet d’accéder à une symbolique de nature exponentielle.’ 15 The possible elements of context that explain the signification of a sign are, for example, physical environment, other attributes, traditions, allegories and the theme of the work under investigation. Robert Darnton has used the concept of world of significance as a substitute for the notion of context. Darnton 1984, 6. Darnton explains his decoding techniques as follows: ‘Having worked out a tentative interpretation, we can go to other documents […] to test it. By moving back and forth between the narrative and the surrounding documentation, we should be able to delineate the social dimension of meaning’. Darnton 1990, 343.

5

CHAPTER 1

discovers that this pattern was an attribute or visual sign with very special meanings in past culture and society. The methodology is quite similar when it comes to tracking the hangman’s signs from textual material instead of pictorial sources. The central technique in the unravelling of a verbal code is to map the semantic field of the notion being studied: to find out the different contexts with which a word (sign) could be linked in the minds of people in the past. As Hervé Martin has written, this is a simple and relatively efficient tool for exploring of mental landscapes.16 In studying dramatic works, for example, one must pay attention to many other features and larger entities than individual terms: to phrases, themes, narrative forms, composition, characterisation, etc. The social conventions of medieval writers differed from modern ones. For example, the expression of official court chroniclers was tied and restricted by numerous notions of courtesy. They had to write about certain matters in a certain manner in their works. What makes the historian’s task more challenging still is the fact that generally, the medieval writer’s principal goal was to depict eternal reality rather than the surrounding world, which was commonly understood only as a reflection of the former.17 Particularly in the examination of religious writings it is important to remember that at that time writers often constructed their texts to include several levels of signification. Besides the literary or historical meaning, the spiritual level was important.18 It is quite understandable that the Middle Ages have sometimes been called the period of semiotics par excellence.19 All in all, it is clear that the task of interpreting the signs and representations connected with the hangman means that one has to familiarise oneself thoroughly with late medieval culture. One must pay attention not only to internal laws, conventions, and the traditions of literature and iconography, the functioning and functions of various works, but also to the logical universe of medieval people in general – and particularly to such aspects as attitudes towards violence and death, the context of ethics, of bodilyness and otherness. One must bear in mind that signs were (are) not timeless and universal but historical; their meanings altered at different times and in different places. 1.2 Primary Sources In this study primary sources consist of printed and non-printed text and pictorial materials. It is not possible to present here all the sources that can be useful 16 Martin 1996, 67. For the important testimonial value of vocabulary for the historian, see also Schmitt 1990, 22; Schmitt 1998b, 380, 384. 17 Accordingly, it is often the case that fictive texts are more rewarding sources than chronicles when the purpose is to reconstruct the frame, manners, and prevailing ideas, Robert Marichal has observed. Marichal 1961, 11356, 1139. 18 History, and particularly sacred history, powerfully nourished symbolic discourse in the Middle Ages. All the events of sacred history could be interpreted on four different levels: in historical, allegorical, moral, and anagogical sense. Martin 1996, 180. The famous work of Dante, the Divina Commedia, is constructed according to this principle of four levels of signification. Dante’s work is an excellent example of the late medieval way of perceiving the world; symbols are omnipresent (for example, in forms of colours). On symbolic way of thinking in late medieval culture, see also Wirth 1989, 33; Huizinga 2002, 309-26; Pastoureau 2004, 11-25. 19 Martin 1996, 186-7.

6

INTRODUCTION

in an investigation of the hangman topic. I have tried to read the most varying kinds of writings in order to cover late medieval culture as widely as possible. I fully agree with Jacques Le Goff who even in 1988 recommended that archival sources – the traditional material of historical research – have to be clearly left in a minor role in studies that aim to explore mental images.20 However, I have not totally ignored judicial documents, even if these are much less valuable for my research than such materials that were aimed at larger audiences and therefore had to coincide with and reflect, to some extent, ‘ordinary’ or unlearned persons’ notions and attitudes. Important groups of literary source materials are, for example, theological writings, chronicles and legal treatises. With regard to texts of late medieval legal experts, I have employed compilations of customary laws (coutumiers) and treatises from Beaumanoir to Ableiges and Damhouder. These writers often made use of earlier texts in their works, a feature that is important to bear in mind when using them as source material. These texts throw light on contemporary judicial and political ideology, on the concepts and attitudes concerning crimes, violent conflicts, transgressions of norms, ways to perceive and classify various agents of justice, their duties and position. In chronicles, memoirs and journals,21 one often finds reports of spectacles of violence: wars, riots and judicial executions. Sometimes the hangman is also made visible in the text. This group of sources provides, in addition, much valuable information about the ideology, worldviews and general attitudes underlying representations. I have read texts by Monstrelet, Chastellain and Molinet but also less well-known works. As in the case of legal writers’ texts, an essential feature to remember is that many chroniclers, but not all, have adopted vast passages from another person’s works without mentioning it. Many writers have not personally witnessed the events they describe, even if the style of the text would seem to point in this direction. Obviously, to understand the typical aspects of the hangmen’s representations in late medieval culture it is crucial to become familiar with the thinking and writings of prominent theologians, from Saint Augustine to Thomas Aquinas and Jean Gerson. This group of sources casts light on numerous important topics such as concepts related to the hereafter and death, violence and physical suffering, vice and virtue. An important group of literary sources that should be also mentioned here is poetry, especially the works of François Villon (1431–?). Villon often treated the theme of death (also of convicted criminals) in his writings. His texts have also been a very beneficial source for the present study because of the slang terminology of some poems. In his Ballades en jargon Villon has employed popular terms and

20 Le Goff 1988b, 2-3, 15. Evidently, depending on the topic, archival sources can offer useful information for historians interested in past mental habits. See for example Davis 1987. 21 There is no important difference between texts that have been published under the titles of ‘chronicle’ or ‘memoirs’ and ‘journal’: these categories do not refer to private notes or personal accounts, but texts that were intended to be publicly read. Like chronicles, they are periodically, not daily, written descriptions focusing mainly on political events.

7

CHAPTER 1

nicknames that referred to the hangman in the language of criminals and the lower classes of late medieval society. A wide collection of source materials on the executioner topic is drama and particularly the genre of mystery plays. Mystery plays were dramatisations of biblical stories and saint legends that became immensely popular during the fifteenth century.22 It is usual to speak about biblical plays (i.e. Old Testament plays and passion plays that focused on Christ’s sufferings and death) and saint plays (or hagiographical plays). Most mystery plays that have survived are written by anonymous fatistes. However, some writers are known to us. One of the most famous in his time was Arnoul Gréban (c. 1425–c. 1495). He studied theology at the University of Paris, where he got his degree (maître es arts) c. 1443. Jean Michel (d. 1501) was also widely known. He was a town physician and regent of the University of Angers.23 Mystery plays, too, usually contain many common elements and similarities, because writers quite freely used each other’s texts as material for their own versions. In numerous fifteenth-century pieces, executioners play quite a dominant role. It is evident to me that mystery plays were one of the most important forums for communicating, moulding and reconstructing the image of the executioner, even if defining the hangman’s figure was not the main goal, but a sort of a side-product. All characters (major, additional or invented) were strongly contemporised. Therefore the mystery plays can offer us important clues to how professional executioners of urban reality were perceived. Mystery plays provide a very valuable testimony for this study, because they became very popular and reflect the opinions and concepts of the ordinary people.24 The playwrights intended their works especially for a large audience, for all classes of society, also for the poor and the unlearned. Later times have often considered mystery plays as quite insignificant material.25 Many critics have especially disliked the mixing of styles that is characteristic of mystery plays: burlesque elements are combined with the sacred and the pathetic, different moods, tones, and attitudes often seem to be in contradiction.26 More recent research has, however, appraised this genre more positively. Before closing this survey on the most essential primary text materials, I should like to observe that I have found pieces of valuable information in many quarters not mentioned above, for example, in practical manuals, encyclopaedias, physiognomic treatises, conduct books, and proverbs.

22 Sometimes, however, the theme was secular or concerned a topic not relating to distant but more recent history, as was the case, for example, with the Mystère du Siège d’Orléans (c. 1439). 23 See Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 93, 1042. 24 Wim Blockmans has observed about drama material (in general) that the collective, public nature of the performances gives these works a potentially wider social reach than written texts. Consequently, theatrical productions may be viewed as the most suitable source for examining widely-shared social opinions. Nonetheless, it is still essential not to accept the opinions expressed there as being universal. One needs independent sources to establish to what extent dramatic texts functioned as norm-shifting or norm-setting when various norms could still vary according to social category. Blockmans 1999, 5; see also Blockmans & Neijzen 1999, 265-6. 25 See, for example, Eric Auerbach’s classic, the Mimésis (first published in 1946). Auerbach 1968. 26 Heers 1997, 64-5.

8

INTRODUCTION

In the present study an essential role is given to pictorial material, which has too often been left in a position of insignificance (or else ignored) in historical research.27 An important part of image-making concerning the executioner happened in and through pictures. In any study that examines perceptions of late medieval criminal justice,28 attitudes to violence or to marginal people, it would be a grave mistake to ignore the evidence offered by iconographical material. It would be quite difficult to overestimate the role of visual communication in medieval culture in general.29 Pictures were often instruments of propaganda used by the Church and religion, or the king and state. As stated by Hervé Martin, the late Middle Ages was a period when collective affectivity and unconsciousness were addressed and manipulated quite skilfully by means of pictures. In every situation religious concepts, values, political ideologies, or pure propaganda imposed their laws on the field of iconography.30 When examining pictorial evidence form the late Middle Ages, it is essential to bear in mind that most of these works were made by individuals whose ‘artistic freedom’ was restricted. Works of art were executed on the orders of ecclesiastics, private persons, or local authorities. They ordered the subject of the work that a chosen artist was expected to realise31 in visual form according to their advice and conventional iconographical rules, so that the central message of the image, the client’s values and opinions, would be expressed and transmitted to spectators as clearly as possible (i.e. that it would be understood in the right sense). It was usual to think that an artist should not try to be highly original in his expression. Unlike modern artists, whose innovation can give birth to new iconographical codes outside to their audience’s frames of perception or knowledge, late medieval artists had to follow carefully the orders of their clients, who often closely supervised their working. They also had to work close to their audience’s mental and visual habits, which they naturally shared.32 27 According to Ivan Gaskell, one explanation for the minor role of visual material in historical research is that historians have often felt more confident when dealing with written documents. Gaskell suggests that even if historians do have much to learn about the examination and interpretation of visual material, they also have some important points to teach to art historians. Gaskell 1992, 168, 190. 28 Christian Nils Robert, for example, has criticised this usual neglect in studies related to criminal justice: ‘… l’étude des images, comme créations représentatives, reste très exceptionnelle, pour un temps où la diffusion des idées et la communication en général sont loin de pouvoir ne se faire que par l’écrit. L’histoire du droit pénal est donc principalement restée documentaire, c’est-à-dire tributaire de textes juridiques, de chroniques et d’archives’. Important pioneering works in this field have been Samuel Y. Edgerton’s Pictures and Punishment (1985), which examines the relations between pictorial arts and criminal justice in Renaissance Florence, and Mitchell B. Merback’s The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel (1999), which studies the relations between art, medicine, and the penal system in late medieval and early modern Europe. 29 Christian Nils Robert observes that scholars have usually not taken enough notice of the communication methods of the late medieval period. Robert 1993, 10-11. 30 Martin 1996, 109, 120-2. 31 It must be borne in mind that many pictures were not individual but collective creations. Heads of important ateliers usually employed numerous assistants. 32 Merback 1999, 31-2. See also Baxandal 1972, 1. Hélène Toubert has studied medieval manuscript illumination and observes that when an illuminator received a text, other persons had already planned the quality, form and preparation of the parchemin, the layout of the text, place and type of ornate initials and images. The copyist who had been assigned the task followed modes placed at his disposal or in accordance with precise instructions and had to leave empty spaces on the pages for the illuminator. The illuminator filled these empty places. He had, in addition to a repertory of motifs and scenes accumulated in his memory, different elements and instruments of work. Often, he was given an older illuminated manuscript that he was supposed to reproduce with a greater or lesser degree of fidelity. An illuminator could search and borrow motifs from model books but he was also

9

CHAPTER 1

I have used a wide range of visual materials as my source: secular and religious panel paintings, manuscript illuminations, some tapestries, stained glass, and statuary. Besides works by such well-known artists as Jean Pucelle and his disciple Jean Le Noir, a French artist who worked in Paris between 1335 and 1380, the Limbourg brothers (Herman, Paul and Jean) who came to Paris from Gelderland in 1399, Jean Fouquet33 and the Flemish Primitives34, who worked for a wealthy and high-ranking clientele in France, Burgundy and neighbouring regions,35 I have also familiarised myself with ‘mediocre’ or ‘inferior’ works by anonymous artists, even with some unfinished manuscripts.36 Of course, the usual problem faced by a medievalist in finding representative pictorial materials is that only less than 20 per cent of the works of art have survived to the present day.37 However, the problem is the same with literary materials: only a minor part of all written evidence has been handed down to us. Therefore, the historian must pay special attention to those works that were particularly important to people of the past: widely read, often quoted and imitated. The great fame and popularity of certain works suggests that they corresponded particularly well to the mental habits of their various audiences, general opinions and views. Religious art was, and is, naturally the predominant category of visual material offered by late medieval culture.38 The predominance of religious images also meant the executioners of Christian saints (henchmen and incarnations of evil) were more

33 34

35 36 37 38

10

guided by written indications (In margins, see for example the Etablissement le roi de France (thirteenth century) BN ms. fr. 5278, fols 1r, 2 r, 16 r, 30v, 35v, 36v.), especially, from the thirteenth century onwards. However, as Toubert observes, some illustrators with a particularly high status (such as the Limbourgs) could also take part in planning the ensemble. Toubert 1990, 417-20. For book illumination in the Burgundian Netherlands, see Vanwijnsberghe 2002, 263-71. On the functions of miniatures and the relations between text and image, see IJsseling 2002, 17-23. On the book collections of Charles V, Charles VII and John of Berry, see Delisle 1967. According to Bert Cardon, the functions of books and libraries at court were both political and moral. They supported the image of the ruler and furnished him with a theoretical basis (‘the past as justification for the present’). See Cardon 2002, 69-75. On Jean Fouquet (c. 1420–c. 1480), see for example Avril 2003. Historians of art usually refer by the term Flemish Primitives to the school of painting that flourished in the fifteenth century in several towns in the Southern Netherlands, especially in Bruges, Ghent, Tournai, Brussels, Louvain and Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc). The area belonged to the lordships of the Dukes of Burgundy and was Western Europe’s economic centre. The patronage of the court, upper middle classes and the Church created ideal conditions for the development of artistic life. The art of Flemish Primitives is perceived simultaneously as a branch of the late Gothic style and the beginning of the Renaissance in northern painting. Having perfected the technique of oil painting, these artists were able to achieve an unprecedented realism in their depiction of the physical world. The founders of the novel style were the Master of Flémalle in Tournai, Jan van Eyck in Bruges and Rogier van der Weyden in Brussels. In the second half of the fifteenth century prominent figures were Petrus Christus, Hans Memling and Gerard David in Bruges, Dirk Bouts in Louvain and Hugo van der Goes in Ghent. Smets 2000, 14. See also Stroo, Syfer-d’Olne & al. (eds.) 1996–2001. It has been suggested that the works of ‘Flemish Primitives’ spoke – in spite of their more realistic technique – the same coded language as other products of late medieval art, conventional symbolical meanings were still in an essential role. Martin 1996, 88-90. For the French and Flemish artists and illuminators see, for example, Sterling 1987, 1990; Chastel 1993; Chastel 1994. On Gothic altarpieces (Flemish and other) see Limentari Virdis & Pietrogiovanna 2001. For example, BN ms. fr. 53. Wijsman, Images between Stories and History. I thank Dr Hanno Wijsman (University of Leiden) for letting me read a preliminary version of his article to be published in Female Trails: Real and Imagined Mobility of Women in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Dick de Boer, Thérèse De Hemptinne & Katrien Heene (Brepols, forthcoming). Baxandal 1972, 22.

INTRODUCTION

numerous and more familiar to late medieval audiences than those killing nonsaintly convicts. Obviously, this huge bias had some unavoidable effects on ways of perceiving the category of the hangman in general. As regards the miniature materials, a particularly rich testimony is offered by illuminated devotional literature, for example, books of hours. The martyrdom of Christian saints is a dominating theme in them. Such works as the Heures de Louis de Laval39 from c. 1470–1485 and the Heures of Jean de Montauban40 from c. 1430 with abundant illustrations, today in the collections of Bibliothèque nationale de France, contain numerous hangman figures. The executioner also played a very prominent role in other categories of illuminated devotional literature, for example, breviaries41 and saints’ legends, for example, the Golden Legend.42 Illuminated secular manuscripts have also been profitable as source material.43 In illuminated historical texts and chronicles, violence is a common theme: besides war scenes, artists have depicted judicial violence, scenes of execution. In legal manuscripts that have survived (judicial treatises, collections of laws) one can also encounter visual depictions of hangmen, but not so often as a modern person might perhaps imagine. While the miniatures in the illuminated manuscripts were made for the select eyes of aristocrats, authorities and rich persons, sacred art in churches – altarpieces, tapestries, stained-glass windows, and statues – and secular paintings that decorated the walls of courthouses were aimed at a larger audience. Here ordinary people were also able to see and contemplate the figure of the executioner. Therefore this category is of particular interest for my study. Beside the works of Northern French, Burgundian and Flemish artists and writers, I have also examined some literary and pictorial materials originating from Southern France and other European countries, for example, Italy, Germany, Spain, England, Sweden and Finland, in order to draw some comparisons between representations of the hangman in different regions and cultures during the period of the late Middle Ages. To conclude the presentation of my primary sources I must make some notes related to the classification of this material in the Bibliography. I list first the manuscript materials, which is a usual convention in the scholarly tradition, and secondly the printed literary materials. In section 3, entitled Pictorial Sources, I enumerate first my primary pictorial materials following the alphabetical order of museums and monuments, whether in France or elsewhere. Then I list the published pictorial materials. It is crucial to note that in order to find the miniature material of illuminated manuscripts, which is a central source category, the reader must return to section 1 of the Bibliography, entitled Manuscript Sources. In this part I have enumerated all the manuscripts with miniatures with available data related to illuminators and dates. I have arrived at this solution because I have used some 39 40 41 42 43

BN ms. lat. 920. BN ms. lat. 18026. Such as the Bréviaire de Charles V. BN ms. lat. 1052. BN ms. fr. 6448. I must observe that the division between ‘profane’ and ‘sacred’ is not fully accurate here since secular manuscripts often contain religious pictures.

11

CHAPTER 1

manuscripts as both textual and pictorial sources and it would have been very inconvenient to list the same manuscripts in two different sections of the Bibliography. 1.3 Structure and Terminology The present work consists of six chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion.44 The function of chapter 2 is to build a background to the theme of the study. This chapter throws light on those forums and contexts where people of the past were most likely to encounter hangmen or express their opinions about them. I will make a survey of the institution of the executioner in the late Middle Ages because an examination of everyday practices and attitudes may help the reader to better understand the ways the hangman’s figure was exploited in works of literature and art. Day-to-day realities nourished the imagery concerning the executioner, actual or fictitious, reflected in literary and pictorial products, which in their turn, shaped and modified general beliefs, notions and opinions. In chapter 3 I start exploring the hangman’s signs by focusing on terminology. People in the past could express their notions, opinions and feelings effectively through vocabulary, and at the same time establish and enforce prevailing beliefs and attitudes. I will examine the terminology of the hangman both in the context of official and unofficial, popular language. I will also study the first names of hangmen in day-to-day reality as well as in fiction, and their wide semantic field. In the last section (3.3) I focus on something quite different and discuss silence as an instrument of classification and framing. In specific contexts namelessness, i.e. the intentional avoidance of mentioning a certain figure, could be heavily charged with meaning and point to social or moral differentiation. For the historian silences are as valuable as clues to the past mental universe as opinions and ideas in verbal form.45 In chapters 4 and 5 the representations relating to the hangman are approached from the angle of visual perceptions and practices. The purpose is to examine common signs, methods of conveying opinions concerning the hangman’s outward appearance and to throw light on the many associations and connotations that his typical external features could express. My goal is to unravel and explain the possible interpretations of these. In chapter 4 I investigate the characteristics of the hangman’s habit. I analyse their meanings, for example, in the contexts of late medieval dressing code, chromatic system, and notions of decency. In chapter 5 I study the usual signs and means of transmitting ideas, beliefs and opinions relating to the hangman’s physical being. This investigation starts from 44 I follow here the structure I found functional in my previous monograph on the hangman topic. Klemettilä 2003. In chapters 2-7, the idea is to move from the external characteristics of the hangman to his internal features. This is a logical order since the first were understood as expressions of and clues to the latter in late medieval culture. 45 Michel Vovelle, who has examined the history of death, has noted that in this field one inevitably encounters silence (voluntary or involuntary). Vovelle underlines that in the studying of past mentalities silence can be an important clue for the historian: ‘If this silence is heavy, it can also be as significant as the discourses themselves’. Vovelle 1990, 72.

12

INTRODUCTION

typical attributes relating to an executioner’s bodily appearance, for example, his facial features, expressions, gestures and postures.46 I concentrate on the essential signs that served as constructive elements in the executioner’s physical representations and depictions. The late medieval interpretations of the hangman’s figure are examined both in the context of iconographical conventions and in connection with physiognomic theories and general conceptions about bodily beauty or deviancy. In chapter 6 the language of late medieval people again plays an important role, not only the terminology but also more generally the signs and methods of literary and verbal expression. My focus is on the hangman’s own language – the representations of it, expressed in late medieval literature and particularly in religious drama. I explore the language that playwrights typically wanted to put in the mouth of the executioner together with its most central elements and features. I will examine the possible meanings and functions of hangmen’s terminology and verbal expression. I also pay attention to aspects of speech such as rhythm and voice that often served to signal and enforce the conceptions and opinions of late medieval people about hangmen. To make the various interpretations understandable, I will throw light on the literary conventions of the period, and also on the wider context of late medieval culture relating to practices and habits of verbal expression. The central external elements and features of hangmen, discussed in detail in chapters 3-7, point in a systematic way to their principal inner (moral and intellectual) characteristics. In chapter 7 my aim is to examine these features in depth and to explain their logic. In the first section (7.1) I will study signs relating to the hangman’s cruelty, opinions expressed in various literary and visual sources, and general beliefs, conceptions and attitudes concerning these issues in the later Middle Ages. It is essential to ask what significance the notions of cruelty and compassion held for people in the past; how these were defined and understood at that time, and how people generally thought and felt about actions and individuals they considered cruel or pitiless. In the next section the focus will be on the hangmen’s vices, and especially on the themes of drinking and gambling. My intention is to throw light on the opinions and views relating to pastimes considered particularly sinful in contemporary society. In the last section (7.3) I will concentrate on the themes of stupidity and rationality. The investigation starts from those signs and techniques through which the executioner was connected to the ideas of imperfect intellect and insanity. In order to understand the logic of these links it will be necessary to explore the wider cultural context, learned and popular conceptions and attitudes concerning mental anomaly and intelligence. At this point I must make some additional notes about the terminology of my work. I will use the terms ‘executioner’ and ‘hangman’, on the one hand, as references to 46 Semiologists of image have paid much attention to the language of the body and its members. There exist conventional postures, as there are lingual conventions. Martin 1996, 116. As Jean-Claude Schmitt has noted, in an examination of iconographical material it is essential to remember that an artist’s interpretation was affected as much by conventional regulations concerning the making of pictures (‘règles de constitution et de la structure de l’image’) as observations that an artist had made in the everyday life. Schmitt 1990, 22. I feel that it is very important to bear this point in mind when analysing the interpretations of the executioner’s gestures and postures. Some historians seem to have neglected this condition.

13

CHAPTER 1

officers of law whose function, in urban reality, was to carry out capital executions and physical punishments, and on the other hand, to those figures that were classified and understood as representatives of this category, for example, torturers of Christ and martyrs and pagan executioners. Late medieval French people had a great variety of notions referring to a hangman in their usage, one of the most common being the word bourreau. They employed these terms quite freely, especially when they spoke about persons considered particularly violent or cruel. By the terms ‘late/later Middle Ages’ and ‘the end of the Middle Ages’ I refer to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, whilst the term ‘early Middle Ages’ means the period of 400–900, and the notion ‘high Middle Ages’ indicates the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This classification has been usual in the field of medieval studies.47 As I often use terms such as ‘people’ and ‘popular culture’ in my work, these too need to be clarified here. I am fully aware of the fact that late medieval ‘people’ were not united by one common culture. As Georges Duby has stressed, there is no category of ‘people’ as a homogeneous cultural group, but it always consists of numerous different cultural formations.48 As to the conception of ‘popular culture’, it is questionable whether this even exists as a clearly separate category, the opposite of ‘high’ or learned culture. To contrast these is problematic, because both categories share many elements.49 One cannot associate cultural objects in a simplistic manner with one specific social class. Cultural divisions and social hierarchies do not always coincide, and the boundaries of knowledge and belief do not necessarily depend on the social status of the individual.50 Peter Burke has reminded us that the fundamental problem of cultural history and culture itself is just how to avoid two forms of oversimplification: on the one hand, the view of culture as homogeneous, which is to ignore differences and conflicts and, on the other hand, the view of culture as essentially fragmented, which prevents us from perceiving similarities and features that are common to individuals and groups.51 As already explained, in the present study the term ‘representation’ is the central theoretical term, which refers to a mental image. Therefore I am going to use other expressions when speaking of artistic or dramatic representations, in order to avoid terminological confusion. I will favour such terms as picture, portrayal, depiction, description, presentation, etc., instead.52 In my work, the notion of ‘art’ is 47 48 49 50

Sot, Guerreau-Jalabert & Boudet 1997, 177. Duby 1988, 160-2. Burke 1997, 135. See also Duby 1988, 163-4. Chartier 1989, 1509. See also Gurevich 1988; Spierenburg 1991, 48-54. As Pieter Spierenburg writes, some prefer to speak about lesser and greater tradition. Popular culture can be understood as representing an opposite to the culture of the elite. The term elite can refer to the learned and to the powerful (who, on the other hand, are not necessarily very learned). Elite culture would be the culture of the powerful and popular culture that of the less powerful and unlearned. One belonged to a more restricted circle, but it was nurtured in national or even international centres. The other had a more public, common and local character. However, there was no sharp boundary between these two, they were open to each other, and influences migrated in both directions. See also Schmitt 1998b, 381-2. 51 Burke 1997, 211. 52 Some scholars have solved this terminological inconvenience by using clarifying attributes. Jelle Koopmans has used the expressions représentation dramatique, représentation mentale and représentation populaire in his work. Koopmans 1997. Naturally, the context of the word should prevent most readers from interpreting it in a wrong sense.

14

INTRODUCTION

employed in a non-evaluating manner, in the same sense as, for example, Ivan Gaskell has used it,53 so that this term refers merely to visual or pictorial material.54 For the people of the Middle Ages there was no such thing as ‘art’; they always spoke simply about pictures (images).55 The term ‘artist’ refers just to individuals that made pictures. Medieval people did not differentiate between artists and ordinary artisans.56 I wish to re-stress that I have used a very varied range of source materials (pictorial and literary) in my study. I have aimed at treating the testimony of both famous and unknown works as equally as possible. I have employed as sources many works that later times have praised as masterpieces, but also numerous works that have not been esteemed to have any ‘artistic’ or aesthetic value. As George Duby has underlined, in a cultural historical study one important principle is that cultural products should never be graded. Cultural history investigates the production mechanisms of cultural objects in the past so that it does not differentiate between objects of mass production and ‘masterpieces’.57 It is precisely the fixation on the exceptional that – from the point of view of a cultural historian – makes many separate fields of historical study – such as art history, the history of literature, or of philosophy – quite unsatisfactory.58 As to the technical solutions related to the language of the present work, I have translated quotations in the basic text into English so that those readers who are not familiar with Old French, Latin or other languages could more easily follow my argumentation, since my discussion on many occasions turns essentially around the meanings and connotations of particular words and expressions. I have placed my translation in parenthesis after the quotation. I have not translated the citations in the footnotes; these may be useful to various specialists and connoisseurs, however, especially in those cases where I quote some material from rare editions or unpublished manuscripts.

53 Gaskell 1992, 168. 54 In order to avoid a misleading impression, I have also often tried to use such neutral expressions as ‘visual material’, ‘pictorial sources’, and ‘medieval iconography’ instead of ‘art’. 55 Wirth 1989, 13. 56 Most apprentices who enrolled in a painter’s corporation, for example in Flemish towns, were of humble social origin. In large centres of artistic production, only 30 per cent of them ever obtained free mastery. The rest remained in the employ of a free master throughout their professional careers, working for very modest daily wages. Of course, there were some persons who were in a better position than ordinary craftsmen. Some cities appointed official painters, who enjoyed some social regard. Certain talented artists married into prosperous families and became quite wealthy. The status of court artist was the most advanced. They were exempted from corporate regulations, their annual allowance provided a steady basic income, and they were permitted to work for whomever and wherever they liked. However, the ‘artistic’ freedom of court painters was relative, too. On the status of painters, organisation of an atelier and clients in Flemish towns, see Sosson 1998, 76-87; Cambell 1998, 90-9; Martens 1998, 144-79; Martens 1999, 387-414. See also Chastel 1994, 113. 57 Duby 1988, 158. The masterpiece is no more valuable as evidence than mass-produced mediocrity, provided that each is properly interpreted. Aesthetic values and ideas of beauty are in themselves historical constructs. Le Goff 1988b, 4. 58 According to Georges Duby, ‘L’historien de la culture doit, bien évidemment, considérer l’ensemble de la production et s’interroger sur les relations qui peuvent exister entre les événements qui se produisent au sommet l’édifice, c’est-à-dire au niveau du “chef-d’œuvre”, et cette base assez inerte de la production courante qu’ils surplombent et sur laquelle ils retentissent.’ Duby 1988, 158.

15

CHAPTER 1

1.4 Previous Research Signs of executioners had not been the central focus of any wider academic study in the different fields of historical research before my monograph The Executioner in Late Medieval French Culture (2003).59 In a handful of works some aspects of the topic had been briefly discussed, but no scholar had attempted to write any comprehensive study on this theme. The signs and (re)presentations of the hangman in late medieval pictorial material have been concisely treated by Christiane Raynaud in La violence au Moyen Age (1990) and by Ruth Mellinkoff in the Outcasts (1993). Raynaud’s work examines violence in illuminated French historical texts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The executioner is one of the numerous agents of violence (for example, soldiers, rebels, murderers) that have interested this scholar. Raynaud has remarked upon many essential marks related to the hangman’s figure in miniature material, but has not analysed him in depth. Raynaud observes, for example, that the attributes pointing to stupidity or mental disorders are very typical of the hangman, but leaves this interesting link unexplained and open. In the present study, I will argue that this particular trait pointed to a totally logical reasoning from the point of view of late medieval people. However, as already mentioned, the hangman is not the central target in Raynaud’s study. Her goal has been to generally clarify various iconographic codes through which late medieval artists expressed their opinions and attitudes concerning violence and its numerous agents.60 Raynaud’s study serves this purpose well. She stresses the political message that miniatures send out: violence is the sole right of the state and royalty.61 Ruth Mellinkoff’s work is a wide exploration of the signs of marginal people in late medieval religious art (especially, German and Dutch). Mellinkoff has attached more weight than Christine Raynaud to the examination of dress codes (Raynaud focuses mostly on physical appearances) and also contextualises her findings more widely (I mean, culturally. Raynaud, on the other hand, pays attention principally to the iconographic tradition and to political and social structures). Mellinkoff’s study is intended to be a selectively read sourcebook, the purpose of which it fulfils very well. Her work examines the representatives of numerous 59 Klemettilä, The Executioner in Late Medieval French Culture (2003). Since the present study is an extended and revised version of The Executioner, I will not describe it in detail, here, but wish only to observe that it focused, in particular, on the negative meanings and aspects of the hangman’s signs. Just like several scholars previously, I did not find it surprising or perplexing that people of the past found the executioner necessary. Instead, I wanted to discover why he was generally disliked, and to solve this dilemma by employing some unconventional materials and fresh approaches. In the present version, I have widened my approach so that more controversial connotations and associations will be covered. I have done some more research and also re-formulated and modified some of my earlier premises and interpretations. 60 Christiane Raynaud has also paid attention to relations between text and image in her source material. As she observes, image can be a faithful interpretation of the text, but it can also deviate greatly from the text, or be in total contradiction to it, or develop its theme. 61 I should also like to mention here Christiane Raynaud’s more recent study on the axe in late medieval culture, “A la hache”. Histoire et symbolique de la hache dans la France médiévale (2002). This impressive work contains numerous insightful views upon the topic of violence and its various agents, also, the hangman. I thank Professor Jean-Claude Schmitt (EHESS) for pointing me out this study by Raynaud.

16

INTRODUCTION

marginal categories of late medieval society and thus the hangman appears only in a peripheral role. Nevertheless, the stigmatic meanings of the hangman’s typical attributes in religious art have been stressed often and clearly. A problem in Mellinkoff’s study is that sometimes she seems – surprisingly – to ignore the fact that artistic interpretations of marginal people (of their clothing, for example) did not necessarily coincide with everyday practices. One must remember that artistic production was an important tool of propaganda for various groups in late medieval society. Most often, pictures of marginal people were subjective opinions expressed in a visual form, not neutral reports or reflections of actual reality. Some typical features of the executioners’ figures in late medieval French religious drama have been discussed in studies by R.L. Wadsworth, Jean-Pierre Bordier, Jody Enders, and Jelle Koopmans. In a short article entitled The Bourreau in Arnoul Gréban’s Mystère de la Passion (1970) Wadsworth has stressed the didactic function of executioner scenes. He has tried to mark the distance to earlier literary historical studies that considered these scenes as unnecessary additions and as manifestations of the bad taste of people in the past. Wadsworth has argued and stressed that Gréban (as well as other writers of mystery plays) used these scenes to condemn the kind of violence and evil that executioners incarnated. Wadsworth has also proposed that Gréban consciously aimed to stigmatise Christ’s executioners and their actions by linking them with the idea of stupidity. I fully agree with Wadsworth’s views. However, Wadsworth does not discuss at all the larger cultural background underlying the depictions of the executioner. The main purpose of his short article is merely to draw attention to the dramatic methods of medieval playwrights and to show that these were more complicated and developed than many scholars had realised earlier. Jean-Pierre Bordier’s extensive study Le Jeu de la Passion (1998), examines the Christian message of late medieval passion plays. Bordier does not pay much attention to executioner figures. In one short section, he examines the depictions of Malchus and Longinus.62 Bordier includes these two soldier-executioners among the four antithetical couples of repentant and impenitent, hardened sinners. The other three are Dismas and Gestas, Mary Magdalene and Judas, Saint Peter and Judas. Bordier suggests that these couples had an essential edifying (moralistic) function in passion plays.63 The focus of Jody Enders’ work The Medieval Theatre of Cruelty (1999)64 is on scourging scenes and on the function of violence (verbal and physical) in late medieval French religious drama; she is not interested in executioners as such. Enders’ study is well written and thought-provoking, but I cannot accept her ideas 62 Bordier 1998, 349-64. 63 ‘Ce moyen a permis aux auteurs de mettre à chaque fois sous les yeux du public deux attitudes contradictoires, deux réponses opposées, nées dans les mêmes circonstances, au salut que Dieu offre aux hommes à travers les interventions de Jésus.’ Bordier 1998, 257. Whilst Longinus eventually understood his own sinfulness and asked for forgiveness, Malchus was obstinate in his spiritual blindness. As Bordier stresses, ‘dans les mystères de la Passion, l’appartenance à un groupe, amis ou ennemis de Jésus, élus ou damnés, relève d’une décision individuelle, et non l’inverse. Ce ne sont pas tous les Juifs qui s’endurcissent, ni tous les païens qui se convertissent. L’intervention de Jésus dans l’histoire des hommes tend à défaire les groupes existants et à redistribuer les individus selon des critères nouveaux.’ Bordier 1998, 364. 64 See also Enders 2002b.

17

CHAPTER 1

about the function of these scenes and of past attitudes. Unlike R.L. Wadsworth, who stressed the negative meaning of cruel elements in mystery plays, Enders claims that dramatists aimed to attribute a positive value to the use of physical force and pain, and that their goal was to make violence and suffering pleasurable and enjoyable. In my opinion Enders seriously overestimates the brutality of late medieval people. It is not that Enders considers modern people as morally superior; rather, she sees both as equally avid for various spectacles of violence. Jelle Koopmans’ study Le Théâtre des exclus au Moyen Age (1997) examines dramatic and mental representations concerning various marginal categories in late medieval France. Koopmans discusses briefly the executioner topic in one chapter, where he examines hangmen’s first names in religious drama. Koopman’s observations and ideas are, nonetheless, quite intriguing and I will discuss them in detail in section 3.2. He has examined these names as a part of the fiction de l’autre (fiction of the other) that was produced and used to exclude marginal groups in late medieval culture and society. In the present work the topic of hangmen’s first names will be discussed in a wider context than Koopmans has been able to do in his study. In any case, Koopmans has put drama to the service of the history of mentalities in a novel and inspiring way. By linking literary depictions (représentations dramatiques) of marginal people to collective mental images (représentations mentales) and by examining their intersections and differences in relation to the phenomena of exclusion, he has shown how history repeatedly nourished itself with fiction in fifteenth-century France. To conclude, it may be observed that a common feature of all these studies mentioned above is that the executioners’ figures have not been explored throughout, properly and from several different angles. These scholars have not satisfactorily answered the question why certain signs were seen as particularly suitable as constitutive parts of the hangmen’s representations or analysed in depth their meanings and exploitation in various contexts. As to the proper historical studies concerning the institution of the executioner at the end of the Middle Ages (or later), the processes of classification and framing that are visible in art and in literature have not been discussed. This type of secondary source material has naturally been useful to me, but mainly in that it has helped me to understand the ‘facts’ about professional executioners. Some more recent works have also cast light on the social and political contexts of the phenomenon. There are not many historical studies on the institution of the hangman that focus on the period of the late Middle Ages; most works examine later times. It should be noted that existing studies are also mostly very old65 and outmoded. The theoretical models employed to explain the attitudes towards the official hangman in these works are often very unsatisfactory, either because of oversimplification or their unhistorical approach. 65 An often referred to work is, for example, A. Dubois’ Justice et bourreaux à Amiens dans les XVe et XVIe siècles. (1860). I could also mention here an re-edition (1988) of Émile Desplanque’s Les infâmes from 1893 that briefly examines the hangman’s functions and status in medieval Perpignan but focuses on infamous groups in a general way.

18

INTRODUCTION

Jacques Delarue’s Le métier de bourreau du Moyen Age à aujourd’hui (1979) is one of the more recent works on the institution of the hangman in France. It is also the most widely known. One may presume that Delarue was inspired to write a book on this particular topic after the publication of Michel Foucault’s Surveiller et punir in 1975, which examines the genesis of the prison system in the West. Foucault has also thrown some light on the ways of perceiving the professional hangman during the time before prison, mainly in eighteenth-century France.66 Unlike Foucault’s study, Jacques Delarue’s work is not a good historical study in the exact sense of the notion. Delarue’s time period is long, from the end of the Middle Ages to the latter part of twentieth century, but the emphasis is particularly on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Delarue’s work could be classified as a history of events, for it contains an amazing amount of detailed information about actual hangmen. Delarue does not pay much attention to the social, political and cultural background of the phenomenon he studies. Obviously Delarue did not have the academic reader in his mind, but he intended his book for a wider audience. Michel Bée has also examined the hangman topic in his articles that were published in 1983 and 1984. Bée is a professional historian and is particularly interested in the conceptions, opinions and attitudes concerning the hangman in the period of the Ancien Régime. Bée has underlined the difficulty of categorising the hangman: this figure was fundamentally ambivalent, which explains the longevity of negative attitudes. The problem with Bée’s texts is that he has not been able to support his theses with source material that dates from the late medieval or early modern period and that would show how the reasoning processes of the people in the past operated, how the hangman’s figure was linked to different – even opposite – conceptual categories or ideas. How is this possible? Bée has, unfortunately, meekly accepted the old conviction that in older times the hangman’s figure was surrounded by a powerful ‘conspiracy of silence’. Bée explains that people in the past did not produce discourse concerning the hangman. This means that one cannot study attitudes towards the hangman in any other way than by investigating the hangman’s status in his society and the everyday practices related to him.67 Thus, Bée’s mistake was that he did not understand the need to go and seek answers outside of the ordinary material of traditional historical research. It is true that a deep silence often prevails there, where a modern person might first expect to find definitions concerning the executioner, for example, in legal or philosophical (theological) treatises. But on the other hand, late medieval people did express their conceptions and opinions concerning executioners very actively and powerfully in other quarters, both in verbal and visual forms, for example, at the level of everyday terminology, in the field of drama and the pictorial arts. In fact, problems in studying the hangman are quite similar to those typically encountered in examining other marginal 66 Foucault (orig. 1975) 1994. 67 ‘Force est d’abord de concéder qu’il y manque la preuve fournie habituellement par l’analyse des représentations conscientes et élaborées; il ne se développe aucun grand discours à son propos, mais plutôt, au contraire, une conspiration du silence comme si un interdit mystérieux et puissant empêchait le plus souvent d’en parler. La méthode est donc nécessairement d’interpréter le statut qui lui est fait, les comportements qui se manifestent á son égard pour retrouver l’idéologie qui donne sa place et son image.’ Bée 1984, 71.

19

CHAPTER 1

categories. Prostitutes, pimps and gravediggers are rarely discussed in traditional sources of historical research.68 It is evident that the historical study of the institution of the hangman is in dire need of fresh approaches and can profit greatly from testimony offered by new types of source material.69 It is possible to break the myth of the ‘conspiracy of silence’ that surrounded the executioner in the past. Instead of deep silence one will discover that the figure of the hangman was very actively and skilfully exploited by various groups in various political and religious aims. The meaning of the executioner was defined and redefined again and again in numerous forums of late medieval culture. The unusual kind of source material and modern strategies of investigation will open up new insights into the topic and make it easier to obtain a more profound understanding of the past mental universe. The study by the Dutch historian Pieter Spierenburg The Spectacle of Suffering (1984) contains a chapter on the hangman topic. The emphasis is on the late medieval and early modern period. Spierenburg relies in his work heavily on previous research focusing on German (Meinhardt 1957, Schuhmann 1964, Oppelt 1976) and Dutch and Belgian (Gonnet 1917, Huberts 1937, Maes 1947) penal culture. Spierenburg’s own primary sources consist mainly of early modern judicial archive materials. Spierenburg has convincingly discussed the institutionalisation process of the hangman’s function as a part of larger historical developments (of state formation and the changing penal system). He stresses that one should not accept too easily the transgression of the commandment against killing as the (sole) explanation for negative attitudes, particularly when studying such a society and culture where the use of physical force was often valued positively. Spierenburg has linked negative attitudes towards the executioner during the late medieval period with two main factors: 1) the hangman was a symbol of the expropriation of the right of private vengeance; 2) the actions of the hangman conflicted with the feudal warrior ethos and its conceptions of honourable violence. Spierenburg proposes that attitudes toward the executioner were at their most negative during the late medieval period and became more lenient in the early modern period. In my view, he has over-estimated the positive value of the violence (judicial or other) in the later Middle Ages. Moreover, he does not back up his theories with such primary source material that would show that the executioner was linked with ignoble 68 Bronislaw Geremek has written on studying the marginal groups in general: ‘Le marginal n’est jamais mentionné explicitement dans les documents qui reflètent la conscience collective médiévale. Il n’apparaît pas dans les textes consacrés des divisions sociales datant du haut Moyen Age, il n’est jamais évoqué dans les ouvrages décrivant les “estats du monde”, et on ne le retrouve pas non plus dans les images de la “danse macabre” du bas Moyen Age, où la Mort entraîne dans une ronde les représentants de différents groupes et de différentes catégories sociales de cette époque […] L’image du marginal apparaît parfois dans la littérature et dans l’art, ainsi que dans les écrits de théologiens et de moralistes. Les législations étatique, ecclésiastique et municipale, elles non plus n’oublient pas ceux qui refusent à obéir à la “norme”.’ Geremek 1974, 381. 69 The use of the novel type of evidence is characteristic of new cultural history, which has sought to pay attention to those source groups that have been ignored in traditional historical research. According to the traditional paradigm, historical research should, above all, be based on official records, which leads to neglect of other kinds of evidence. Unlike traditional historical research, which was essentially concerned with politics, new cultural history is interested in every kind of human activity. Peter Burke has underlined that for this reason it is important that modern scholars use more unconventional source material, for example, visual sources. Burke 1992, 3-5.

20

INTRODUCTION

violence (the kind of violent actions which were unsuitable for a knight) in late medieval thinking.70 Spierenburg has wanted to examine attitudes toward the executioner in the context of prevailing mentalities71 and has presented some valuable insights into the topic. He has made some important observations concerning the hangman, for example, relating to terminological changes in official language. He also appears to be aware of the ambiguous role of the hangman in late medieval art as well as in popular stories. For some reason he has not, however, considered it important to follow up of these clues. His analyses are not fully satisfactory in my view, because he has not paid attention to the context of religious thinking. It should be quite evident that this frame of reference cannot be totally ignored in any explorations of the ways of thinking and feeling common among late medieval people. A brief synthesis of German legal historians’ studies and theories can also be found in Pierre Braun’s article entitled Variation sur la potence et le bourreau (1989). Braun has taken the case of Michel Foutrier as his starting point. The episode concerned an anonymous robber (routier) who had been captured on 28.12.1361 and condemned to death in the jurisdiction of the local seigneur, Charles de Chastillon. As the old gallows was unusable, Chastillon ordered some of his subjects to build a new one in the traditional place in his domain. Michel Foutrier, an inhabitant from a neighbouring village, happened to pass by and for some reason, started to insult the gallows builders by calling them ‘hangmen’ (bourreaux). There was a fight that had fatal consequences. Foutrier was severely wounded and died four days later. The principal assailants (Jacquin Le Gourdillat and Girart Minoie) had to flee. Later, they were condemned to be banished and their property was confiscated by Charles de Chastillon. The two men managed to obtain a royal pardon only eleven years later. Unlike Pierre Braun, I am not convinced that Fourtrier’s sole motivation was horror of the death penalty – that there did not exist any personal reasons that made him heap the insults that provoked the fatal fight. (Yet, I agree with Braun that the insulting power of the term hangman is an important indicator of past attitudes.) Braun writes about a case that happened in late medieval France but backs up his arguments with examples and theories concerning the early modern period and German culture. At the same time, he complains about the very fact that academic studies on the institution of the hangman in France are lacking. In Germany, on the other hand, the topic was rather popular among legal historians during the first part of the twentieth century.72 Hopefully, my study will serve to fill at least some part of this deplorable lacuna – not so much from the viewpoint of

70 Spierenburg 1984, 29. 71 Spierenburg has discussed in depth various theories concerning the attitudes related to the hangman in the German research tradition, see Ibid., 20-3. Here, a theory of the legal historian Karl von Amira was popular for a long time. Amira explained that the infamy of the hangman was a remainder of old pagan taboos. As Spierenburg observes, if one wants to link the hangman’s contempt with ancient practices of human sacrifice, one should also be able to explain how these had survived till the Middle Ages. 72 Braun, Variations sur la potence et le bourreau. A propos d’un adversaire de la peine de mort en 1361. (1989). As to more recent studies on the institution of the hangman outside France, I should like to draw attention to Hanna Zaremska’s Niegodne rzemiosło. Kat w społeczeństwie Polski, XIV-XVI w. (1986) and Jutta Nowodsatko’s Scharfrichter und Abdecker. Der Alltag Zweier Unerlicher Berufe in der Frühen Neuzeit (1994).

21

CHAPTER 1

factual aspects concerning the institution, but of symbolical and cultural (mental) habits relating to it. It is impossible to give here a thorough presentation of all the secondary material that can be useful in exploring the executioner topic. It is quite surprising how little the hangman has been studied when one considers the amazing number of works written on the penal system and judicial violence in medieval France during the last century.73 In some more recent studies the late medieval punitive system and its rituals have been approached as a cultural system of communication. This method serves to give deeper insights into past people’s ways of experiencing and interpreting the world. It also pays more attention to the visual forms of communication (gestures) that were more important in medieval culture than has often been realised. A central study is The Crossroads of Justice (1993) by Esther Cohen. Robert Muchembled has also examined the functions of violence in the late medieval and early modern period.74 Muchembled sees violence as an ordinary form of sociability. In understanding the functioning of the penal system in late medieval France, the studies by Jacques Chiffoleau,75 Glaude Gauvard76 and Nicole Gonthier77 are also very valuable. Even if the hangman plays no important role in most of these studies, familiarising myself with this field has been essential for me. The representations of the hangman cannot be studied separately from the topic of violence – they can be explored and fully understood only in connection with medieval notions, conceptions and opinions about the acceptable and non-acceptable use of physical force. Also, the aspect of cruelty in violence is crucial. Therefore I should like to mention here a study by Daniel Baraz, Medieval Cruelty (2003). Baraz has discussed in his inspiring work how the concept of cruelty was skilfully exploited for various political or ideological aims by different social and cultural groupings from late Antiquity to the Early Modern period.78 Studies on the history of death have been useful for my work in many ways. They have given me a deeper understanding of various factors, circumstances and attitudes that affected representations of executioners. It must be observed that in the field of the history of death, the themes of criminal death and the hangman as a professional of death have not usually been discussed. In the famous works of Philippe Ariès and Michel Vovelle, for example, these topics are hardly mentioned.79 73 In this field of research the hangman has traditionally not been the centre of interest, but the focus has rather been on the authorities, convicts and the audience of punitive spectacles. While the topic of the work is different agents of justice, as in B. Guenée’s Tribunaux et gens de justice dans le baillage de Senlis à la fin du Moyen Age (1963), one might expect to find a few words on the official hangman as well. In Guenée’s work the hangman is, however, totally ignored, and the author does not give any explanation for this decision. 74 Anthropologie de la violence dans la France moderne (XVe-XVIIIe siècles) (1987); Le temps de supplices (1992). 75 Les justices du pape (1984). 76 De grace especial (1991). 77 Le châtiment au crime au Moyen Âge (1998). Gonthier pays more attention to the hangman than most of her colleagues. 78 I thank Professor Esther Cohen (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) for having pointed me out this study by Baraz. 79 Ariès, L’Homme devant la mort, 1977; Vovelle, La mort et l'Occident de 1300 à nos jours, 1983. From abundant research on the theme of death I can mention here Paul Binski’s Medieval Death. Ritual and Representation (1996)

22

INTRODUCTION

Rather, the historians of death have decided to focus on more ordinary experiences of death and dying, than on deviant or marginal forms.80 Capital executions and professional hangmen were not so common phenomena in late medieval Europe as modern persons often presume. Approaching the studies on marginality, I have profited particularly from the pioneering works of Bronislaw Geremek (1974, 1987). In his studies Geremek has focused especially on the categories of the poor and criminals in late medieval Paris. Even if the hangman does not have any significant role in these studies, they nevertheless throw light on the social context and lifestyle with which the executioner was closely linked in common thinking. Geremek suggests that the attitudes toward marginal people in general became harsher towards the end of the Middle Ages and examines the reasons in the background to this phenomenon. Geremek has made some quite sharp-sighted observations about popular opinions and attitudes concerning the official executioner and his great publicity in late medieval towns.81 In any discussion on the topics of the attitudes towards the marginal, the ‘other’, in late medieval and early modern period it would be difficult to overlook Jean Delumeau’s famous works La peur en Occident (1978) and Le péché et la peur (1983). It is evident that many of those signs of otherness that belonged inseparably to the representations of the executioner will become much more understandable when examined in the larger setting of fear and suspicion that various categories of ‘others’ evoked in the past. The guilt mentality, maladie du scrupule, that gained more ground from the late Middle Ages on, was an important factor that continuously nurtured emotions of fear and anxiety and made people feel a growing need to examine and identify that diabolical ‘other’ that could hide in every heart and should be destroyed. I have also profited greatly from new historical research in the field of bodily culture, for example, from the works of Michel Pastoureau and his collaborators.82 Pastoureau has written the most illuminating studies about the meanings of colours and specific patterns (stripes) in older times. He has thrown light on those visual systems of signs that served to express positive or negative messages about various disapproved categories in late medieval society and culture. Also, many famous works by Jean-Claude Schmitt have been a great source of inspiration for me, more particularly La raison des gestes (1990). This study can be of essential help to all those who are interested in the meanings of gestures in medieval culture. It opens up noteworthy insights into the interpretation of medieval pictorial and the Death and Dying in the Middle Ages (1999), a collection of articles edited by Edelgard E. DuBruck & Barbara I. Gusick. 80 In the more recent work of Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, the professionals of death are discussed in a separate chapter. But hangmen are treated very briefly, and the focus is on other categories such as notaries, judges, surgeons and barbers, and other professionals who took care of preparing the bodies of the deceased (embalmers and dépeceurs). Alexandre-Bidon 1998, 175-205. 81 Besides Bronislaw Geremek’s studies, Hanna Zaremska’s works, for example, Les bannis au Moyen Age (1996), can be useful in any investigation concerning marginal people and practices of exclusion in the later Middle Ages. Zaremska’s focus is, however, on Polish culture. Wim Blockmans’ and his collaborators’ articles in the Showing Status (1999) can be helpful in understanding representations of social positions (high, low and marginal) in the late medieval urban context in general. 82 Pastoureau 1986, Blanc 1989, Mane 1989, Piponnier 1989, Pastoureau 1991, Pastoureau 1995, Pastoureau 2004.

23

CHAPTER 1

(and literary) material. Without Schmitt’s work, my own understanding of the hangman’s bodily representations would have remained incomplete. Finally, I must mention the expansive and important research work of Jacques Le Goff83 that treats numerous fundamental aspects of medieval society and culture. I am convinced that it will be rewarding to examine the hangman topic from an unconventional angle, so that the focus is on executioners’ signs and particular emphasis is laid on patterns of thinking and patterns of perceiving the world, on ways of delineating and categorising various phenomena, and on the logic of the reasoning of medieval people. The present study aims to offer some new insights into the ‘foreign country and language’ of late medieval culture, its mental maps, its characteristics, and image-making strategies. My work will evidently contribute particularly to the history of attitudes towards violence, cruelty and death, as well as the history of the perception of the marginalised. My evidence suggests that later times have not always been able to fully understand late medieval people’s attitudes toward the use of physical power and its consequences (pain, suffering), their strong aversion to the ‘wrong’ kind of violence. This attitude found its clearest manifestation in cultural representations of the executioner. At the same time I should like to provide an example about ways of deciphering the perceptions and attitudes relating to the spheres of Evil and Good, two facets of the same medal, forming an inseparable entity in a past imagery and mental universe.84

83 For example, Le Goff 1980, Le Goff 1988a, Le Goff 1988b, Le Goff 2003a, Le Goff 2003b. 84 As Robert Muchembled has observed in Une histoire du diable, the historian cannot convincingly study one of these realms without paying attention to the other as well. Muchembled 2000, 8.

24

CHAPTER 2

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION Ung bourrel ne fait point vice / Quant c’est pour acomplir justice / Qu’il fait une execution Marcadé, Le mystère de la Passion d’Arras Pater dimitte illis non enim sicunt quid faciunt Lc 23.34.

In this chapter I will discuss the main domains and forums where late medieval people could encounter executioner figures or express their views, opinions and beliefs about them. On the one hand, my focus is on official hangmen of urban reality and, on the other hand, on fictitious executioners of Christian mythology and pagan past that played a prominent role in late medieval imagery, in art and literature. I shed light on those factors and background reasons that will help the reader to understand the aims of various ‘representers’, for example, attitudes to violence, pain and death, functions of the penal systems in day-to-day reality and in the hereafter. 2.1 The Executioner’s Office and Late Medieval Penal System A public executioner was an officer of the law whose duty was to carry out capital and corporal penalties ordained by the criminal justice. His tasks were numerous and diverse at the end of the Middle Ages. Josse de Damhouder, a Flemish legal expert who had studied law in Orléans, listed thirteen different modes, starting with burning at the stake and decapitating and ending with flogging and penalty of the pillory.1 Damhouder’s list is not complete since practices varied from one region to another in France and its neighbouring territories.2 In the main towns, Paris for example, there were many diverse seigneuries (royal, civil, and ecclesiastic); such authorities that had the right to pass sentences and punish in their own territory. At the same time there were also varying degrees of justice, from high to

1 2

‘Le bourreau faict son execution par le feu, l’espée, la fosse, l’esquartelage, la roue, la fourche, le gibet, traisner, poindre ou picquer, couper oreilles, demembrer, flageller ou fustiger, le pellorin ou eschaffault.’ Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363. The fragmentation of legal practices was a universal phenomenon in Western Europe. Lavoie 1979, 34; Weisser 1982, 52; Muchembled 1992, 20-1. For the penal system in Burgundian territories, see Van Caenegem 1991. For Parisian jurisdictions in the Middle Ages, see Tanon 1883, 1-15 and passim; Hillairet 1956, 9-14.

25

CHAPTER 2

low (haut, moyen and bas). Only haut-justiciers had the right to pass capital sentences.3 As it would be very difficult to provide a fully accurate picture of this matter, I shall only comment upon the commonest practices in order to shed light on the typical tasks of official executioners. Hanging was the most usual mode of capital sentence and was used as the penalty for several different offences. In Paris and Avignon hanging represented approximately 70 per cent of the executed death sentences in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.4 It was a very ancient mode of punishment. During late antiquity, hanging with a rope had slowly replaced various forms of crucifixion, which had become insupportable to Christian religion.5 Death by hanging could be rather rapid and painless, in such cases where the executioner was a skilful professional who knew how to break a convict’s neck at the critical moment.6 Besides hanging, a public executioner had to be familiar with other forms of execution such as decapitation, burning at the stake, drowning, or burying alive.7 Less common methods were boiling in a cauldron and the penalty of the roue (wheel).8 Decapitation was most often carried out with a sword or an axe.9 It demanded great skill to perform this act with one blow, as an executioner was expected to do.10 Burning at the stake, on the other hand, was considered a very severe mode of punishment. The reduction of a human body to ashes symbolised the destruction of the possibility of resurrection.11 As to corporal sentences, the most usual method was flogging. The people of Avignon could witness such a spectacle approximately every third day in the

3

Many justiciers were very jealous of their rights and disputes often occurred between different jurisdictions. The privilege of justice was an important aspect of authority and power. Honoré Bovet explains the origin of the jurisdiction as follows: ‘Mais si aucun vouloit arguer en disant que oncques au commencement du monde Dieu ne ordonna à homme que il tenist seignorie sur les aultres, je respons que c’est verité. Mais il ordonna aux hommes raison, sens et discretion afin que ils deussent vivre raisonnablement, car en toutes choses qui ont membres il est de necessité selon bonne raison que il y ait ung chief et là où il n’y a chief certes il n’y peut avoir nul regime de bonne ordonnance […] Pourquoy doncques jurisdiction et seignorie vient tout premierement de Dieu pour accorder les dissensions des hommes. Car l’on voit bien par droite experinece que là où tous sont seigneurs, telle maniere de gens va en perdition et à confusion...’ It is a natural law that some people have jurisdiction over others: ‘Et en verité tout ce n’est que par raison naturelle laquelle nostre seigneur Dieu a donnée aux hommes. Ainsi doncques toute jurisdiction juste et vraie vient de Dieu et par election des hommes.’ The first judge is naturally God. L’arbre des batailles, 67. 4 Chiffoleau 1984, 238; Geremek 1987, 50-61. 5 For the history of hanging, see White 1965, 199-201. 6 On this method, see section 3.1. 7 Gonthier 1998, 146-69. See also Chiffoleau 1984, 238; Cohen 1993, 191. On the methods of burying alive, see Halkin 1937, 141. 8 Gonthier 1998, 166-8. The penalty of the wheel (supplice de la roue) meant smashing a convict’s arms, legs and the chest and then exposing him tied to a wheel. Sometimes death came only after several hours or even days. See also Lacroix 1873, 452; Wind 1937, 244; Puppi 1991, 16-17. Different techniques of death penalties in world history have been described in detail in Monestier 1994. 9 In principle, the sword (noble weapon) was reserved for noblemen and the axe for others. However, exceptions to this rule were made time and again. Raynaud 2002, 303. Compared to other forms of execution, decapitation by the sword was perceived as the least humiliating. If the hangman was skilled, it was a rapid and painless death. 10 Thus it is not surprising that chronicle writers often mention decapitations performed by a single blow. See Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, IV, 273-7, V, 75-7; La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 44; Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 360-3; Mémoires de Jacques du Clercq, 621. 11 For the symbolical significance of burning at the stake, see Finucane 1981, 57-8.

26

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

fourteenth century, according to Jacques Chiffoleau.12 Flogging was considered a fairly mild form of punishment. In the Middle Ages flogging (whipping) was used as a common method for educating children in homes and schools as well as a form of self-discipline amongst the most pious devotees.13 A hangman had also to perform various kinds of punishment involving mutilation, such as burning with a hot iron, cutting lips or ears, piercing the tongue, and amputations of various parts of the body (tongue, ears, hands, feet).14 Amputation of the nose and blinding (an ordinary punishment in the Far East at this time) were less common.15 It was usual to combine various forms of punishments with penalties of banishment16 or execution.17 All in all, it is clear that to successfully function in the hangman’s office was by no means self-evident: one had to master many different methods and instruments, a skilled executioner was a specialist in pain, an indispensable servant to the public authorities. As to the task of assisting justice in questioning by torture,18 it should be noted that this was not necessarily performed by an official hangman. Other persons could be charged to carry it out, for the aim of the practice was not to produce serious wounds or kill, and methods were strictly regulated. The use of torture as a method of interrogation had been introduced by inquisitorial procedure in the thirteenth century. Torture was not unknown in Europe before this time, but now it could be also employed in the case of free persons. The essential purpose was to acquire more information about the crime and perhaps a confession. Some evidence of crime (a serious one) was needed before the authorities could order a torture session. The suspect had to repeat the confession made under torture outside the questioning chamber before the court could pass a sentence. Usually, such suspects were male, laic, of lower social origin and had a bad reputation. 19 Attitudes toward torture were ambiguous. It was not viewed in a fully positive light; numerous persons admitted that torture could have perverse effects. The registers of Châtelet (1389–1392) show that torture was employed in late medieval Paris.20 However, as Claude Gauvard has observed, its use was by no means as frequent as later times have sometimes presumed.21 12 Chiffoleau 1984, 235. Guillame Brinhon, hangman of the secular court of Avignon (Cour Temporelle) performed 59 floggings in the period of 11.6.1328–5.2.1329. Girard & Pansier 1909, 57-60. 13 Modern people often think that the physical punishment of small children is too harsh a method of education. In the later Middle Ages the biblical instruction ‘Qui parcit virgae suae odit filium suum qui autem diligit illum instater erudit’ (Prv 13.24 ‘He that spares his rod hates his son, but he that loves him chastises him.’) was still considered an important rule. However, the essential thing in all punishment was that the boundary of moderation was not overstepped. Flogging was also an ordinary ascetic practice. For the most ardent devotees self-flagellation was a means of coming closer to God. Bottomley 1979, 213. See also Bynum 1989, 162-3, and section 7.1. 14 Gonthier 1998, 140-5. 15 Gonthier 1998, 145-6. Jean de Roye mentions a blinding executed in Tours in 1476. Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 30-31. See also La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 305. 16 See, for example, Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 103-4. 17 See, for example, Molinet, Chroniques, IV, 390-3. 18 Unlike proper physical penalties, torture was not performed in public. The usual place for a torture session was the prison, where one room was reserved and equipped for this particular purpose. 19 On torture, see for example, Vacandard 1906, 175-89; Asad 1983; Peters 1985, 54. 20 Desmaze 1866, 72-3. 21 Gauvard 1995, 285.

27

CHAPTER 2

The great abundance of modes of punishment may seem peculiar to a modern person. This significant variation resulted partly from the old notion that the proper penalty should correspond to the crime. According to this logic, a suitable punishment for a blasphemer was to pierce the offender’s tongue,22 and a malefactor who had stabbed someone should lose the very hand by means of which the crime was committed.23 Most serious crimes should be punished by death: heresy, sorcery, treachery, murder, and repeated theft.24 Habitual modes of punishment were actually not novel. They originated mostly from traditions dating back to antiquity. Decapitation, burning at the stake and drowning had already been ordinary forms of punishment in ancient Rome.25 During the Middle Ages, the Church succeeded in giving Christian meaning to the pagan features of old rituals.26 The important reason for the persistence of old modes of punishment was that they were useful as instruments of communication between the authorities and the masses. These rituals would have been quite useless if the spectators had not been able to understand the symbolism and message. Therefore penalties should be based on the universal language of justice, which had its roots in popular tradition.27 Another factor that explains the great variety of modes of punishment is that the authorities had to take into consideration not only the nature of the offence, but also such aspects as the offender’s age, status and sex.28 Justice treated the very young and old malefactors less severely.29 Clerics, who were condemned in an ecclesiastical court, received different penalties from the laity convicted of the same crimes.30 A particularly high status of a convict was also taken note of and made manifest, not only in the form of the punishment,31 but also in other elements of punitive ritual, such as the mode of transport to and decoration of the scaffold.32 The punishment for female offenders differed from that for men, but were not necessarily less severe (except in the case of pregnancy). Women were not usually hanged or decapitated, but rather buried alive, drowned or burned at the 22 Ordonnances des roys de France, II, 282; Grand Coutumier de France, I, 117. Jean de Roye writes about a Norman man who had insulted a Parisian bourgeois in 1465 and was sentenced to perform amende honorable, after which his tongue was pierced and he was banished from the town. Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 103-4. See also Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 174. 23 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 184. 24 Chiffoleau 1984, 239. The counterfeiting of money could also lead to the death sentence. Boutillier, Somme rural. BN ms. fr. 201, fols c iiii vr–c iiii vvjv. Quartering became an ordinary punishment for traitors from the middle of the fourteenth century on. Cuttler 1981, 116-8. See also Puppi 1991, 15. 25 Bauman 1996, 18 and passim. See also Mustakallio 1998, 218. 26 Bée 1983, 852. 27 Cohen 1989, 410, 416. See also Chiffoleau 1984, 237-8. 28 Jacques d’Ableiges lists in his work central points that should be taken into consideration when deciding on a sentence: person, place, time, nature of the offence, severity of the offence, intention, and old custom. Le grand coutumier de France, 652-72. 29 See, for example, Boutillier, Somme rural. BN ms. fr. 202, fols cc iiii xiijr; cc iiii xiijv; Journal de Jean de Roye, I , 4-5, 156, 166. 30 Le grand coutumier de France, 619; L’arbre des batailles, 207. On clerics’ punishments, see also Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 175-6; Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 93, 367. On punishments of non-Christians see, for example, Desmaze 1866, 51. Murderous animals also belonged in the clientele of a public executioner, see Desmaze 1866, 89-90; Cohen 1993, 110-33. 31 Decapitation by the sword became the most usual mode of execution of noble convicts first in Northern France, and later also in the South. Chiffoleau 1984, 238. 32 See, for example, Molinet, Chroniques, I, 182-5.

28

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

stake. According to the common view severe mutilating penalties should not be used on female malefactors.33 Some scholars have thought that the different treatment of female criminals was based on notions of decency,34 whilst others have argued that a more important factor was the common belief that the female body was especially dangerous.35 The strict hierarchy of the late medieval worldview and society was clearly reflected in the penal system and its punitive practices. At that time it was thought normal and just that people were treated differently before the law, not only according to their deeds, but also according to their condition and status. In late medieval France and Europe, the executions of corporal and capital sentences were always public spectacles. Complex rituals that could go on for several hours often surrounded them. Such spectacles attracted large audiences, particularly in those cases where the convict was a famous criminal or some highly ranked person. For example, the execution of the Constable Louis de Saint-Pol gathered thousands of curious spectators to the place de Grève36 in Paris in 1475.37 The spectacular quality of punitive ceremonies arose from the inefficiency of the police system.38 The publicity was important because the ritual aimed not only at punishing the malefactor but also at signalling the restoration of harmony (broken by the criminal deed) and of power relations in the community.39 A public punishment ritual also had an important exemplary function: potential criminals were exhorted to stay on the narrow path.40 The aspect of exemplarity is a feature that explains the lawsuits and executions related to animals,41 as well as punishments of suicides42, often considered as peculiar and misunderstood by modern persons. It should be borne in mind that in spite of its frightening aspects, late medieval criminal justice was actually rather powerless and inefficient.43 The system was based more on pecuniary penalties and banishments than on physical 33 Jean Boutillier, for example, stresses this in his Somme rural. BN ms. fr. 202, fols c iiii vivr–viiii vivv. Jean Chartier reports as a novelty the hanging of a female malefactor in Paris in 1449. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, II, 67. 34 Gonthier 1998, 149. 35 Cohen 1989, 412; Cohen 1993, 190-1. Rodrigue Lavoie has suggested that a criminal woman appeared as a more unnatural creature than a man did. Lavoie explains that it was about ‘une transgression de l’état de femme, inadmissible, voire sacrilège.’ Lavoie 1979, 46. It should be noted that in the Middle Ages feminine crime was clearly less common than masculine, as it is in our modern world. 36 In addition to la Place de Grève, one of the principal execution places in late medieval Paris was les Halles. The famous gibbet of Montfaucon was situated northeast of Paris. It had been set up in the thirteenth century and was chosen to serve royal justice during the reign of the Saint Louis. The original gibbet (probably wooden) was substituted by a massive stone construction in 1325. Hillairet 1956, 32-3. 37 Molinet, Chroniques, I, 133-4; Basin, Histoire de Louis XI, II, 266-71; Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 360-3. The great interest was based on the fact that the convict was exceptionally high-ranking person. The most famous fifteenth-century cases were naturally those of Joan of Arc (1431) and Gilles de Rais (1440). I have discussed them extensively in my recent book on the Baron of Rais. Klemettilä 2005. 38 Geremek 1974, 341. Claude Gauvard observes, ‘Paris devient un centre des exécutions capitales, jouant un rôle policier nécessaire au modèle politique vers lequel tendent les réformateurs.’ Gauvard 1995, 238. 39 Cohen 1990, 286-7; Merback 1999, 18; Lévy & Robert 1984, 409; Spierenburg 1991, 207-9. 40 The Church underlined the exemplary function of physical penalties. See, for example, Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, I, 365, 366, 383. 41 Pastoureau 2004, 45, 47. On animal trials and executions see also, Evans 1987; Cohen 1993, 110-33. 42 See Schmitt 1976, 3-19 and section 7.3 of the present study. 43 Muchembled 1992, 16. See also Geremek 1974, 341.

29

CHAPTER 2

punishments.44 Later times have often overestimated the harshness of the medieval punitive system. The reality was not at all as severe as the letter of law might suggest. Even if the use of corporal and capital sentences increased at the end of the Middle Ages, fines and banishment remained the most usual form of punishment. The rise of physical and death penalties was connected, above all, with the increased demand for security and order in society, and not with a heightened taste for suffering and death.45 The latest research has also stressed that mitigation and pardons were much more common than has often been imagined. Even the most serious crimes could be mitigated and replaced by a pecuniary punishment or banishment.46 Corporal and capital sentences were the ultimate and most severe weapon in the fight against crime at a time when a prison system similar to that of our modern world did not exist.47 For a modern person, understanding the late medieval punitive system and its methods is often fairly difficult. The system was based on a different scale of values and ways of perceiving violence, suffering, and death. In the Middle Ages violence belonged more essentially to everyday life48 and usual patterns of behaviour than it does in our modern world.49 Esther Cohen has listed among those factors that explain the violent tenor of life in medieval cities, the habit of carrying weapons (in spite of repeated prohibitions), the fact that people passed much of their time in public places, the high level of alcohol consumption, and the use of violence as a typical way to settle disagreements amongst all classes of society.50 The absence of an efficient police force and the great probability of escaping punishment could also be added to this list.

44 Muchembled 1992, 22. 45 Spierenburg 1984, 12. See also Chiffoleau 1984, 225; Muchembled 1992, 65. As Michel Bée has observed, usually periods of strong demographic tensions and economic changes, of religious conflicts and civil wars, are those that shake the collective mental balance, practices and social ties, and generate a general need to strengthen the penal system. Bée 1983, 859. It is a strategy in the battle against the collective anxiety caused by violence. 46 Most commonly pardoned crimes in late medieval France were homicides. Gauvard 1991, 897, 920, 1117-8; Gauvard 1995, 279. See also Gonthier 1998, 170-1. Gauvard stresses that the penalty of death was exceptional; it was restricted to certain rare cases and treated in an exemplary way, especially in those towns that had a leading political role such as Paris and Avignon. It was also reserved for certain criminals (mostly marginal) who could be considered as scapegoats by public opinion. Gauvard 1995, 284. 47 In the Middle Ages prison served merely as a place where accused persons could be taken into custody until trial. Only ecclesiastics were sometimes punished by imprisonment. Chiffoleau 1984, 225-8, 229-31; See also Peters 1995, 23-47; Gonthier 1998, 118. On prisons in late medieval France, see Desmaze 1866, 232-40; Hillairet 1955, passim. 48 One should not forget that the later Middle Ages was a period of endless wars in the territory of France (Hundred Years War 1337–1453 and civil war between supporters of the Burgundian and Armagnac parties), riots (Jacquerie 1358, Maillotins 1382, etc.) and rebellions (great territorial lords resisted Louis XI in the late fifteenth century). See, for example, Chronique de Jean le Bel, II, 255-60; Duby 1958, 191-8; Keen 1968, 212-25; Fossier 1986, 59-63. See also articles in Contamine & Guyot Jeannin (dir.), La guerre, la violence et les gens au Moyen Âge. I-II. (1996). 49 Muchembled 1987, 37-46; Muchembled 1992, 27-33. See also Lanhers 1968, 329-30; Kaeuper 1988, 134-9; Geremek 1989, 389-90; Gauvard 1993; Goodich 1995, 43. On jousting as a knightly sport, see for example, Calmette 2001, 224-6. However, as Calmette observes, the excessive practice of jousting did not go uncriticised. 50 Cohen 1996, 60-7. I should also like to draw attention to the peace movements that were, since the late 10th century (peace of God, Landfriede, peace of the market, of the city, etc.) all against the violence of the chivalry and the like.

30

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

Medieval people could see positive aspects in the use of physical power as well as negative ones. It was commonly thought that violence could function as a positive force in the event that it served the right goal and the right quarters: peace and law and the state.51 The existence of the hangman was visible evidence of this concept. The Church allowed the use of physical power by the state and taught that in the eyes of God this was a praiseworthy thing if the end was justified. Honoré Bovet, an Augustinian monk and famous legal expert, explains in the Arbre des batailles (1386–1389) that God ordered men to use physical force in reinstalling peace and in eradicating wrong.52 Leading theologians such as Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) maintained that when the secular authorities punished malefactors they actually served as the instruments of divine will.53 By the end of the Middle Ages, the Church also accepted the controlled use of torture in the questioning of suspects, as a means of revealing the truth.54 An important factor related to attitudes in the face of death was that late medieval people firmly believed in the hereafter and the possibility of salvation after death. As S.Y. Edgerton has observed, the death penalty has become so disturbing for modern men because they do not have this conviction. In olden times, a death sentence was never understood as a definitive gesture that would destroy a human life for ever. If a convict was actually innocent and still lost his life, it was believed that his soul would immediately gain paradise (if he was otherwise without sin). Hence, the idea of the execution of a totally innocent person was not so terrifying to people in the past.55 As medieval people trusted not only in the hereafter, but also in the possibility of divine intervention at every occasion of life, it was much easier for them to accept the use of physical penalties.56 In the late medieval worldview everything depended ultimately on God’s will. Jean Gerson (1363–1429), chancellor of the University of Paris and the leading theologian of his time, stressed that the mode of death was finally quite insignificant, in the sense that everything depended on God and thus a most miserable and shameful death could be such only in appearance. In the Consolation sur la mort des amis Gerson explains that Et se nous veons que aucuns meurent d’une estrange mort qui semble estre mauvaise quant a nostre reputation, comme l’un trespasse soudainement, l’autre en guerre, l’autre se noye, l’autre est

51 Raynaud 1990, 21. See also Litzen 1970, 44; Le Goff 1988, 342, 355; Spierenburg 1991, 192-5. 52 L’arbre des batailles, 84. 53 Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus homo, 270. For the Church’s attitude towards capital sentences, see also Imbert 1993, 14, 18-21. 54 It must be repeated that the aim of the procedure was not to produce serious wounds or kill, and methods were strictly regulated. See, for example, Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, I, 355-6, 383, 684, IV, 407. See also Asad 1983; Peters 1985, 54. 55 Edgerton 1985, 15-16. It should be noted that if the authorities found out later that a convict had actually been innocent (of the crime he or she had been convicted of), they usually organised a public ceremony where the convict’s reputation was restored. See, for example, Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 82-3. 56 In popular legends of saints, literature and art, a rescue miracle was an ordinary theme. Usually some saint (or Christ or the Virgin Mary) saved a hanged man from death. Gaiffier 1967, 194-232; Goodich 1995, 2. See also Coinci, Histoire du larron pendu que Notre Dame soutint pendant deux jours, 27-8.

31

CHAPTER 2

pendu et ainsi de pluseurs manieres; neantmoins Dieu peut tourner tout au profit d’un chascun s’il luy plaist.57 And if we see that some persons die in a strange way that seems to be bad according to our evaluation, for example, when someone dies suddenly, another is killed in a war, another kills himself by drowning, another by hanging, and so on by various ways, nonetheless, God can turn everything to the profit of everyone if it pleases Him to do so. People of the past greatly feared a sudden death that would not leave them time to confess and repent (so that they died in a state of sin).58 From this point of view, a convict had a special privilege in knowing exactly his or her time of death and to be able to prepare him or herself. The fate of soldiers who died in battle was much discussed in the Middle Ages: what happened to their souls and how (and where) they should be buried. Some persons thought they died in a state of anger and of mortal sin. Others argued that those who died in a just battle and were not otherwise in a state of sin would gain Paradise directly. Those individuals’ souls who died in an unjust battle ended up in Hell.59 At the same time attitudes toward suicides were very severe.60 One should bear in mind that the custom of chopping the bodies of executed criminals into parts was not so extraordinary a spectacle for late medieval people, for the reason that the bodies of saints and very high ranked persons were often also cut in pieces after death,61 sometimes in public spaces such as cemeteries.62 As Piero Camporesi has noted, the methods and instruments (and even terminology) used in preparing the bodies of the noble deceased actually closely resembled the ordinary methods of butchers and cooks.63 What was most important was that the body parts should be placed in consecrated ground. This option was often refused for condemned criminals, whose souls should burn in Hell.64 All in all, attitudes towards

57 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 319. 58 The people of Montaillou believed that assassinated men did not find peace in their graves but returned to haunt the living. Le Roy Ladurie 1982, 400. 59 L’arbre des batailles, 147. See also Schmitt 1998a, 132. 60 I will discuss this topic of suicide in detail in section 7.3. 61 Bynum 1995, 201-5, 213, 317, 322-4. 62 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, 340. 63 Camporesi 1988, 3-7, 15. On the preparation methods for dead corpses, see also Alexandre-Bidon 1998, 192200. 64 Scholars have disagreed on attitudes towards the cutting up of bodies in the late medieval period. MarieChristine Pouchelle has stressed the feelings of respect and curiosity for the secrets of the human body (Pouchelle 1988), whilst Nancy Siraisi has underlined that there was not any shyness or hesitation in the case of embalming, autopsy, or dissection. Siraisi writes that ecclesiastic prohibitions related to bodily partition were mainly directed towards excesses in funerary practices and the cult of relics. Siraisi 1990, 86-9. Caroline Walker Bynum has suggested that there were differences between different places and different status groups (physicians, theologians, and preachers) and that these were particularly acute around the year 1300 and oscillated from enthusiasm to fear, from curiosity to disgust. Bynum 1995, 323-8. See also Binski 1996, 54-5; Ferroul 1999, 42-4.

32

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

death and the dead were less eschewing in this period of high mortality65 than in our modern culture: their usual features were publicity, openness, and social familiarity.66 Attitudes related to pain and suffering were also different in the Middle 67 Ages. According to common belief, physical suffering was often a divine punishment for a person’s own sins. It was also thought that it could have positive, purifying effects if borne patiently. Jean Gerson crystallised these notions in a guidebook he wrote for dying persons: Mon amy ou amye, advise que tu as fait plusieurs peschés en ta vie pour les quelx tu as desservi estre pugny; si dois bien predre la painne de ta maladie et la douleur de ta mort en bonne pacience, en priant Dieu que tout ce tourne en la purgacion de ton ame et a la remission de tes peschez; que ce soit yci ton purgatoire, car tu dois mieulx aymer estre pugny en ce monde qu’en l’autre.68 My friend, take notice that during your life you have committed several sins for which you deserve to be punished. Accordingly you must accept the pain of your malady and the agony of your death very patiently, praying to God that all this would turn to your soul’s purgation and the remission of your sins, and that your purgatory would be here, for you should like more to be punished in this world than in the next one. Gerson wrote that pain could be a most salutary experience if borne with patience. Theologians also stressed the beneficial effects of pain in the case of convicts. Chastising malefactors was fundamentally a work of charity, whilst it was very condemnable and cruel to rejoice in the face of a convict’s suffering. The correct attitudes should be compassion and pity.69 Many scholars have noted that the idea that pain is merely an evil experience that should be avoided at any cost is a modern one. One factor that explains the difference between medieval and modern attitudes is the fact that the means of easing pain were not as efficient then as they are today. Esther Cohen 65 After the Black Death of 1347–1353, which killed 1/3 of the population of Western Europe, the plague returned at repeated intervals (approximately every 10 years) to spread terror in France and in different corners of Europe. Various epidemics that circled in France at the same period were at least as fatal and murderous. (Vovelle 1983, 93-5. See also Ziegler 1969, 64-6; Cartwright 1977, 61-9.) Consequently, the spectacle of a very painful death was much more familiar to all kinds of people and continuously nourished the general climate of anxiety. For a contemporary description of the Black Death, ‘la boche ou l’ypydimie’, in 1349, its symptoms, the great fear it provoked, the idea of divine revenge, the flagellant’s processions, the pogroms, see for example, Chronique de Jean le Bel, I, 222-5. 66 See Aries I 1977; Vovelle 1983. 67 On late medieval attitudes towards physical pain, see Siraisi 1990, 171-2; Cohen 1989, 408-9; Cohen 2000, 3668. 68 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 405. For the purifying aspect of pain and the ideal attitude related to it, see Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin, II, 320-3; La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 544; Commynes, Mémoires, II, 321. The idea that sufferings borne patiently had positive effects (or were manifestations of spiritual elevation) is also central in late medieval drama. See, for example, Le mystère de saint Christofle, 33-4, 46, 66. 69 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 694-5. Boethius (480–524), whose writings enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages, had also stressed the positive, purifying aspect of punishment from the point of view of convicts. Boethius, Philosophiæ Consolationis, 332. On attitudes towards a convict’s suffering, see sections 2.2 and 7.1.

33

CHAPTER 2

writes that from this point of view there was actually not much difference between the patients of a surgeon and those of an executioner.70 Medieval people had a different attitude towards pain because they were nourished with countless stories about the sufferings of martyrs and redemption. Self-torture was commonly practised amongst devotees as a means to come closer to God. People in the past understood the severe pain and suffering of a convict or of any person as a trial that could had positive effect on the individual’s destiny in the hereafter, where some people would eventually71 gain Paradise, whilst a great number would end in the eternal tortures of Hell.72 This perception of pain explains why general attitudes towards the use of torture and physical punishments were not as intolerant than they are in Western Europe of today. However, one should bear in mind that all positive explanations relating to pain were, fundamentally, ardent efforts to tame the feelings of horror, fear and anxiety provoked by the idea of severe pain. In history no other epoch has been so obsessed by the idea of pain as that of the ending Middle Ages. The most evident manifestation about this pervasive, gnawing fear was the endless preoccupation with the torments of Hell. The negative views and great anxieties relating to experiences of pain and suffering will be discussed later in this chapter. It can be concluded that a public executioners’ duties in the service of the late medieval criminal system were quite varied. An official hangman had to be skilled in many techniques and modes of causing physical pain, killing and mutilating. He was the main actor in the punitive ritual, which aimed to restore a social and cosmic harmony disturbed by a criminal deed. A competent hangman was a very valuable aide to public authorities. People of the past had many reasons for not perceiving corporal and death penalties in as negative a light as modern persons often do. This system of values persisted for many centuries and was relinquished only very slowly.73 It is important to remember, however, that attitudes were never unreservedly positive in the late medieval period. Later times have often tended to overemphasise the medieval penal system’s brutality and the severity of attitudes in general. In many cases the convicts’ pain, suffering and death evoked deep pity and very negative thoughts and feelings. The ambiguity of attitudes in the face of violence and suffering influenced the opinions and notions related to executioners. At this point I must say a few words about individuals who occupied the hangman’s post in the later Middle Ages and how this office was established in the penal system. The first professional executioners appeared in Western Europe in the thirteenth century. The emergence of the hangman’s function ran parallel with changes in the field of criminal justice and the process of state formation. The 70 Cohen 1989, 408-9. On pain as a culturally produced experience, see also Morris 1991. 71 According to common belief, not many would go directly to Paradise, but most souls had to first bear the purifying torments of Purgatory. For the development of the conception of Purgatory, see Le Goff 1981; see also Gurevich 1988, 1992. 72 Mormando 1999, 114, 130. 73 It is a typical feature of value systems that they change only very slowly. Duby 1988, 165-6, 175.

34

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

establishment of the hangman’s function was slow and was connected to various political and social circumstances and factors in the background.74 During the late Middle Ages the system of private vengeance was slowly substituted by a new penal system. Earlier, free persons had resolved their conflicts personally. A settlement could be reached through revenge or reconciliation and indemnities. Feudalisation brought about a fundamental change in the notion of freedom, and this change, in turn, led to the emergence of criminal justice. Freedom started to mean being bound directly to a king. Different degrees of freedom existed, depending on the directness of this obligation. This transformation formed the basis of the rise of a penal system applicable to freemen. When more and more illegal acts were classified as crimes, the emergence of a penal system, with corporal and capital punishments applicable to freemen, became continually more discernible.75 In the first part of the medieval period the absence of a central authority was reflected in the prevalence of the system of private vengeance. The development of criminal justice ran parallel to the emergence of more powerful rulers. In the middle of the twelfth century the first territorial principalities made their emergence and a penal system applied to freemen was installed. When territorial rulers started to administer punishments to persons who had not wronged them personally, their attitude to the law changed, too. Theorisation about the law increased and the learned started to make a distinction between civil and criminal cases. Besides state formation, the development of criminal justice was connected with other causes: in many places, for example, in Flanders and the Netherlands, an important factor was urbanisation. In France alterations in criminal procedure closely followed the growth of royal power.76 A crucial change in the field of criminal law was the substitution of the old accusatory procedure by a new, inquisitorial one in criminal trials.77 The inquisitorial procedure developed in ecclesiastical law and it was perfected by the same institution from which it took its name. From the middle of the thirteenth century the new procedure slowly penetrated secular law. The most important feature of the inquisitorial procedure was the possibility of prosecution ex officio. This meant that a court could start an investigation

74 These aspects and major trends have been discussed earlier, for example, in the study by Pieter Spierenburg (1984). Spierenburg observes that the hangman’s office is not peculiar only to Western Europe. It was also known in older civilisations such as China, India and Rome. Spierenburg 1984, 16. See also Sellin 1976, 39. 75 Spierenburg 1984, 3. According to Georges Duby, in the value system of the earlier Middle Ages physical pain (both experience and its manifestation) was considered as low and non-virile and thus unsuitable for freemen. This attitude was reflected in the penal system, and thus corporal punishments were inflicted only on persons of inferior status such as women, children and peasants. Members of the upper classes received only pecuniary punishments. Duby 1988, 206. 76 Spierenburg 1984, 4-7. For the relations between criminal justice and royal power in late medieval France, see also Cheyette 1962, 373-94; for the development of criminal justice, see Robert & Lévy 1985, 484-5; Carbasse 1991, 157-72. On treason law and royal power in France of the later Middle Ages, see Cuttler 1981. 77 This change occurred everywhere in continental Europe, but not in England. Spierenburg 1984, 8. For the accusatorial and inquisitorial systems see, for example, Esmein 1882, 42-134; Pradel 1974, 103-4; Langbein 1974, 211-22.

35

CHAPTER 2

(inquisitio) autonomously, without a plaintiff’s initiative. Officials could collect denunciations and arrest a suspect and the court’s prosecutor could act as plaintiff.78 The establishment of inquisitorial procedure took place between the middle of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century. In France the fight of Philip the Fair against the Templars had an important impact on the spread of this procedure. As already mentioned, in France the growth of royal power was a major factor behind the change. The rise and stabilisation of criminal justice signified the disappearance of private vengeance. Eventually vengeance was transferred from the victims and their relatives to the state.79 The emergence of the hangman’s office ran parallel with all these developments. When the execution of corporal and capital sentences was transferred to the state’s responsibility (cities’ and seigneurial jurisdictions’), the attending of these tasks had to be organised in an efficient and functional way. The socio-genesis of the hangman’ office was, however, a very long process. In many places the function was fully developed and institutionalised only in the first part of the sixteenth century.80 Between the thirteenth century and the early sixteenth century the hangman’s office established itself, slowly but steadily, as a duty of men of the lower classes. It was clearly understood as being a masculine job, even if, in the thirteenth century, women were sometimes used to carry out lesser corporal punishments. Proof of this practice is provided by an ordinance related to punishments for blasphemers given by Louis IX in 1268/9: Et se celle persone, qui aura ainsi meffait, ou mesdit, soit de l’aige de dix ans, ou de plus, jusques à quatorze ans, il sera batu par la Justice du lieu, tout à nud de verges en apert ou plus ou moins, selon la grieveté du mesfait, ou de la vilaine parole, c’est assavoir li homme par hommes et la fame par fames, sans presence d’home, se il ne rachetoient la bature, en payant convenable poyne, selon la forme desus dite.81 And that person who has been guilty of this misdeed and is of ten years of age, or more, until fourteen years, shall be undressed and whipped in public on the orders of the local court of justice, according to the gravity of the crime. A male malefactor will be whipped by a man, and female by a woman without the presence of men. If the convict does not pay off the penalty of flogging by a convenient fine, the punishment will be carried out as prescribed above.

78 79 80 81

36

Spierenburg 1984, 8-9. Ibid., 9, 10, 28. Ibid., 25. Ordonnances des roys de France, I, 101.

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

A female executioner’s duty was only to flog female malefactors. The reasons for this practice arose from notions of decency. Female executioners disappeared rapidly,82 however. The hangman’s occupation was definitely understood as a masculine one, for in medieval society and culture, violence was gendered. The idea of a woman carrying weapons or taking part in any kind of violent action such as war was found to be unacceptable and revolting.83 The hangman’s function was classified as not only a masculine occupation, but also as suitable only for persons of the secular lower classes. It was quite obvious that a cleric should not work as an executioner. The Church forbade clerics from participating in all such professions that included bloodshed.84 In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) had crystallised the Church’s views relating to the carrying out of capital and corporal sentences in his Summa by explaining that killing was forbidden for clerics for a twofold reason. 1) Christ himself had taught by his example that one should not meet violence with violence. His servants, clerics, must also imitate their Master in this matter. 2) Clerics are ministers of the New Law, which does not contain any pain of death or corporal mutilation. Thus clerics must abstain from carrying out these in order to be ‘authentic servants of the new Alliance.’85 Aquinas explains, too, that in ancient times priests could kill a malefactor with their own hands because they were servants of the Ancient Law, which prescribed corporal punishments. He stresses that the office of clerics has more elevated aims (i.e. spiritual salvation) than the execution of corporal punishments. Lastly he emphasises that high-ranked ecclesiastics who had been invested with temporal power must not order death sentences themselves, but they had to leave this duty to the secular authorities.86 Besides these reasons listed by Aquinas, there were also other motives related to concepts of impurity that explain why the Church did not allow clerics to carry out such 82 Hangmen’s wives, however, sometimes assisted their husbands. Delarue 1979, 68-70. This is understandable considering how difficult it was for hangmen to find assistants. 83 In the Middle Ages the use of physical power was not necessarily perceived as being a negative action if the goal was right (the furthering of peace and order). Its agents should be men, however, who were superior and more rational creatures. Feminine violence was condemned because it did not and could not arise from rational and just motives, but rather from irrational cruelty and sensuality. A fine example is the ambiguous attitude towards Joan of Arc. Some admired her, but at the same time many saw her as unnatural and repulsive, because she wore men’s clothing and took part in acts of war. See, for example, Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 292-7. See also Michaud-Fréjaville 1999, 334; Robert 1993, 72; and section 7.1 of the present work. On women’s role in everyday violence in the later Middle Ages, see Cohen 1996, 63-4. 84 Girard & Pansier 1909, 3. On the paradox of the soldier-monk, the New Knighthood (The Templars) and Bernard of Clairvaux’s arguments for monks who served God with their weapons, see Flori 2000, 17-20; Barber & Bate 2002, 219. 85 ‘non licet clericis occidere, duplici ratione. Primo quidem, quia sunt electi ad altaris ministerium, in quo repræsentatur passio Christi occisi, qui “cum percuteretur, non repercutiebat”, ut dicitur I Petr. 2 [v. 23.]. Et ideo non competit ut clerici sint percussores aut occisores: debent enim ministri suum Dominum imitari, secundum illud Eccli. 10 [v.2]: “Secundum judicem populi, sic et ministri ejus.” Alia ratio est quia clericis committitur ministerium novæ legis, in qua non determinatur pœna occisionis vel mutilationis corporalis. Et ideo, ut sint “idonei ministri novi Testamenti” [2 ad Cor., cap. 3, v. 6], debent a talibus abstinere.’ Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66, 47-8. 86 ‘Sacerdotes autem vel Levitæ veteris Testamenti erant ministri veteris legis, secundum quam pœnæ corporales infligebantur: et ideo etiam eis occidere propria manu congruebat’ […] ‘ministerium clericorum est in melioribus ordinatum quam sint corporales occisiones, scilicet in his quæ pertinent ad spiritualem salutem. Et ideo non congruit eis quod minoribus se ingerant’ […] ‘ prælati ecclesiarum accipiunt officium principum terræ non ut ipsi judicium sanguinis exerceant per seipsos, sed quod eorum auctoritate per alios exerceatur.’ Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66, 48-9.

37

CHAPTER 2

professions that involved shedding blood.87 However, a hangman had to be a Christian; a Jew, pagan or infidel could not be recruited to this office. The hangman’s post was not considered suitable for every layman, either, at least not for reputable citizens. Consequently, the authorities often had difficulties in recruiting new hangmen. In the fifteenth century the problem was sometimes solved by obliging butchers to accept the job. In the statutes of Caux from 1450 it is prescribed that if official hangmen cannot find assistants, they may ‘requérir bouchers ou tueurs d’aulcunes bestes pour l’office de valets quand iceux manqueront et si aucuns s’y refusent le bailly les fera fouetter ès carrefours de la ville’ (recruit butchers or killers of beasts in the tasks of valet, when these are missing, and if some persons refuse this job, the bailiff will have them flogged at the crossroads of the town). Thus, the authorities did not leave butchers much choice.88 They thought that butchers would have at least some preconditions for performing an executioner’s various duties, as the methods and instruments were fairly similar. More importantly, their status was already low.89 All in all, it appears that the hangman’s job was very unpopular. Individuals who accepted this office made their choice usually from absolute necessity, for example, to save their life or because of the threat of starvation. It should be noted that in the fifteenth century some families of executioners already existed, and so there were some persons who ended up in the profession because of their family origin. It was almost impossible for a son of a hangman to find any other job,90 because of the strong prejudice of the rest of society. The formation of hangman families was, in fact, quite beneficial for the penal system in the sense that the sons of masters learned from an early age various techniques of this demanding profession by assisting their fathers. It became customary for the office to be automatically handed down from a father to his eldest son, or, from the elder brother to the younger.91 Quite a number of public executioners were former convicts. Because of the great difficulty in finding persons willing to do this job, it had become a com87 See section 2.2. 88 Delarue 1979, 39. For example, the notorious Capeluche, who occupied the post of the official hangman of Paris at the beginning of the fifteenth century, was originally a butcher. Capeluche worked first as an aide to the master Geffroy, and was appointed to the post after Geffroy’s death in 1412. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 45. On Capeluche, see section 7.1. 89 Master butchers, who were considered as people of status, were not recruited. Such wealthy men did not exercise their craft with their own hands but employed aides. On the other hand, the social standing of butcher’s aides and skinners’ (écorcheurs) was low. In fact, among butchers, social inequality was greater than in any other professional group. Philippe Wolff writes, ‘La hiérarchisation semble donc s´être accentuée dans ce metier, plus nettement que dans aucun autre, au cours du XIVe siècle.’ Wolff 1978, 110. On the butcher’s status and functions in the Middle Ages, see Wolff 1978, 107-24; Le Goff 1980, 59, 70; Chevalier 1982, 85-6; Desportes 1996, 433-47; Raynaud 2002, 221-5. On powerful butchers in Bruges and Brussels see, Van Uytven 1999, 30; Deligne, Billen & Kusman 2005, 69-92. 90 Delarue 1979, 62. For example, Jehan Cousin, who performed the famous execution of the Constable Saint-Pol in Paris in 1475, was a son to Henry Cousin, the official hangman of Paris from c. 1460. It seems possible that Jehan had a brother in the same profession (Denis Cousin in Arras). Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 360; II, 58, 84; Champion 1933, 339. See also La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 49: ‘Et à cest justice à faire vint et arivait ung compaignon de France, lequelle estoit venus cuidant avoir le dit office de bouriaulx; et ce disoit maistre et filz de maistre. Et fist grant consolacion au dit maistre Géraird: car il luy aydait à faire son premier chief de ouvre, et, avec ce, luy moustrait tout ce qu’il luy apartenoit de sçavoir; et fut encor avec luy environ XV jour ou ung mois, pour le bien instruire au dit mestier.’ 91 Delarue 1979, 62.

38

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

mon practice quite early to propose it to a convict in the absence of a professional. If he agreed to take the job permanently, he was pardoned.92 This was a universal custom in late medieval and early modern Europe.93 As Pieter Spierenburg has noted, this practice did not further the stability of the office.94 It had an unfavourable impact on the general attitudes and representations of these servants of law. The habit of naming convicts to the hangman’s office persisted in Southern France, whilst in Northern France the position of professionals became stronger from the later Middle Ages on.95 However, during the late medieval period, the number of official hangmen remained low even in Northern France and neighbouring regions, a fact that made their marginal status still more striking. For example, in the small Breton seigneuries there was not always an official hangman in the fifteenth century. When needed, an executioner was brought from elsewhere and he received compensation not only for the expenses of execution, but also for travel and lodging costs.96 In Flanders, for the 780 000 inhabitants, there were only three hangmen in office, in the three major cities, Ghent, Bruges and Ypres. Each of them was called to work in neighbouring towns and villages where they executed punishments ordained by local authorities.97 It is clear that even if all respectable citizens refused to work as hangmen, at the same time they had difficulties in fully accepting the use of former criminals as aids to justice. This attitude was related to old legal customs and patterns of thinking. In a judicial duel, which was an ancient and vanishing practice in the later Middle Ages, it had been commonplace to use champions in those cases where the accused was a very young or old person, sick or otherwise handicapped, a woman or cleric, or very highly ranked. Honoré Bovet, a renowned legal expert, explains in his

92 Ibid., 37, 58. In Philippe de Vigneulles’ chronicle we are explained, in a chapter treating the old rights of the bishop of Metz (Les droits de l’éveque en la cité de Metz), that ‘On ban de Tury doit on pranre ung homme qui doit faire les justices de ceulx qui sont jugiés. Cil homme cy doit copper les pied et crever les yeulx, et pandre les larrons et faire touttes les justice. Cil homme, c’il veult, il peult demander ung homme qui soit jugiez pour larrons pour faire les justices pour lui, ne on ne ly ont à remfuzer; et, tant comme vist, quoy qu’il deviengne, ne quel terre qu’il aille, ne peult aultres avoir; mais, s’il morroit, il adveroit aultre, s’il le demandoit.’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, I, 271. Gréraird Noirel who was appointed as the new hangman of Metz in 1507 was a banished criminal: ‘Et fut force de reappeller en Mets ung compaignon de Salney, nommés Géraird Noirel, lequelle alors, pours ses desmérittes, estoit fugitif et banys de Mets; et ce tenoit en une louge en une vigne après de Sainct Mertin. Et à cellui fut tout pardonnés; et avec l’office de bouriaulx luy fut donnés encor une belle robbe, et de l’airgent en sa bourse’. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 49. See also Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, II, 384; Monstrelet, La Chronique, V, 8-10. 93 It was a common practice even in remote Finland. See Bonsdorff 1894, 317. 94 Spierenburg 1984, 27. After the middle of the sixteenth century this habit became unusual in many places. In the Middle Ages, it often caused problems for the authorities. In 1426 in Dijon the council had to banish master Jehan, a former convict who had been appointed as an official hangman in 1414, because of his criminal tendencies. Gonthier 1998, 195. 95 Delarue 1979, 38-9. In Northern France great hangman dynasties were formed and thus enough candidates for the post were available. 96 Leguay 1984a, 77. See also Raynaud 2002, 303. 97 Thus, the executioner of Ghent was employed for 24 days beheading the rebels in a rural district in the north of the county in 1436. Van Rompaey 1967, 52. The problem of finding a hangman was universal even in the Early Modern period in different corners of Europe as shown by the letter of Birgitta Olofsdotter sent from Umeå 30.8.1586. (Handlingar efter Örnberg. Svenska riksarkivet, Stockholm.) I must warmly thank Anu Lahtinen (University of Turku) from having sent me a copy of this interesting document.

39

CHAPTER 2

famous work on martial law, Arbre des batailles (1386–1389)98 that a dishonourable person (for example, a person convicted of some serious crime) could not be chosen as a champion. For if he lost, everyone would think that this happened because of his own sins.99 2.2 Paradox of the Hangman Previous studies have suggested that the status of professional executioner was quite low in Europe in the later Middle Ages.100 Attitudes towards hangmen were highly ambiguous. An official executioner was pushed to the very margins of the everyday life of the community. Public authorities laid many kinds of restrictions and obligations on their servant, whilst the rest of society manifested its scorn by means of shunning gestures or by outright physical and verbal aggressiveness.101 In previous research the unfavourable attitudes towards the official executioner have often been described as very peculiar. Jacques Delarue writes that ‘Par un inexplicable paradoxe, la foule qui [...] exige le “châtiment suprême” pour les coupables, est en même temps hostile au bourreau’102 (By an inexplicable paradox, the masses who [...] demand the “supreme punishment” are at the same time hostile towards the hangman). Several other scholars have also considered it most curious that the executioner was so unpopular amongst people who supported the use of corporal and capital sentences as common legal practices. In my view, their principal mistake has been that they have over-estimated the favourable attitudes toward violence, death penalty and punishments of mutilation (also their number).103 The themes of violence have already been discussed, but only in the sense that they explain positive or neutral attitudes towards the institution of the hangman and judicial violence. It is essential to note that even if people in the past could often see positive aspects in the use of physical force, there were also very negative opinions concerning the issue. In the Middle Ages violence was fundamentally understood as a disturbance of the order prescribed by God. Violence originated from the rebellion of Lucifer 98 The writer of this book, Honoré Bovet (c. 1345–c. 1405), was for a long time erroneously called Bonet. Thus this name appears also in the title of the edition that has been used as a source in the present study. Bovet was a docteur ès décrets, and belonged to the Augustinian order. He was prior of the monastery of Salon. 99 L’arbre des batailles, 228, 230. Bovet’s work throws light on late medieval chivalrous ideology and its codes of honour, as well as more generally on the concepts and attitudes concerning various violent conflicts. The testimonial value of this book is manifest in the high appreciation and wide popularity it enjoyed in its own times: known manuscripts number over 60, old editions are 6; the text was translated into Provencal, Catalan, Spanish, and English. See Introduction in L’arbre des batailles d’Honoré Bonet, viii-xiii; see also Bossuat, Pichard et Raynaud de Lage 1992, 685-6. 100 The low status of the hangman’s function is not a totally universal feature. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, an executioner’s status was relatively high. Spierenburg 1984, 16. 101 These themes are discussed more in detail in section 3.1. 102 Delarue 1979, 29-30. See also Spierenburg 1984, 13; Van Dülmen 1990, 67. 103 Nicole Gonthier observes that due to lacunae or the fragmented nature of sources, it is difficult to establish, in the longue durée, the rhythm of capital executions. The numbers vary enormously from one town to other. In Avignon, during the first part of the fourteenth century, 15–25 executions were performed annually, whilst in Dijon, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, there was at least one annual execution and in Lyon, one in every four years. Gonthier 1992, 191.

40

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

and his allies against God and the good angels. At the same time the learned exlained that conflicts between men were linked with conflicts between the celestial bodies that controlled human ones. It was a natural law that all created things were inclined to resist their opposite. Thus, there could not be concord between men in this world. A wise person could, however, resist the unfavourable impact of celestial bodies and fight the temptation towards violence and war. Unfortunately the group of the wise was very small and that of the unwise very large.104 In order for it to appear in a positive light, the use of physical force should fulfil certain prerequisites: it had to serve the right motives and right quarters. This was the case with sentences of the bonne justice; judicial violence was considered legitimate and necessary.105 But there were, at the same time, certain aspects of the official hangman’s actions that made his violence appear low and dishonest in the eyes of many medieval persons. Pieter Spierenburg has argued that an important factor in the background to the negative attitudes was the fact that the hangman’s actions were in serious contradiction with the feudal warrior ethos and its values, which still prevailed in the collective mentalities.106 Even if this is an overstatement (no such ethos dominated general opinion and attitudes) it is clear that in the shared value system it was considered quite shameful to use physical power against any such persons who could not defend themselves and especially to do this for money. Common opinion held that a violent fight should be fair and equal.107 Thus, even if the hangman served good justice, legitimate authority, law and order, his actions always appeared more or less shameful or dishonourable, unjust or cruel in the eyes of medieval people.108 The public executioner was often perceived as being a diametrical opposite to a perfect knight, an ideal hero, who never lifted his sword against unarmed persons, but protected the weak, women, orphans, and clerics. Pieter Spierenburg has suggested that besides the old codes of honour, the negative attitude towards official hangmen arose from the repressed aggressiveness encouraged by feelings of envy and resentment: the professional hangman was a symbol of forbidden revenge for late medieval people. Spierenburg here has followed the psychological theories suggested by German scholars such as Joachim Gernhuber and Wolfgang Oppelt. First, Gernhuber proposed that the resentment towards the hangman stemmed from the subconscious rejection of a system based on physical penalties, which was transformed into an anger reaction towards the active agent of the system. Later Oppelt proposed that the rejection actually emanated from the medieval people’s repressed desire to kill (to slaughter a malefactor 104 L’arbre des batailles, 5, 75, 84-5. See also Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, 21-3, 670-75. On notions about the acceptable and unacceptable use of physical power in ancient Greece, see Kaimio 1998, 13-44. 105 Both in the case of soldiers and all those who were killed on the orders of a legitimate authority. Saint Augustine (354–430) had stressed that the commandment forbidding killing was not broken by those who waged war on the authority of God, or those who imposed the death penalty on criminals when representing the authority of the State in accordance with the laws of the State, the most just and most reasonable source of power. Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, 21-3. 106 On late medieval chivalrous ideology, see Taylor 1966, 537-73; Martin 1996, 306-42; Huizinga 2002, 105-20. 107 In the old warrior rules it was considered shameful to use violence against defenceless persons, women, young persons, and the poor. L’arbre des batailles, 211. On judicial combats between knights, see Kiernan 1988, 31-45. In these chivalrous circles the hangman’s violence was also seen as despicable since his victims had not offended him personally. 108 Richard van Dülmen has also observed that the hangman’s actions never appeared entirely justified: ‘it never fully succeeded in shedding the character of retaliation in punishment’. Van Dülmen 1990, 67.

41

CHAPTER 2

with their own hands). Spierenburg has criticised these scholars for the unhistorical manner of their approach – that psychological features are presented as timeless. He thinks that negative attitudes derived from a repressed desire to kill that was directed towards the official hangman, who symbolised the expropriation of private vengeance. This ancient right was still fresh and vivid in the memories of late medieval people.109 I cannot fully agree with Spierenburg’s views. I would like to note here, on the one hand, that the possibility or prerogative of executing a person as an act of private vengeance was abrogated only from a small group in medieval society: from plaintiffs that were adult male laity. Women, clerics, the young or very old persons never had this option, but they passed on the task to other persons. On the other hand, it seems to me that Spierenburg has a tendency to over-stress the aggressiveness, brutality and cruelty of medieval people. He is by no means the only person to have done so. There are other scholars who have been quite unwilling to admit that people in the past could experience other feelings than pleasure or indifference in the face of spectacles of violence and suffering.110 Spierenburg, for example, claims that two kinds of attitudes could be mainly perceived when dealing with violence and suffering in older times: vindictiveness and indifference. He writes that in public executions, these two attitudes prevailed and that only in the eighteenth century did things begin to change; some groups started to oppose this attitude and tried to influence others. The decisive factor was growing inter-human identification. This made people capable of imagining themselves in the shoes of other people more often and more intensely.111 Undoubtedly, late medieval persons’ attitudes towards the use of physical force and its consequences, death and suffering, differed from modern ones. It would be a serious error to think, however, that violence and a convict’s pain evoked only very seldom compassion or negative thoughts and feelings. Regarding the claim that the medieval authorities were vindictive and eager to punish, I wish to observe that we have considerable evidence pointing in a totally opposite direction, for example, 1) the great number of mitigations and pardons112; 2) the fact that the authorities that carefully staged punitive spectacles did not invent new, more painful modes of punishment but favoured traditional ones; 3) the fact that they often preferred such methods that would mitigate the convict’s suffering and hasten death (whilst these also served to ensure that justice was done efficiently and that the ritual 109 Spierenburg 1984, 23. On German legal historians’ theories concerning the unpopularity of the hangman, see also Braun 1989, 115-6. 110 See, for example, Spierenburg 1984, 13; Spierenburg 1991, 205, 210, 212. Pieter Spierenburg is a disciple of Norbert Elias, which explains why he is inclined to observe the dark past in the light of a better future. An adaptation of Elias’ theory of civilising can easily lead to under-estimation of people in the past: to see them as more brutal or undeveloped than they really were. As will be argued later, the later Middle Ages should be seen as a part of this process of civilising (at least in France and the Burgundian Netherlands), and not as the last phase of anarchy, cruelty and barbarism. 111 Spierenburg 1991, 205, 210, 212. 112 As Claude Gauvard has shown, in late medieval France the royalty based its power more on pardon than on punishment. There did not exist any unpardonable crime. Theoreticians, jurists and theologians maintained that capital penalty was necessary. During this period, the idea that certain individuals were incorrigible and noxious to society started to develop. The Church accepted the employment of a capital sentence and confirmed the right of a religious confession to death convicts, but this development did not diminish the number of royal pardons. Gauvard 1995, 275-90.

42

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

went successfully and as planned)113; 4) the fact that the late medieval authorities did not vigorously support their servant, the hangman, who carried out corporal and death penalties, but tried to keep their distance. All these features do not suggest vindictiveness or an appreciation of brutality but rather, a dislike and shame of it. One should bear in mind, moreover, that in the later Middle Ages judicial punitive rituals served an important informative function in the intercourse between the authorities and common people. As stated by Esther Cohen, at public execution ceremonies violence and pain were usually not the major goals but only corollaries.114 Apparently it was just in the period of the ending Middle Ages that the convicts’ fate became a focal issue for thoughtful minds: many efforts were made to ease their situation. Leading theologians and moralists such as Jean Gerson invited all believers to show compassion to condemned criminals.115 Regarding the attitudes of the spectators of public execution ceremonies, of the common people, it has been claimed that these were indifferent or vindictive. Some scholars have referred, for example, to a passage in Jean Molinet’s chronicle as an example about such an attitude. Molinet writes about the inhabitants of Mons, who would have bought a robber-chief for a high price only in order to enjoy seeing him écartelé, quartered by four horses. This spectacle would have greatly pleased the people of Mons, who were ‘plus joyeulx que se ung nouveau corpz saint estoit ressuscité’ (more joyful than if some new saint had been resurrected).116 However, here, as in many similar cases, one should bear in mind the chroniclers’ fundamental motives and aims. They wrote for an upper class audience, for their own circle. Their essential purpose was to condemn cruelty, to reveal it as a mean and sinful feature, a brutal and disgusting attitude not suitable for honourable and virtuous persons (for ‘us’). Stressing the cruelty of ‘others’ – pagans, enemies and the lower classes – served to polish and strengthen their group’s self-image. This technique was typical of late medieval chroniclers, as Daniel Baraz, for example, has shown in his study.117 True, sometimes chroniclers’ comments, which seemingly express their own opinion (and that of their own social group) about some sentence, appear as 113 The usual gesture of compassion was, for example, the habit of offering alcohol to convicts just before the execution ceremony. It served to ease the convict’s fear. See, for example, La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 403. One also finds references to this custom in drama. See, for example, La passion d’Auvergne, 196, 206-7. Burning at the stake could be a very painful experience. Sometimes the hangman strangled the convict beforehand. For other methods of easing the sufferings of convicts, see Halkin 1937. 114 See Cohen 1989, 409-10; Cohen 1993, 150, 155, and passim. On perceptions concerning cruelty in the later Middle Ages, see Baraz 2003, 123-42 and section 7.1. Christiane Raynaud has also observed that the authorities’ general aim was rapidity. Raynaud 2002, 305. 115 Jean Gerson’s role in influencing general attitudes in late medieval France will be discussed in detail in section 7.1. 116 Molinet, Chroniques, II, 120. See Gatton 1991, 80; Enders 1999, 188. Johan Huizinga, too, has made the same mistake – but he wrote his famous study around 1919. Huizinga 2002, 49. As Francis Haskel has commented, Huizinga’s legacy has been and is exceptionally important even though no modern scholar accepts his methodology or conclusions. Haskell 2003, 3-17. Huizinga has often over-stressed deep contrasts in late medieval culture, i.e. extreme oscillation between extreme cruelty and compassion, hate and charity. 117 According to Baraz, in the Jacquerie, a peasant revolt that broke out in France in 1358, both sides in the conflict (nobles and non-nobles) extensively exploited images of cruelty to delegitimise their opponent. Baraz has used the texts of chroniclers representing different viewpoints as his source material. A series of less partisan sources is very fruitful, for it points to the exaggeration and manipulation of the issue of cruelty by both sides. Baraz 2003, 124-31.

43

CHAPTER 2

harsh and pitiless. But in the same writers’ texts we can usually find also quite opposing comments about other cases; empathy and pity are expressed very clearly.118 It is obvious to me that late medieval spectators of public execution ceremonies were often torn by very ambiguous feelings.119 No doubt, the physical punishment of malefactors could sometimes help to strengthen the feeling of security and evoke relief or even satisfaction, particularly, in the case of some notorious and feared criminals. But in many occasions people felt horror, disgust and anxiety when facing the spectacle of a malefactor’s suffering and death. Pity and deep compassion were not unknown feelings at that time; many convicts were escorted with tears and prayers.120 A closer examination of cultural meanings and uses of cruelty in the late Middle Ages definitely indicates its serious condemnation by various social groups at different levels of society. It is evident that, ideally, the authorities and masses should hate the crime, not the criminals; they were supposed to feel pity for convicts121 and avoid cruelty in their actions and thoughts. As to the official hangman, it has been suggested that he was mainly indifferent in the face of his duties in older times, that he was just doing his job on the scaffold and only those things he was told to do. This is, of course, pure speculation – we do not possess such source material that would make possible the investigation of late medieval professional executioners’ personal opinions and attitudes. On the other hand, we do know that, ideally, a hangman should be not only competent but also compassionate and gentle. The official hangman had a most ungrateful job: if he failed somehow, he was readily accused, not only of incompetence but also of direct cruelty, and often punished by the authorities, sometimes attacked by the furious spectators.122 The accusation was based on common prejudices and prevailing views that will be examined later. Wise and virtuous persons, such as perfect Christian knights, were not thought to derive satisfaction from inflicting pain.123 In my view, both the intolerance towards the hangman (and a hangman’s cruelty) at the level of everyday life (practices and gestures) and the executioner’s negative cultural image are clear expressions of a profound dislike of the death pe118 Even if descriptions of punitive rituals are sometimes laconic in chronicles, many writers express their pity, disgust or horror in regard with punishments considered as excessive or cruel, see for example La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 305-6, 338, IV, 26, 510-11; Chronique du religieux de Saint Denis, V, 55-9. Jean le Bel (c. 1290–1370) seems to have accepted some severe punishments as just and deserved, for example, in the case of Hugh Despenser who was condemned as a heretic, sodomite and traitor, in 1326. (Chronique de Jean le Bel, I, 278.). But sometimes, for example, in the case of Olivier de Clisson (executed at les Halles in Paris in 2.8.1343.), he questions the justness of the sentence and expresses his deep pity. ‘Ce fut grant dommaige et pitie, s’il en estoit sans coulpe.’ Chronique de Jean le Bel, II, 21-2. See also section 7.1. 119 Gauvard 1991, 899. We also know that many persons tried to avoid attending these spectacles. Puppi 1991, 58. 120 It must be observed that such a phenomenon as the growing number of ‘rescue miracles’ is also an important indicator about past attitudes. 121 Judicial guidebooks or coutumiers told judges, over and over again, to meditate most carefully before resorting to capital punishment. For example, in Li Livre de jostice et de plet (c. 1260) it was emphasised that ‘L’en doist moult soffrir et atendre, avant que home soit livrez à mort, car moult est granz chose à deffere ce que Dieux a fet et à fere ce qu’il ne veaut fere.’ Quoted in Desmaze 1866, 33-4. 122 See section 3.1. 123 Jacques Lalaing, known as le bon chevalier, the model knight of his century, was described as handsome as Paris, as pious as Aeneas, as wise as Ulysses, and as fiery as Hector. Outside battle he was gentle, always humble and courteous. He never missed a morning mass. Calmette 2001, 226.

44

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

nalty, of harsh punishments of mutilation and of expressions of cruelty in late medieval culture. Therefore, it would not be farfetched to argue that clumsy hangmen (especially those professionals who were thought to express brutality), were the targets of spectators’ wrath and the authorities’ sanctions because the revulsion toward physical punishment rose to the surface with special force in such cases where it seemed that the patient’s suffering surpassed the boundary of moderation and ruined the ideal of the equivalence of punishment and crime. Many scholars have presumed that the equivocal attitude towards the official hangman was based largely on his bloody occupation and common notions of impurity, whilst others have abandoned these views as an outmoded and too easy an explanation.124 There are, however, good reasons to think that the taboos of blood and impurity had a crucial impact on the opinions and views about the hangman. In the period of the late Middle Ages, the blood taboo was an essential cultural trait as Jacques Le Goff, for example, has stressed. Le Goff has examined the prohibitions concerning illicit professions and writes that behind them we find remnants of ancient taboos, the most important of these being the taboo of blood, which mainly concerned butchers and executioners, but also extended to other occupations such as surgeons,125 barbers, pharmacists and soldiers.126 The special taboo position of human blood faded away during later times. The shedding of blood, contact with it or merely seeing it could evoke notions and feelings of impurity and danger in medieval people, regardless of the fact that the spectacle of blood was more familiar to them than it is to people living in our modern culture. In the Middle Ages human blood was considered to be a very dangerous substance, because it was traditionally and commonly thought that it included the essential part of the ‘self’, man’s personality. Blood was the ‘soul’s vehicle’, véhicule de l’âme,127 a notion which was based on biblical teachings.128 Thus, it is not surprising that human blood was the target of countless juridical proscriptions in the medieval

124 See, for example, Spierenburg 1984. 125 Physicians scorned surgeons who touched blood. Surgeons, not physicians, performed the first autopsies and manipulated death bodies. They performed embalming of high-ranked persons as well as judicial examinations concerning causes of death, etc. Surgeons, on the other hand, despised barbers, who took care of less important tasks and also competed for the same clients. Schmitt 2001, 341; see also Alexandre-Bidon 1998, 188-200. Several judicial examinations performed by surgeons are mentioned in the Registre Criminel de SaintMartin-des-Champs, 462-3, 473, etc. Some master surgeons, such as Henri de Mondeville, who worked for royal or aristocratic clients, were wealthy men and treated with great consideration. On the surgeon’s profession and surgery in the Middle Ages, see La chirurgie de maître Henri de Mondeville; Siraisi 1990, 153-86. 126 The case of butchers is a good example of the force of the old taboo of blood: even if some butchers became very healthy, for example, in Paris and in Toulouse, this could not help them overcome the wall of contempt. According to Wolff, ‘Leur métier considéré comme grossier et répugnant, leur classement parmi les artisans, les maintenaient à l’écart des honneurs municipaux.’ This would explain, too, why numerous butchers played leading roles in many popular revolts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Wolff 1978, 107-24; Le Goff 1980, 59, 70. For the butcher and the taboo of blood, see also Raynaud 2002, 639. 127 Pouchelle 1988, 19. For medical authorities, the blood was the ‘gardien de la force vitale ; il est le siège de l’âme et son moteur de chaleur [...] Quand il est mauvais et corrompu, il est cause de maladies.’ Le livre des propriétés des choses, 114. 128 See Lv 17.11-14; Dt 12.23; Gn 9.4. The blood of animals also evoked suspicion and was considered impure. Salisbury 1994, 60-1.

45

CHAPTER 2

period,129 and that a ritual of re-consecration had to be organised in a Church where blood had been shed.130 Many people believed that particularly the blood and body parts of convicted criminals, as well as the technical paraphernalia connected with executions, had important magical powers and that their contact could be very beneficial or very harmful and polluting.131 These beliefs were based on notions concerning the unnatural death of a healthy body. A convicts’ blood and remains could be used in both black magic as well as in white magic. They were thought to be helpful, for example, in the treatment of epilepsy.132 These notions were based on the long-lived mental structures shared by all classes of medieval society.133 Beliefs relating to the magical and polluting powers of blood and dead corpses explain the prohibitions concerning clerics that were discussed in section 2.1. The Church ordered that clerics should have nothing to do with killing or the shedding of blood because they were followers of Christ, who disapproved of the use of violence. An extra motif behind these prohibitions was related to old conceptions of impurity. Accordingly it was also ordered that clerics should not work as surgeons or barbers, for example.134 All those laymen who had to deal with blood or bloody flesh in their work appeared to be alarming and suspicious to medieval people, not only executioners, but also barber-surgeons,135 who sometimes assisted hangmen in the task of arresting bleeding on the scaffold,136 and who also often took care of preparing the bodies of highly ranked deceased.137 One has good reason to think that a horror of decomposition also had some effect on the notions and feelings relating to hangmen. A professional hangman regularly came into contact, not only with blood, but also with the dead bodies and rotting corpses of criminals. It was one of his duties to remove older bodies from the gibbet in order to make place for new ones. Sometimes relatives of an executed 129 Pouchelle 1988, 20. On prohibitions related to animal blood, see for example AN Y3, fol. 96r. 130 See, for example, Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 360. 131 Body parts of convicted criminals were very desirable objects: In 1404 Guillaume de Tignonville, provost of Paris complained to the Parliament of Paris that bodies were often stolen from the gibbet of Montfaucon. Hillairet 1956, 36. 132 On the use of the human body as a source of medical preparations or magical tools, see also Camporesi 1988, 11-13, 16, 18-22, 60, 129. Various parts of the human body were valued (secretions, hair, bones, teeth, fat, mumia or dried flesh), but most valued of all was blood. For the use of the flesh of the hanged in black magic, see Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, I, 684. 133 Merback 1999, 97-9. One factor that explains the great fears and magical beliefs relating to dead bodies is that the boundary between life and death was blurred. It was commonly believed that a body was not really dead until it was totally decomposed. Camille 1994, 84-5; Bynum 1995, 326. 134 The fourth Lateran council (1215) had prohibited clerics from taking part in surgical operations or burning. In Europe barber-surgeons were usually laymen. Siraisi 1990, 26. 135 Dissections were performed in Europe from the end of the thirteenth century onwards. Convicts’ bodies offered material for these operations. Siraisi 1990, 82, 86-9. See also Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 322-3; La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 264-5. 136 Puppi 1991, 30. An official hangman had to know how to stop bleeding so that a convict would not die at too early a stage of the ritual, prior to the execution proper. 137 Geremek 1974, 368; Pouchelle 1988, 30-1, 38; Pouchelle 1990, passim; Alexandre-Bidon 1998, 193, 200. In ordinary family circles the preparation of corpses for funeral ceremonies was traditionally a woman’s duty. Bassein 1984, Appendix; Bynum 1996, 172. In the Middle Ages secular society expected women to take care of other peoples’ bodies, not only those of children and the old, but also the sick and dying.

46

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

person managed to obtain permission for a decent burial. The hangman’s task was to fetch the exposed body (or body parts) before the ceremony.138 Manipulating dead bodies was not uncommon in the later Middle Ages (some deceased were moved to better burial sites) but people of the past considered contact with the rotting bodies of great sinners, whose souls would burn in Hell, very polluting and dangerous. Whilst touching the remains of some saintly person could be very beneficial, exposure to some unholy deceased person might be harmful, even fatal, depending on the circumstances. It is often difficult for modern persons to understand how seriously the idea of material corruption and decomposition haunted people in the past.139 Clear reflections of this were fantasies related to Paradise (where there was no corruption) and the practice of embalming, which became more and more common in the later Middle Ages. The practice of embalming reflected a longing for bodily permanence. Piero Camporesi writes that Paradise was portrayed as ‘a laboratory of physical restoration’, where the blessed would enjoy bodily perfection. A waning of the fear of decay during later times was linked with the fading idea of Paradise.140 As Camporesi reminds us, at the end of the Middle Ages, Hell was imagined as a place of eternal putrefaction and filth.141 It is therefore quite understandable that hangmen, who were continuously in contact with the rotting bodies of great sinners, appeared as most suspect, dangerous and demonical figures to medieval people. Accordingly, contact with them was avoided as carefully as possible at all levels of everyday life, whilst in pictorial and literary products, the link between the hangman and physical corruption was often made manifest. An important keyword in the hangman’s cultural image and perception in the later Middle Ages was infamy. From a very early stage, actual professional executioners were linked with notions of dishonour and non-respectability. These attitudes and conceptions arose from ways of perceiving the hangman’s occupation and from general opinions concerning violence and blood shedding. Jacques Le Goff has studied infamous professions in medieval society and explains that both practical and juridical differences existed between various occupations defined as illicit, dishonest or vile.142 These were all prohibited for clerics. The list of illicit professions altered at different times and in different places, but the hangman was often included, just as categories such as tavern keepers, butchers, jesters, magicians, surgeons, soldiers, pimps and prostitutes.143 It is significant that 138 See, for example, Monstrelet, La Chronique, II, 41-4, 300-1, 336. 139 Protecting the human body from decomposition was a central concern in medieval culture where the active presence of the deceased and their remembrance was considered important. Camporesi 1988, 181-2, 245. 140 Camporesi 1988, 25, 251, 255, 277-81. 141 Ibid., 278; Camporesi 1990, 15-16, 22. For Bernardino of Siena, famous Franciscan preacher, Hell was ‘the latrine of the world’. Mornando 1999, 123-4. Diseases, wounds, blood and filth also occupied an important role in Dante’s famous depiction of Hell. Dante, La Divina Commedia, 95, 98, 152, 233-40, 245-6. 142 Negotia illicita and inhonestia mercimonia, artes indecorae, vilia officia. 143 Michel Pastoureau has observed that dyeing, too, was often perceived as a suspect occupation. The alarming quality of this profession, which is evident in numerous written and visual sources, explains why it was forbidden for clerics and not advisable for honourable persons. The dyer was perceived as impure, even diabolic. Numerous rules surrounded the practices of dyeing. Dyers quarrelled with tanners (another

47

CHAPTER 2

the hangman’s profession was added to the list at a very early stage. It appears, for example, in the proscriptions of the Arras synod (c. 1275) as well as in those of the synod of Liège from the second part of the thirteenth century.144 Bronislaw Geremek has suggested that the notion of professional infamy was particularly significant in the statutes of German guilds. Geremek reminds us that medieval notions concerning illicit or infamous professions were based on Roman law and on traditions that were anchored very deeply in collective mentalities and were developed as protection from different taboos. Many of these professions were considered both necessary and more or less impure at the same time.145 Pierre Braun also supports the view that the issue of infamy was not as essential in France as it was in Germany. He suggests that whilst hangmen’s infamy increased from the fourteenth to seventeenth century in Germany, in France the situation remained more or less stable. However, as Braun observes, systematic research work remains to be done.146 Yet, I am inclined to agree with Geremek’s and Braun’s opinion when it comes to regional differences.147 No doubt, there also appeared some variation in social esteem between different individuals in various French and Flemish towns.148 In sum, theories about the hangman’s low status and ambiguous attitudes of the surrounding society vary among scholars. It is evident that there were numerous social, cultural and ideological factors that affected general views and attitudes towards this officer of criminal justice. One goal of my study is to add some new facets to this debate by examining the hangman’s signs and representations as expressed in various unconventional sources. 2.3 Obsession with Pain The focus my study is not only on the representations and depictions of hangmen belonging to late medieval urban reality but also on those specialists in pain who belonged to Christian mythology and the distant pagan past. Sermons, literature and art continuously nourished the medieval imagination with frightening

144 145 146

147

148

48

professional group viewed as suspect because they came into contact with death animals) about the water in the river because both needed pure water for their tasks. Pastoureau 2004, 173-95. Le Goff 1980, 59, 301. Geremek 1989, 399-410. For infamous occupations and groups in late medieval and early modern German society, see also the recent study by Wolfgang Reinhard. Reinhard 2004, 330-5. Braun situates the heyday of the hangman’s infamy at the end of the sixteenth century. In France, the Revolution was a turning point. The National Assembly abolished all types of discrimination aimed at the executioner. He was also juridically rehabilitated. From now on, the official executioner was a citizen among others. Braun 1989, 103, 118. Braun lists as the most important reasons for the infamy of the executioner a criminal background (this was usual everywhere in Europe), traditional views about the honourable and dishonourable violence (killing of a defenceless person) and various despised and polluting extra jobs performed by these office holders. Braun 1989, 115-6. See also Klemettilä 2004, 83. I should like to express my thanks to Satu Lidman (University of Joensuu) for having shared with me her expertise on the topics of infamy and dishonour when I was writing the Keskiajan pyövelit (2004). Her forthcoming doctoral thesis, ”Zum Spectacul und Abscheu”. Ehrverlust und Ehrminderung als Mittel der Disziplinierung im frühneuzeitlichen München, will discuss in depth the issue of shame and honour in the early modern German system of justice. Even neutral or positive attitudes were manifest on some particular occasions, for example, when consulting a hangman’s medical services, just as Spierenburg has observed. Spierenburg 1984, 29-32. See also section 6.3.

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

depictions of cruel torturers of martyrs and pitiless pagan executioners. Accordingly, there are good reasons to presume that this had some unavoidable effect on ways of perceiving hangmen in general. In works of literature and art these groups were often presented as fairly similar and, in addition, were closely associated with demons, besides criminals and other dangerous groups, evil ‘others’. Moreover, fictitious figures of the past were usually strongly contemporised. Consequently, the boundaries between different categories became somewhat blurred. An important background factor behind this augmented preoccupation with executioners was increased sensitivity towards physical suffering. The hangman was the star of the late medieval stage. His major domain was the genre of the mystery play,149 dramatisations of biblical stories and saints’ legends that became immensely popular during the fifteenth century. Presentations of mystery plays were important occurrences in collective life. The reasons for writing and presenting these plays were essentially religious: the purpose was to edify, to stimulate devotion, to teach the history of the Christian faith, to promote a pilgrimage or a fraternity. The function of mystery plays was also to serve as instruments of divine imploration, as a means of showing gratitude for protection (from a plague). As Hervé Martin has written, sacred plays permitted the symbolic recreation of the cosmos by the combined efforts of writers, actors, and spectators.150 This produced a general feeling of controlling the world and of reestablishing social order. Sacred plays were a form of concise and flamboyant religious pedagogy.151 Plays such as Arnoul Gréban’s Le mystère de la Passion (1450) on the life and death of Christ and the Mystère des Actes des Apotres (1460–1470)152 were very influential in their time and attracted lots of imitators.153 Mistére du Viel Testament (1458) was also widely known in 1480. It is a broad cycle of dramatisations of Old

149 As Gustave Cohen has put it ‘La vie au moyen âge ne ce conçoit guère sans le tortionnaire et le bourreau : il en est de même dans le mystère.’ Cohen 1951, 267. It must be noted that the executioner had not any important role in other dramatic genres such as miracles or farces. See for example Recueil de farces, I-XIII. However, in La condamnation de Banquet (c. 1503) by Nicholas de La Chesnaye, we meet the impatient bourreau Diette, who hangs Banquet on the orders of the feminine judge dame Experience. La condamnation de Banquet, 261-80. This morality play condemned les excès de la bouche, immoderate revelling and drinking, but the tone is quite ambiguous and ironic. I thank Dr Jelle Koopmans (University of Amsterdam) for having pointed out this very interesting piece to me. 150 Financially, mystery plays were collective projects (because long and costly) but rich persons could promote certain pieces with considerable sums just as did Gilles de Rais in 1435 in Orléans. This gesture was a spectacular way to manifest wealth, status and piety. See Klemettilä 2005. 151 ‘... en faisant intervenir toute la tradition catholique, de la Bible à la thélogie savante en passant par les évangiles apocryphes, en faisant grand usage du symbole et de l’allégorie, en insérant la Révelation dans le quotidien à force de détails réalistes, et en actualisant délibérement les scènes sacrées.’ Martin 1996, 239, 292, 294. On mystery plays in late medieval France, see also Frank 1954, 161-202; Muir 1995. 152 Gréban wrote this play together with his brother Simon. I have employed the edition by Gaston Paris & Gaston Raynaud (1970), but a better version is Omer Jodogne’s edition (Brussels 1965, 1983). 153 For example, the anonymous writer of Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes from the second half of the fifteenth century made wide use of Grébans’s work. He did not exactly imitate or copy Gréban’s text but reworked it, as was customary at that time. He has also made use of Le Mistére du Viel Testament in the first part of his text. See observations made by Jean-Claude Bibolet in his Introduction in Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, xi. According to Omer Jodogne, in Jean Michel’s piece Le Mystère de la Passion (1486) approximately 38 per cent of verses have been directly borrowed from Arnoul Gréban. See Jodogne’s Introduction in Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, xxxvii.

49

CHAPTER 2

Testament stories realised by several individual writers.154 The success of these plays gives one good reason to believe that the worldview – and the interpretations of the hangman as part of the general picture – expressed in these works, coincided well with common beliefs, conceptions and opinions. Besides the biblical plays, executioners also appeared in numerous saints’ plays, for example, in such typical specimens of the genre as Le mystère de saint Laurent and Le mystère de saint Sébastien, both anonymous works from the fifteenth century. The mood and function of biblical plays and saints’ plays were similar. The only difference was that when biblical plays taught the common Christian faith and had a general character, hagiographic plays sometimes celebrated local saints and were thus more apt to edify a certain community.155 The great popularity of saints is a well-known phenomenon and hagiographic plays are one manifestation of the force of this cult. They are more numerous than biblical plays, and they were probably also closer to popular faith and taste.156 In addition to the executioner’s figures, one could encounter in mystery plays a large number of low and cruel personages (the opponents of good and saintly figures): various negative biblical characters – demons, Cain, Judas, Herod – or historical figures such as Nero. Representatives of lower or marginal classes such as vilain (peasant), fol (fool) and messenger, for example, also belonged to the category of negative characters. The common function of all these personages was to exemplify the many deplorable faults of humankind in general, to incarnate sin and vice. The most impressive figures were undoubtedly demons and executioners, who played key roles in numerous pieces. Their popularity was based on a combination of exaggerated cruelty and brutality with obscene and ridiculous features: devils and hangmen of mystery plays were, at the same time, entertaining and extremely hideous figures. Consequently, they also were particularly efficient instruments of ideological (religious or other) propaganda. Play writers usually added abundant new material to the original story: many invented episodes and characters, a touch of everyday ‘realism’, appear in most of the pieces. Violent episodes in these plays were quite extensive and overexaggerated. The technical repertory of executioners on the stage was impressive and exotic, much more frightening than punitive spectacles of everyday urban reality. However, spectators could find some consolation in the fact that the champions of the Christian faith always survived as victors of all horrible torments. It has sometimes been suggested that the function of executioner scenes in mystery plays was to give a positive value to violence and pain, to make them pleasurable and enjoyable. Jody Enders, in her study, has stressed the positive meaning of hangman scenes. She has tried to back up her theories by digging up evidence about

154 This cyclical drama contains over 49 000 verses, so that it is improbable that it was often represented in its entity to medieval audiences. See Introduction in Le Mistére du Viel Testament, I, iv-viij, xij. One can meet executioners in many parts of this cycle. In the story of Esther (tome III), for example, the master hangman Gournay and his valet Micet are the central roles. These two characters without any mythical aspect epitomise particularly nicely many features typical of the executioner. 155 Of course, saints such as Saint Sebastian and Saint Lawrence were widely revered. 156 Mazouer 1998, 213-4, 217, 224-5.

50

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

medieval cruelty from various sources, for example, chronicles.157 She seeks to convince her readers about the callous turn of mind typical of late medieval people.158 However, there are also scholars who have a different opinion about the issue. I fully agree with R.L. Wadsworth, who even in 1970 suggested that function of torture scenes was to condemn the kind of violence and cruelty executioners’ exemplified as vile and sinful.159 In my view these scenes provide us with evidence about dislike of violence and brutality, their function was to evoke pity and compassion in the face of saintly sufferings and ease the process of identification, to stir up feelings of shame and guilt. It is evident to me that that playwrights exploited executioners’ figures not only to condemn ‘wrong’ kinds of violence and pitilessness but also to express and shape views relating to actual hangmen in urban reality. In other words, the play writers’ purpose was not only to teach Christian history but also transmit and establish their (leading classes’ and authorities’) views about the various agents of violence and of marginal groups.160 Such a goal is clearly expressed and made manifest, for example, in Le mystère de la Passion d’Arras from the first half of the fifteenth century. Eustache Marcadé has attempted here to explain and define to a larger audience the difference between two categories of professionals of violence (infamous and honourable). In one scene Herod has sent his soldier-executioners, tyrans, to kill the male children of Bethlehem. In the killing scene desperate mothers call Herod’s men murderers. One of them, Cadoc, resents this and stresses that he is actually a knight, ung chevalier. Another mother (La IIe femme) replies: Tu es ainçois ung faulx murdrier, Chevalier de bien ne d’honneur Ne feroit ja tel deshonneur, Ainçois ung bourrel, quant a mon fils A sans quelque cause occis! 161

.

157 Jody Enders has used, for example, the report on Pierre des Essarts’ execution in 1413 (See Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 60-1.) as an illustration of the pitilessness – or false pity – of late medieval people. According to the anonymous writer, Essarts only laughed on his way to the scaffold, whilst the Parisian people wept hot tears. Enders has stressed the contradiction between the spectators’ tears and the convict’s peculiar behaviour. She writes that the onlookers were so determined to have their catharsis that they ignored Essarts’ lack of dignity. It is plain that Enders is not familiar with the specific circumstances of this execution. One has good reason to presume that many spectators were in fact very upset by the sentence of Essarts, for he was widely popular amongst Parisians, as Colette Beaune has explained. Thus, they did not fake their pity but wept out of true compassion. As to the odd behaviour of the convict, the anonymous writer explicitly explains that Essarts laughed, because he still believed that he would be spared, a reason that Enders has disregarded. Enders has also totally omitted mentioning the essential fact (stressed at the end of this chronicle report) that when Essarts finally understood that he would not be pardoned, he played his role with exemplary dignity and humility. ‘Et sachez que, quand il vit qu’il convenait qu’il mourût, il s’agenouilla devant le bourrel, et baisa une petite image d’argent que le bourrel avait en sa poitrine, et lui pardonna sa mort moult doucement, et pria à tous les seigneurs que son fait ne fût point crié tant qu’il fût decollé, et on (le) lui octroya.’ Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 61. See Enders 1999, 190-1. 158 John Spalding Gatton has supported very similar views and has employed (misinterpreted) the same examples. See Gatton 1991, 80. 159 Wadsworth 1970. 160 Jelle Koopmans has also argued that one function of mystery plays was to affect and shape general mentalities related to marginality (otherness) and phenomena of exclusion in day-to-day reality. See Koopmans 1997. 161 Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 58.

51

CHAPTER 2

You are rather a false murderer, A noble and honourable knight Would never do such a dishonourable deed, But a hangman, who has my son Without any reason killed. The mother maintains that Cadoc is no better than an ordinary murderer or hangman, for any worthy knight would never commit such a vile act as to harm a young child. After this reply the killing scene continues and soon another mother (La IIIe femme) complains to a tyran called Jonatas that he is just like a hangman, and even worse in his cruelty, for a hangman only executes guilty persons on the orders of justice: Tu prens aux borriaulx leur office A faire ung si cruel malice, Et encore n’es tu pas tel Ne si bon comme est ung bourrel, Car ung bourrel ne fait point vice Quant c’est pour acomplir justice Qu’il fait une execution, Mais toy sans nulle occasion As occis mes deux beaux enfans.162 You take from hangmen their office When you do such a cruel felony, And yet you aren’t one Nor as good as a hangman, For a hangman doesn’t sin When in order to accomplish justice He carries out an execution, But you have without any reason Killed my two beautiful children. Eustache Marcadé thought and signalled that a hangman usually was the exact opposite to a perfect knight.163 He associated the executioner with criminals and murderers, even if he admitted, at the same time, that a hangman just executes the court’s orders; he is only a powerless instrument of justice. Thus this piece also crystallises the ambiguous notion of the hangman as a ‘necessary evil’, which was common amongst all social sections in late medieval society, also amongst those groups who did not particularly admire or appreciate other professionals of 162 Ibid., 59. 163 On late medieval conceptions of an ideal knight see, for example, Le livre du chevalier de La Tour Landry, 225. Whilst a worthy knight (le bon chevalier d’onneur) achieved his honour and good reputation by dangerous and violent physical exploits, a perfect lady obtained these virtues through quite different means: by observing chastity in her every action.

52

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

violence, knights and noble warriors, or those who did not cherish any ancient feudal values and ideals. On the one hand, the hangman was an opponent of crime who helped to restore and maintain social order. On the other hand, because of his functions, he appeared and was depicted in very similar terms to ordinary murderers as vile and sinful.164 At this point I must draw attention to the executioners’ functions in the field of art. By the end of the medieval period the imagery of violence also became prominent in religious iconography: not only depictions of Hell multiplied but also those showing the passion of Christ and torturing of martyrs in a very detailed way. Consequently, the role of executioners became more and more central. While artists had not wanted to represent death and suffering before the late Middle Ages, in the fifteenth century these were major themes. Émile Mâle has epitomised this change by writing that whereas the keyword of the Christian faith was earlier ‘to love’, by the end of the Middle Ages it seemed to be ‘to suffer’. In pictorial art (just as in religious literature), all the details of Christ’s and the martyrs’ suffering were subjected to close examination.165 One essential aim of these depictions was to provoke strong religious emotions. One could meet numerous executioner figures torturing and maiming Christian martyrs in illuminated devotional literature, for example, in so-called livres d’heures, books of hours. These were prayer books, the name of which was derived from the eight canonical hours, canoniales, that marked the ecclesiastical day. The book of hours was the most popular genre of devotional literature in the late Middle Ages. A personal book of hours was a visible sign of wealth and social status.166 While miniatures in the illuminated manuscripts were made for the select eyes of 164 Eustache Marcadé (c. 1390–1440) was a Bachelor of arts (theology) and later, provost of Dampierre, judge (official) of the abbey of Corbie (1414), prior of Ham (1423). He was promoted Doctor of Canon Law at Paris in 1437 and Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law in 1439. Besides Le mystère de la Passion d’Arras he is the author of the Mystère de la Vengeance de Notre Seigneur. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 432; Bordier 1998, 401. It is evident that particularly the members of leading secular groups in late medieval society sought to underline and stress the distance between different categories of professionals of violence, respectable and infamous. It is noteworthy that in this scene, the Jewish knight, Cadoc, is defined as not socially but morally lower than a hangman. This was a way to underline the cruelty and injustice of his actions as well as the tyranny of Herod, who had given this order. It must be observed that even if public authorities often stressed that the hangman was only a powerless servant of justice and did not sin when carrying out of his duties, they were not consistent in their view. Two sentences by the court of Antwerp show that the hangman could be held responsible for his actions even if he only followed orders from his superiors. In 1425 and in 1493 the court of Bergen-op-Zoom had arrested and tortured a citizen from Antwerp. The Antwerp judges condemned not only the schout and the drost but also the executioner. In both cases the hangman had to go on a pilgrimage. Spierenburg 1984, 33. 165 Mâle 1995, 85-6, 89-90. 166 This genre became more popular from the thirteenth century on. The book of hours was originally born as a supplement to the Psalter (a book of psalms of the Old Testament, psautier) and received influences from breviaries (a priest’s book containing the prayers, hymns, psalms, and readings for the canonical hours). A particularly important source of inspiration was a collection of saint stories written by Jacopus da Voragine at the end of the thirteenth century, the Golden Legend. The book of hours often contained an illustrated calendar, which represented various activities typical of different months of the year and astrological signs. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the heyday of the book of hours. New manuscript ateliers were started up continuously. In France important centres for the production of manuscripts in 1430–1450 were Paris and Amiens. Avril & Lisiecki 2002, 7-10. For the illuminated manuscripts in France 1440–1520, see Avril & Raynaud 1993. And for the manuscript illumination in Europe in 1200–1420, see Avril 1995. Important ateliers of illumination were also founded in numerous Flemish towns.

53

CHAPTER 2

aristocrats and wealthy persons, sacred art in churches – altarpieces, tapestries, stained glass windows, and statues – were aimed at a larger audience. Here ordinary people also had an opportunity to see torturers of Christian martyrs and contemplate the meaning of their portrayals. These pictures not only expressed but also moulded past people’s ways of viewing violence and its agents. In the Middle Ages the central purpose of art was to teach, to make large audiences meditate upon right and wrong, virtues and vices. It is quite understandable that in this period of great illiteracy art had an important educational function (besides popular sermons and drama). It was commonly thought that the pictures in public edifices such as churches were kinds of books for the poor and unlearned.167 The purpose of pictures was not only to educate and to evoke feelings of devotion, but also to impress and even to frighten.168 Pictures did not have the same kind of object quality as they have today. Especially, religious pictures functioned often as ritual tools that made possible communication with the other world, the hereafter, between the profane and sacral reality. Contemplating the images of saints was believed to be useful and to help establish contact with them.169 In the Middle Ages the boundary between a pictorial representation and its prototype was unclear. The visual experience of a saint could be therefore beneficial and valuable, and it could be also attained through a dramatic presentation. Similarly, the picture of a demonic figure could have harmful effects on spectators. Medieval people believed that pictures – statues and paintings – had sometimes a sensory awareness and that they could possess supernatural powers and behave like living creatures: to bleed, to revenge injuries, etc.170 Some scholars have estimated that late medieval artists were heavily influenced by drama and especially mystery plays when shaping their martyr iconography,171 whilst others think that pictorial art had a significant influence on dramatic works, but not vice versa.172 As Hervé Martin has stressed, pictures, sermons, and the theatre constituted inseparable elements in one and the same religious teaching in the Middle Ages. The enormous allegory constructed by religious discourse permitted the animation of a kind of imaginary theatre that sculptors and painters could easily fix in their images and that dramaturges could put on the 167 Some modern scholars have noted that churchgoers could not easily examine the small details of stained-glass windows. In addition, the teachings of stained glass were no more accessible to many believers than the written word of the Bible, as a great part of the cathedral was closed to ordinary folk: these could examine only a restricted part of its ‘stone bible’. Martin 1996, 77. 168 Le Goff 1988, 350-1; Robert 1993, 36. Mâle 1995, iv. The learned often stressed the educational function and power of art in the Middle Ages. A Norman monk wrote c. 1460 about the power of images – in good as well as in bad – and said that saintly pictures stimulated devotion (‘Elles introduisent de façon sensible la pensée de ces figures dans l’esprit, ce qui sert beaucoup à stimuler la dévotion.’) and thus made prayers more efficient. At the same time it was dangerous to have sinful painted pictures (‘images luxurieuses’) inside homes, as many did, for these tempted men to sin. Therefore, the power of pictures had to be harnessed to serve the purpose of good. Martin 1996, 99. 169 Jean-Claude Schmitt observes, ‘À la fin du moyen âge, regarder les saintes images n’était pas seulement une opération de sens (sensus), mais un acte d’imaginatio dont on espérait qu’il pouvait transformer les êtres, dans leur chair et, mieux encore, dans leur âme.’ Schmitt 2002, 362. 170 Davidson 1986, 3; Martin 1996, 101; Sot, Guerreau-Jalabert & Boudet 1997, 173; Davidson 2002, 255. On the functions of religious pictures in the later Middle Ages, see also Baxandal 1972, 40-3. 171 Cohen 1951, 111-2; Mâle 1995, 35, 81; Heers 1997, 127; Kluckert 1999, 421. 172 Davidson 2001, 68-9; Mulvaney 2001, 179.

54

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

scene.173 Thus the different forms of cultural production impressed each other. Artists gave visual form to the same conceptions and opinions related to executioners that were transmitted in verbal form in literary works as well as in everyday language. Everyday realities also nourished artistic production, as shown by Samuel Y. Edgerton and Mitchel B. Merback.174 Events in the distant past were depicted in a contemporary urban setting175 in order to facilitate the processes of identification. At the same time, the boundaries between past and present, sacred and secular time, became blurred.176 In brief, in the Middle Ages pictures were efficacious instruments of propaganda used by the Church and religion, or the king and state.177 Pictures served to stigmatise wrongdoers and sinners, to praise the monarch or God. The hangman figures often played a crucial role in these efforts to exert influence. Some scholars have maintained that the function of torture scenes in religious art was to give a positive value to violence and pain. They claim that when analysing the testimony of late medieval religious art, saturated with martyr scenes and macabre details, one should not overestimate the medieval alterity,178 and that actually, violent elements provide us with evidence of a liking for cruelty, about the voyeuristic or sadistic inclinations of people in the past. In other words, torture iconography would have had the capacity to signify erotically and that in many paintings violence was aestheticised, made pleasurable.179 Of course, in the Middle Ages as today, several alternative readings were possible. However, I feel that it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the alterity of a past culture and overstress a liking for violence and cruelty in the late medieval period. As Émile Mâle has observed, the fundamental goal of passion iconography was not to emphasise or glorify pain, but the love of God, who had suffered and died for men, and the triumph of these Christian martyrs.180 It is clear to me that in art, just as in late medieval theatre, the essential function of violent elements in executioner scenes was to facilitate identification and evoke compassion. When one becomes familiar not only with the iconographic 173 ‘Les homélies, en effet, faisaient défiler des “tableaux vivants”, tout en comportant des monologues et des dialogues dignes de théâtre. Sur la scène, les acteurs mimaient des tableaux et prononçaient des harangues édifiantes. Enfin les images “parlaient” abondamment, par les inscriptions qu’elles comportaient, et pouvaient être agencées comme des scènes de mystères. On peut, de ce fait, estimer que la pédagogie religieuse du bas Moyen Age présentait une profonde cohérence.’ Martin 1996, 100, 289. 174 Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment (1985); Merback, The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel (1999). 175 Of course, in religious pictures the city itself was an ambiguous setting. It could refer to power, order and security, as a contrast to the chaos and danger of wilderness. However, it could also point to the depravity of humans (‘Sodoma’), and appear as a locus of vice and sin. 176 This does not mean that medieval people did not have any historical awareness (– even if the passing of terrestrial time was not conceived as being very important from the viewpoint of eternity). On medieval perceptions of time, see for example Gurevich 1992. Van Buren has shown that there were, in fact, some artists who in their works, wanted to take historical changes into consideration more carefully than was usual, for example, when depicting dressing styles. See van Buren 1995, 515-25. 177 Martin 1996, 109, 120-2. 178 According to Mills, this critical tendency has derived from false notions of moral superiority and ethical progression, modern projects of self-definition. Mills 2002, 201, 207. On meanings of pain and ways to depict it in medieval culture, see also Cohen 2000, 37-68. Cohen is one of the critics of modernistic views. 179 Mills 2002, 206, 207. George Ryley Scott has also stressed the ‘erotic rage’ that shadowed the penal culture of the Middle Ages. Scott 1996. 180 Mâle 1995, 85-6, 89-90.

55

CHAPTER 2

language but also with the larger cultural contexts, patterns of thinking typical of late medieval people (concerning pain and compassion), one will discover that the martyr scenes actually contain an abundance of signs, particularly in the executioner’s portrayal, signalling the condemnation of aggression and cruelty (– of Christ’s and the saints’ torturers and in general, in every man). Most often, violent elements and tortured bodies were intended and interpreted in a negative sense; these powerful signs did not stem from (or evoke) enjoyment or erotic satisfaction but very negative thoughts and feelings. The essential purpose of violence was to bring the suffering of Christ and martyrs to the view and consciousness of believers in a more powerful and effective way, evoke pity and admiration.181 At the same time, the goal was to affect ways of viewing the violence. These pictures were meant as an analogy for the biblical phrase: ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’. (Lc 23.34.) The cruelty of executioners was labelled wrongful and condemnable. It must be observed that late medieval people could also see artistic depictions of executioners in profane contexts, for example, in illuminated secular manuscripts such as chronicles, historical texts and legal texts, but not so often as a modern person might perhaps presume. Occasionally, the hangman could also appear in other categories of illuminated secular manuscripts, for example, in such texts as the Astrologia Judiciaria,182 alchemical treatises,183 or in vernacular versions of ancient philosophers’ works, such as Aristotle’s famous treatises on ethics184 and politics.185 It is worth noting that most of the secular miniatures depicted notorious judgments in the pagan past, bad justice of ‘others’, or judgments considered excessive even if ordered by a legitimate authority. This choice of topic naturally reflected on portrayals of hangmen. A fine example is provided by the illuminated manuscript of Titus Livius’ Roman history, today in the collections of the Biblitohèque nationale de France.186 Miniatures show us several famous executions such as the quartering of Metteus, considered as exceptional (that is, unseen and not suitable for the 181 In countless pictures the martyrs’ composed faces and gestures signalled their unfailing faith and virtue; these saintly individuals were spiritually beyond human suffering. The contrast was sharp with expressions typical of ordinary sinners (tortured persons as well as their torturers), the message was clear to medieval spectators. These themes will be analysed in depth in chapter 5. 182 BN ms. lat. 7432, fol. 103v. I wish to express my warmest thanks to Dr Hanno Wijsman (University of Leiden) for pointing me out this interesting manuscript in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. 183 See for example Torment of the Metals, illustrations in the Book of the Holy Trinity (Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit, 1415–1419) attributed to Ulmannus and in S. Trismosin, Splendor solis, London 16th c. Pictures published in Roob 2005, 208, 209, 211. Ulmannus’ work is one of the earliest and most remarkable testimonies to a way of thinking that compounds the representation of the chemical process with Christian mysticism and iconography. 184 Le Livre d’Ethiques d’Aristote. BN ms. fr. 541, fol. 162r. The miniature (c. 1441) is situated at the end of Aristotle’s Book VII on friendship (understood in a broad meaning). The miniature depicts a difficult dilemma: who must be saved by ransom when one must choose between two persons: a father or a son, a father or a friend, or a friend or a son? The victims are on their knees beside a wooden execution block, whilst the executioners (6) are depicted in varying postures, depending on the case. See also Raynaud 2002, 643. 185 Hangmen appear as attributes of different types of bad government in a miniature in Aristotle’s Politiques. The tyranny is associated with the severe pains of mutilation and burning, the oligarchy with less humiliating penalties (execution by the sword) and the demos with physical penalties considered mild (flogging, pillory). See Le mauvais gouvernement: tyrannie, oligarchie, démocratie. Aristotle, Politiques, Coll. part., fol. 3v. Picture published in La librarie de Charles V. BN 1968., pl. 22. 186 The Histoires de Titus Livius, a fifteenth century manuscript. BN ms. fr. 20313.

56

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

Roman system) and inhuman by the writer himself.187 Other good examples are the official chronicles of the King of France188 and the widely read work of Jean Froissart.189 In chronicles and historical texts, one essential purpose of illustrations was to signal that violence was the privilege of the King and the state.190 The figure of the executioner could be exploited in commenting sentences, in signalling favourable or unfavourable opinions, a technique that will be discussed later.191 While manuscript illuminations were made for a privileged, high-ranked clientele, paintings that decorated the walls of town halls were aimed at a larger audience. From the beginning of the fourteenth century particularly, depictions of the Last Judgement started to multiply inside courthouses and became a fundamental image of law and order, the icon of communal justice.192 Later, during the fifteenth century the iconography of justice was enriched by new secular themes such as the justices of Cambyses, Otho and Trajan.193 The new role of the executioner in the pictures of communal justice is an important phenomenon and was connected with the establishment of the institution of the official hangman. Judicial iconography provides for the historian a valuable testimony about the representations the authorities made of themselves, of lesser agents, and of their job, the law, that was intended to be the main instrument that regulated the communal life. Important evidence is offered to us, for example, by the huge diptych by Gerard David,194 the Judgment of Cambyses (1498) today exhibited at the Groeninge Museum in Bruges. It was commanded by the local councillors to be hung in the courtroom of their City Hall. The legend of Cambyses tells about a Persian prince who ordered a judge (Sisamnes) who had had accepted a bribe in return for delivering a false judgment to be skinned alive. At that time the topic was very fashionable and David’s painting attracted numerous imitators.195 These facts give us reason 187 In Titus Livius’ text one paragraph tells how Metteus was torn in pieces with four horses, a sentence that was found extremely cruel and inhuman by the writer. He was upset because he thought that no other civilisation had employed as moderate punishments as Romans. Later he also comments on the wrongful drowning of Turnus, who had been set up and condemned as a traitor. See also BN ms. fr. 30. 188 In the richly illuminated fourteenth-century manuscript of the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V, the hangman appears in five illustrations that all concern notorious executions (Queen Brunhildis, the traitor Ganelon, Thomas de Marle, Norman knights, Pierre the Cruel of Spain). BN ms. fr. 2813. In the fifteenthcentury version (BN mss fr. 20352-3) one can see numerous famous executions. In a version illuminated by Jean Fouquet the executioner appears only once, in a picture depicting the burning of heretics at the stake on the orders of King Philippe August. BN ms. fr. 6465, fol. 236r. 189 Hangmen appear, for example, in a fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicles (BN mss fr. 2643-46.) The miniatures date from the period of 1470–1475 and were made by Loyset Liédet in Bruges for Louis de Gruuthuse, chamberlain of Charles the Bold, one of the great lords of the Burgundian court. Ellena 2002, 68. 190 Raynaud 1990. 191 See chapters 4 and 5. Of course, ‘otherness’ was an essential aspect of the hangman in late medieval imagery. A hangman was not expected to be ‘good’ in the fundamental sense of the notion. 192 Edgerton 1985, 22, 203. 193 Robert 1993, 29. 194 Gerard David (1460–1523) was born in Oudewater (Holland). He probably received his training in his native town and in Haarlem. By 1484 he lived in Bruges and was admitted into the painter’s corporation. He ran a successful workshop there for forty years. His commissions came from prominent ecclesiastics and the municipal authorities. David took over Hans Memling’s leading role following the latter’s death in 1494. David was influenced by the great fifteenth century masters such as Van Eyck, Van der Goes and Memling. In addition, he was receptive to the great artistic renewal coming out of Italy. His Judgement of Cambyses is one of the earliest Flemish paintings to highlight Renaissance elements (festoons, putti, etc.). Smets 2000, 28-30. 195 For example, the authorities of Mons also ordered a painting on the same theme in 1497–1498. Jacob 1994, 66.

57

CHAPTER 2

to believe that the painting offers us important information about past people’s values and opinions, not so much about David’s personal ideals and notions, but those of his clients, the honourable counsellors of Bruges. Whilst the left-hand panel of David’s diptych depicts the arrest of Sisamnes, the right-hand panel shows his penalty. Skinning was not a common form of punishment in the later Middle Ages but was perceived as a pagan and cruel practice.196 This legendary theme suited well the purposes of the Bruges authorities. The depiction of skinning helped to catch the spectators’ attention. The artist has portrayed the authorities and spectators as passive and rigid, as was usual. Their lack of gesticulation reflected a higher social status and virtue. The convict’s face is distorted because of the severe pain. His grimacing face speaks out the truth about his guilt and justly deserved punishment. The executioners are depicted as composed and calm, totally concentrated in their task, just as neutral and skilled professionals were expected to be. The painting was intended not only to impress and frighten (especially some potential malefactors) but also to transmit the message about the ‘good justice’ practised in the town of Bruges – justice, that was righteous, efficacious, severe and equal.197 Obviously, such a message was supposed to appear as comforting to respectable, law-abiding citizens. Undoubtedly, a scholar belonging to the ‘school of medieval cruelty’ could also easily be tempted to use David’s painting and similar pictures as evidence of medieval man’s cruelty, his indifference or satisfaction in the face of the suffering of convicts. It is understandable that a modern person often finds spectators of public execution ceremonies portrayed as strangely passive, as if totally indifferent. However, it must be remembered that at that time, the artist’s aim was not to faithfully depict actual spectators’ attitudes but their ideal gestures and attitudes, those of good and virtuous citizens. The lack of expressiveness and gesticulation was meant and understood as a sign that referred to high status, virtue and reason. For this reason innocent, saintly victims were depicted without expressions, whilst great sinners identified themselves by their tormented gestures and grotesque grimaces.198 Pagan tyrants, malevolent spectators and evil executioners often shared these features. Artists very skilfully exploited several iconographical codes when they wanted express their view about the sentence and various involved actors. In fact, there exists abundant evidence suggesting that late medieval people often disliked brutal violence, that they were perfectly capable of feeling and expressing deep compassion and pity. The main difference between medieval and mo196 The horror of skinning is reflected, for example, in chroniclers’ reports about violent clashes between supporters of Armagnac and Burgundian parties in Paris in 1418. Riff-raff ill-treated the corpses of butchered enemies: ‘Et les corps du connestable, du chancelier, et de Remonnet de la Guerre furent tous desnuez et mis et liez ensemble d’une corde par trois jours, et là les traynoient de place à autres les mauvais enfans de Paris. Et avoit ledit connestable de travers son corps en manière de bende ostée de sa pel environ deux dois de large par grande desrision.’ Monstrelet, La Chronique, III, 271; see also Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, Chronique, I, 332. 197 It is not farfetched to presume that the authorities of Bruges wished to get rid of their unfavourable (‘cruel’) reputation. Too many persons still remembered the ‘tirannies injuste et desraisonable’ of the year 1488, for example, those public torturing spectacles organised in the market place of Bruges. Persons subjected to severe torture were former councillors suspected of deceit. According to Jean Molinet, who strongly disapproved of this affair, the procedure was so atrocious that finally the victims begged for death. Molinet, Chroniques, I, 599600. 198 The experience of severe pain was associated with sin and deserved punishment.

58

HANGMEN IN URBAN REALITY AND FICTION

dern man lies more at the conceptual level, in notions about what is cruel and what is pitiful, rather than on the emotional level, in the capability to feel pity. It must be underlined, once again, that in the Middle Ages (just as in every epoch) multiple perceptions of cruelty existed and these varied over time and depended on specific cultural, social, and political contexts. In a general way, late medieval men were very sensitive to cruelty and also extremely skilful in exploiting the concepts for a multitude of purposes.199 The most evident testimony about late medieval persons’ great sensitivity toward cruelty and pain is offered us by the countless representations and depictions of the horrors of Hell. For people in the past the locus and kingdom of pain was Hell, where the terrible feature of suffering was its endlessness. It is important to bear in mind that in the late Middle Ages fear of death was fundamentally fear of a bad death, which signified never-ending pain. In Paradise the blessed were freed from all sensations of pain, whilst in purgatory, its duration was limited. This chastising but purifying pain was not imagined as being severe and unbearable as those sufferings that awaited sinners in Hell. Purgatorial pain was more impersonal in the sense that there would be no hideous, sadistic and malevolent torturers (like demons).200 As mentioned earlier, all positive explanations for the beneficial aspects of pain (as a purifying experience) must be understood as techniques for taming the fear and anxiety evoked by the idea of pain. At the end of the Middle Ages, the threat of pain was a powerful instrument of manipulation, persuasion and coercion in the use of authorities (ecclesiastical or temporal). In the period of the late Middle Ages the fear of (bad) death was particularly pervasive and manifested itself in many forms. People were continually reminded about the never-ending torments of Hell, the terrible sufferings of the last agony and the horrors of decomposition by means of sermons, literature, and pictures.201 At the same time their feelings of guilt were forcefully stirred up by drawing attention to innocent saintly victims who had suffered and died for the sins of mankind: all believers were told to focus their attention on their own sinful and evil souls.202 Jean Delumeau has suggested that all these works on suffering and death expressed a homogeneous discourse that at the same time revealed both the fear caused by the violence experienced and the emotions caused by the revenge one dreamed of. The question concerned an objectivisation generated by the general climate of fear.203 The impressive penal system in the hereafter was fashioned to 199 Daniel Baraz has discussed in depth the complex problem of cruelty in his study and he underlines that perceptions of cruelty are not only subjective but also shaped to a considerable degree by cultural factors. Baraz 2003, 2-3. 200 The best guide to sensory experiences (punishments and rewards) in hereafter is obviously Dante. See Dante, La Divina Commedia. See also Le Goff 1981. 201 The Church’s teaching focused much more on Hell than on other places in the hereafter, Paradise or Purgatory. Vovelle 1983, 133-9. On the background factors of the Church’s aims and politics, see Chélini 1968, 413-26; Rapp 1971. 202 Jean Delumeau has studied how different fears and a general feeling of guilt become more prominent in West European culture from the later Middle Ages on. Henchmen of Evil, who threatened Christian society both from outside and inside, became targets of precise description and definition. See Delumeau 1978, Delumeau 1983. 203 Delumeau 1978, 20.

59

CHAPTER 2

serve the same ends and purposes as that of earthly judicial reality: both aimed at keeping the society of Christians on the narrow path and under the control of the leading authorities (ecclesiastical or lay) by producing a discourse based on the threat of pain (not only physical but also mental). Obviously, beliefs and notions related to these two realms of punitive pain inspired, nourished and supported each other.204 It would be a grave mistake indeed not to take into consideration, when examining ways of seeing and ways of feeling related to executioners in late medieval culture, the context of the hereafter, the general religious climate of the period where the keywords were guilt and perdition.205 Earthly executioners and their colleagues from the other world (not only their methods and instruments but also their figures) were often imagined and portrayed as being fairly alike. In theological writings and sermons as well as in the popular literature demons regularly appeared as the ‘executioners of Hell’.206 In countless miniatures and paintings this idea found its visual expression in a very impressive way. Hell was a gigantic torture chamber or gibbet, a place of eternal suffering and eternal death. In depictions of the Gibbet of Hell late medieval spectators could see demons performing tasks similar to hangmen: they hanged sinners, burnt them on spits, boiled them in cauldrons, etc.207 One has good reason to presume that hangmen evoked more or less strong feelings of repulsion and fear everywhere they appeared, because they brought to peoples’ minds both the idea of a bad death and all the pain, desperation and horror this included, as well as the gnawing feeling of guilt, suspicions about darkness that could hide in every individual’s soul. Preachers and theologians skilfully stirred up such fears in their audiences. It was commonly thought and declared that all mankind was corrupt, depraved, insane, and on the way to destruction. When contemplating a hangman – a real or fictitious one – late medieval man experienced anxiety and horror, because he could recognise in this figure both the demon as well as his own evil being, ‘inner hangman’, sinful ‘self’.

204 Jérôme Baschet has examined Hell’s changing imagery at the end of the Middle Ages. According to Baschet, tradition ‘natural’ tortures (ice-cold streams, wells full of snakes, etc.) were slowly substituted by instrumental ones. Baschet 1985, 1993. Tools and instruments familiar from the domestic milieu or urban context served to make Hell a still more powerful instrument of conditioning for the Church. For the imagery of Devil from the high Middle Ages to the modern times, see Muchembled 2000. 205 Spierenburg, for example, has disregarded this context. Spierenburg 1984. 206 Cohen 1990, 297. 207 See, for example, D’Enfer et de la qualite des peines pardurables in Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 298v. The manuscript was commanded by Jacques d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours. Miniatures were made by Master François. He has depicted the punishments of Hell on three levels. In the upper right corner one can see a gibbet with four pillars. Among sinners one can spot high-ranked ecclesiastics, fashionable ladies and knights.

60

CHAPTER 3

NAMING THE HANGMAN Il a ung nom fascheux et ennuyeux, qui semble estre cruel, et severe, et pas humain. Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion

Language provides men with their most basic grid and it has served for sorting out experiences and reality at different cultures in different times. By naming things people allot them to linguistic categories that help to organise the world. As Robert Darnton has put it: ‘To name is to know – to fit something in a taxonomic system of classification.’1 Language mirrors society’s concepts and also modifies them; language is one of the embodiments of social or mental life. It offers important keys to any study that aims to examine the mental universe of people in the past.2 In this chapter I will cast light on the representations of executioners by examining different associations, accents and strategies in late medieval vocabulary. First, I shall study the various professional names of the office of the hangman in both official language and in popular speech. In the next section I focus on personal names – fictitious or real – and discuss how these could be exploited to classify and define the executioner figures. After this journey into the labyrinths of medieval terminology it will be refreshing to make a total about-turn. In the third section I will concentrate on studying silence and explore how namelessness was also used as an instrument of transmitting opinions about the hangman.

1 2

Darnton 1990, 336. Duby 1961, 953-5. Georges Duby has written: ‘Parmi ces “outils”, dont l’étude, en effet, s’impose, vient en premier lieu le langage – entendons les divers moyens d’expression que l’individu reçoit du groupe social où il vit, et qui servent de cadre à toute sa vie mentale. Comment pénétrer dans la conscience des hommes de tel milieu, comment expliquer leur conduite, les relations qu’ils entretiennent, essayer de voir le monde et autrui par leurs yeux mêmes, sans bien connaître le vocabulaire qu’ils emploient – ou plutôt les vocabulaires, car beaucoup d’hommes en utilisent plusieurs, adaptés aux différents groupes où il s’insèrent…’ As Robert Marichal has reminded us, ‘Un historien ne doit jamais aborder l’histoire d’une idée ou d’une institution sans faire méthodiquement et exhaustivement l’histoire des mots par lesquels on l’a exprimée ou désignée.’ Marcihal observes that ‘L’étude de la langue amène la critique à dépasser dans l’étude d’un texte le sens purement littéral; elle découvre des habitudes de pensée, des attitudes intellectuelles, des façons de sentir qui l’éclairent en profondeur. L’historien parvient alors à isoler des conventions, des idées reçues, des modes qui sont comme autant d’écrans, des filtres, comme disent les photographes, qui se sont interposés entre les faits et l’écrivain, entre la réalité et ce qu’en pensaient les contemporains.’ Marichal 1961, 1326-7. See also Schmitt 1990, 22; Martin 1996, 18-20, 55-6; Schmitt 1998, 380, 384; Pastoureau 2004, 15.

61

CHAPTER 3

3.1 Professional Names In official language as well as in the literary works of the educated upper classes, of the late medieval scholars and authorities, one can meet expressions referring to the hangman such as executeur de la haulte justice and maître des haultes œuvres. The latter two designations referred to the public executioner’s role as the representative of those judges that hold the highest jurisdiction, les hauts justiciers, the only persons that had the jus gladii and could issue death sentences. The right of haute justice belonged to princes, to seigneurs, and to royal judges.3 One may think that the expressions executeur de la haulte justice and maître des haultes œuvres had quite a neutral or even flattering tone. These emphasised the purely instrumental role of the executioner under criminal justice: an official hangman was a servant of the legitimate authority, an agent of their good justice that was righteous, severe and impartial. He represented law and order in civilised society and was thus an opponent of crime, chaos and wilderness. However, the pejorative term bourreau also appears often in the same official sources. The term bourreau was, in fact, the most common expression referring to the hangman in the everyday language of the fifteenth century.4 It was also a popular insult, and a very serious one. As observed by some scholars, this fact is one clear indication of a general hostility towards judicial violence and the unpopularity of capital penalties5 and the official executioner. The theories about the origin of the term bourreau have been quite controversial. In Old French, ancien français, the word bourre (or bourrel) referred to stuffing or padding in the thirteenth century and from the fourteenth century on it referred to a hangman.6 It has sometimes been suggested that the origin of this term had to do with the reddish colour of the stuffing material used for the official hangman’s habit.7 One can, however, ignore this explanation, because the hangman’s clothing had no fixed colour in late medieval society and culture.8 According to another theory, this term associated the executioner with the stuffer, bourrelier. This was a professional who padded various pieces of furniture and accessories, such as saddles, the collars of armour (un gorgerin) and corselets with wool, horsehair, and hemp.9 It has been proposed that this term was well suited to a professional hangman, who had to ‘stuff’ the necks of convicts with a hemp rope. According to Armand Ziwès, the only argument against this interpretation is in the fact that the official executioner was not only a hangman, but 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

62

Loiseleur 1863, 270-1; Franklin 1906, 99. The term executeur was used for persons who carried out the statutes of (civil) justice and supervised, for example, the accomplishing of wills. See Lettres de Charles VII, pour la réformation de la Justice, Montil-lès-Tours, 1453–1454 in Ordonnances des roys de France, vol. 14, 284-314. One can meet the term bourreau, for example, in French textbooks that were used in Bruges in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Le livre des mestiers de Bruges et ses dérivés, 39, 46, 53. Braun 1989, 104; Gauvard 1995, 284. On using the word ‘hangman’ as an insult, see section 6.1. Sainéan 1972, 194. André Lanly thinks that word bourre meant ‘hemp’ (chanvre) and thus a rope (corde). See Lanly’s comments in Villon, Ballades en jargon, 42. Ziwès 1960, 109. See chapter 4. Stuffers (bourreliers) were, according to a statute from the year 1268 ‘fesers de coliers à cheval et de dossières de seles, et de toute autre manière de bourelerie apartenant à chareterie fete de cuir de vache et de chevaux’. Franklin 1906, 102.

NAMING THE HANGMAN

he also flogged, decapitated, and boiled convicted criminals.10 One can imagine, however, that for medieval people the public executioner was first and foremost a professional of hanging, for it was particularly in this role or function that people were used to seeing him in everyday life. As has already been explained, this mode of execution was by far the commonest amongst the tasks of an executioner. In larger towns, most (70 per cent) capital sentences were by hanging.11 The association of the public executioner with the stuffer may have served to express and strengthen the mental image of a harsh and heavy-handed professional of violence who treated convicts as indifferently as some inanimate objects. The adaptation of the term bourreau in the sense of the professional executioner in everyday language is an important phenomenon. It is an expression of the ambiguous thoughts, attitudes and feelings that the appearance of the new institution (of the hangman) evoked among late medieval people. As Norbert Elias has observed, the more or less sudden emergence of words within language nearly always points to changes in the lives of people themselves, particularly when the new concepts are destined to become central and long-lived.12 I find it quite significant that during the later Middle Ages educated persons clearly preferred the word bourreau to more neutral expressions. Of course, there might have existed simply practical reasons: the term bourreau was shorter to write than executeur de la haute justice. But at the same time, all writers were well aware of the term’s pejorative or insulting tone. The term bourreau was favoured, for example, in documentary texts originating from Parisian jurisdictions. In the criminal register of the Parliament of Paris (1319–1350), where one can find a reference to a hangman in only a single case (1333), the chosen word is bourriau (‘Nicolas, le bourriau’, ‘ledit Nicolas, le bourriau’).13 In the Registre criminel de Sainte-Geneviève from the fourteenth and fifteenth century, one can find two references, in 1300 and in 1421. In the first case the chosen word is bourreau (‘Estevenot le bourrel’), whilst in the second the scribe has employed both expressions (‘Jehan Tiphainne executeur de la haulte justice du Roy, nostre sire, en la ville de Paris’, ‘le dit executeur ou bourreau’, ‘le dit executeur’).14 In the latter case, the employment of a neutral term is quite understandable; the official hangman had carried out a punishment of a worst sort of criminal, a heretic, on the orders of royal justice. In the Registre criminel de Saint-Martin-des Champs from the first part of the fourteenth century the hangman does not appear in his official role but as a prisoner, in 1337,15 and as a tenant of a brothel in rue Saint Denis, in 1346,16 the chosen term being, significantly, bourreau. In a document from the end of fourteenth 10 11 12 13 14

Ziwès 1960, 109. See section 2.1 and Chiffoleau 1984, 238; Geremek 1987, 50-61. Elias I 1983, 54. Confessions et jugements de criminels au parlement de Paris (1319–1350), 43. Registre criminel de Sainte-Geneviève, 362, 397-8. In the first example (13.10.1300) the scribe reports the hanging of Jehannot de Gisors, serrurier, for thieving (‘pour pluseurs larrecins’) and lists persons present at the execution. The hangman is mentioned last. The second case (6.4.1421) concerns the punishment of Colin Fauchu, an aide of a butcher, who was put on the pillory of St Geneviève in the place Maubert because he had ‘regnié et malgroié nostre Seigneur Jésus Chris, en venant contre les ordonnances’. He wore a mitre and had to stay in the pillory from eight o’clock to the noon. Then Jehannot was put in the prison of St Geneviève. 15 ‘Colart Provignon, bourrel de Paris’ – he had wounded a prostitute Famette la lorraine, called ‘la crespinienne’, and was condemned to pay fines. Registre criminel de Saint-Martin-des Champs, 496-7. 16 ‘Colart le bourriau’ – a prostitute called Marguot la roussginolle staying in his house was imprisoned after having stolen some money from a cleric named Adam d’Exestre. Ibid., 547.

63

CHAPTER 3

century defining the rights of the public executioner of Paris, the anonymous scribe has also used the word bourel.17 In a royal ordinance dealing with the interests of the public executioner of Paris from the year 1480, which renewed the statutes issued at the end of the fourteenth century, the term bourreau (bourel) has been substituted by the word executeur.18 Perhaps, one can see this change as one symptom of the need of the Parisian public authorities to support and consolidate more vigorously the official executioner’s status.19 Chroniclers, too, were fond of the term bourreau. The famous and widely read Jean Froissart (c. 1337–c.1404) employed this term when writing about justice of ‘others’ (Englishmen) but, also, when commenting on some executions ordered by the King of France.20 Enguerrand de Monstrelet (c. 1390–1453), who during his life occupied different official functions (for example, the bailiff of Compiègne and provost of Cambrai), refers, in his chronicle, to the hangman exclusively by the term bourel.21 In the anonymous Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris from the beginning of the fifteenth century, considered one of the most important testimonies of its kind and of the general mental climate in late medieval Paris,22 the same term also prevails.23 The writer has only once used the term ‘master’ (maître).24 17 BN ms. fr. 21731, fol. 332r. 18 Ibid., fol. 331r. See also BN ms. fr. 7645, fols 331r-332r. 19 In documents relating to the payments of executioners at Paris, Evreux, Rouen, Lisieux and Laon from the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century both the term executeur and also terms bourrel and maistre occur. Desmaze 1866, 36, 77-87, 90-5. In documentary sources originating from Bruges and the central Flemish administration (in the fifteenth century) the following terms appear: bourel (boureel), pendeur, hangheman, meester van deer hooger justicie. See Van Severen, Inventaire des chartes des archives de la ville de Bruges, III, 1875, 201-2; Van Werveke, Gentse Stads- en baljuwsrekeningen (1351–1364), 1970, 13-14, 680-1; Van Rompaey, Het grafelijk baljuwsambt in Vlaanderen tijdens de Boergondische periode, 1967, 52. I thank Professor Wim Blockmans (University of Leiden) for having pointed me out these studies. 20 BN ms. fr. 2645, fol. IIc XLr; ms. fr. 2646, fols 30r, 42r. Froissart was a protégé of the counts of Hainaut. In 1361 he was appointed secretary to Philippa, a daughter of Count Guillaume and wife to King Edward III of England. The Queen sent him on several trips abroad, to Scotland, France and Italy. After Philippa’s death, in 1369, Froissart returned to Hainaut and started the redaction of his chronicles. In 1373 he became curé of Estiennes and ten years later, chapelain of Guy de Blois, his new patron. Later, he obtained a canonicat in Chimay. During the latter part of his life, Froissart still travelled a lot in France and in the Netherlands. He returned to England, once, spent three months at the court of Richard II and visited Scotland. His chronicles are divided into four books and were written between 1370 and 1400. They were constantly modified and there exist several versions of his first book, two of the second book. Froissart made use of several sources such as the Vrayes Chroniques by Jean Le Bel, the Vie du Prince noir by Héraut Chandos, the Grandes Chroniques de France, the Chronique de Flandre. Thus, he followed the method of his colleagues who compiled, borrowed and revised their texts. Froissart also employed oral sources and the testimonies of several princes and noblemen concerning various events. He was not a politician but a professional writer who travelled around Europe and made daily notes in the manner of a reporter. He paid particular attention to spectacular aspects of events since he wrote for a noble audience. Princely ceremonies, funerals, royal entries, and especially war occupy a central place in his texts. However, he also wrote about uprisings that were linked to economic difficulties in the fourteenth century and occurred in Flanders, Ile-de-France and England. But the main focus of his chronicles is Northern France and its neighbouring regions. A very large number of surviving manuscripts (over 100) tell us about the great success and celebrity of Froissart in his time and during the fifteenth century. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 771-2. 21 Monstrelet, La Chronique, II, 301; III, 266, 290; V, 9. 22 The writer has remained unknown, but it is evident that he was not bourgeois. It has been suggested that he was a cleric from the University of Paris, probably a dean of Notre-Dame and doctor of theology. The misleading name, Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, was given by Denys Godefroy in the seventeenth century and was based on the strong affection the writer expressed for his hometown and for the common people. See Colette Beaune’s Introduction in Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 5-26. 23 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1404 à 1449, 45, 61, 128, 129, 241, 297. 24 Ibid., 45.

64

NAMING THE HANGMAN

Pieter Spierenburg has suggested that at the beginning of the early modern period more positive attitudes on the part of the authorities were reflected at the level of vocabulary.25 It is true that when one reads written sources from the second half of the fifteenth century and from the beginning of the sixteenth century, one cannot help noticing that favourable expressions have gained more ground. However, to convincingly demonstrate such a trend, a large-scale systematic examination would be necessary. In addition, even if in chronicles one more often encounters neutral expressions such as executeur and maître, writers were still very fond of the disparaging term bourreau. Jean de Roye (c. 1425–c. 1495), a notary in Châtelet and secretary of Duke John II of Bourbon, referred in his chronicle to the public executioner in neutral terms six times (executeur de la haulte justice audit lieu de Paris;26 maistre de haulte justice;27 executeur de la haulte justice audit lieu de Paris;28 maistre Henri Cousin;29 Maistre Henry;30 maistre Denis Cousin, executeur de la haulte justice.31), but used almost as many times (5) the expression bourreau (le bourreau de Paris;32 bourreau;33 ung jeune filz bourreau à Paris; maistre bourreau en ladicte ville de Paris; explois de bourreau34). To Jean Molinet (1435–1507), official historian to the court of Burgundy, the executioner was more often bourreau than, for example, maître.35 Philippe de Vigneulles, a chronicler from Metz, employed in his work (from the beginning of the sixteenth century) in some instances the term maistre, but preferred to use the expression bouriaulx.36 One may presume that amongst numerous representatives of the learned upper classes, the need to mark social distance or express contempt was still stronger than the need to support the public executioner’s status. In the later Middle Ages, the representatives of the upper classes often – still – employed Latin in their mutual communication. Quite logically, in this context, they expressed their opinion about the executioner by preferring in their vocabulary the pejorative Latin expression carnifex37 to such classical and more neutral terms as minister or lictor.38 In the registers of the secular court of Avignon (from the fourteenth century) concerning sentences executed by official hangmen and their payments, one meets the term carnifex in addition to the word exequtor.39 At the 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39

Spierenburg 1984, 35. Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 5. Ibid., 360. Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 83. Ibid., 58-60. Ibid., 58-60. Ibid., 84. Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 74. Ibid., 82. Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 58-60. Molinet, Chroniques, I, 134, 600, 608, 613-4, 624 ; II, 375-6. The hangman is also bourel to Jean Lefèvre de SaintRemy (c. 1396–1468), who has often made use of Monstrelet’s chronicle in his own text. Lefèvre de SaintRemy, Chronique, 338. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, I-IV, passim and especially III, 91, 104, 263; IV, 49. Carnifex, from words caro + facio. Caro, carnis = meat, flesh. Thomas Aquinas, who lived and wrote in a period when the institution of hangman was not yet established, used the term minister as reference to a person who performed the death sentence on a court’s order. Aquinas agrees with Saint Augustine that such a person is only an instrument serving the authorities; these bear the real responsibility for judicial killings. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66, 44. Girard & Pansier 1909, 57-60, 71. In the oldest city account of Bruges (1282) one can find a latinisation of the Germanic word: anghemannus. Gilliodts III 1875, 202.

65

CHAPTER 3

beginning of the sixteenth century Erasmus of Rotterdam, in his Colloqvia, a popular manual of Latin, used the term spiculator40 as a neutral or positive expression for the executioner and carnifex as a derogatory term.41 The pejorative term carnifex occurred in the Vulgar Latin of the fourteenth century in the form carnacerius. As Marie-Christine Pouchelle has remarked, this expression manifested the symbolic closeness of the professional executioner to a butcher in late medieval imagery. People referred to butchers by the term carnasserius. In Old French this term was common in the form carnacier.42 This feature is quite important and shows that the concept of the executioner as a separate category was still somewhat blurred.43 The ambiguous attitude of the authorities toward the official hangman was reflected not only in terminology but also at the level of everyday practices. For example, the authorities were not ready to guarantee an official hangman’s living by a permanent salary. Instead, the executioner received a fee after every execution. Documentary sources show that in the fourteenth century Avignon an official hangman was paid 2 sous and 6 deniers for flogging and 7 sous and 6 deniers for flogging and cutting off an ear.44 In 1338–1339 the official executioner of Bruges Jan Buffele received 5 sous for cutting off ears and 4 pounds for branding the cheek in the market place or before the city gate of three persons.45 The hangman could not survive only with these sums and therefore it was customary to give him free lodging and release him from tolls and taxes. In many places he had a right of havage, a sort of natural tax. He could take part of the articles brought to market: cereals, eggs, vegetables, etc.46 The authorities’ sanctions and restrictions concerning the executioner were numerous. It was usual that an official hangman was obliged to carry out many kinds of tasks considered base and polluting (so called basses œuvres) that nobody else agreed to do. Therefore, besides his main function as an assistant of justice, a

40 From the word spicula = javelin, arrow. 41 ‘Spiculatori publico, qui stipendio conductus seruit legibus, quemadmodum et iudex ipse, nemo dignetur locare filiam; et non detestamur affinitatem militis […] hunc generum asciscimus, hunc quouis carnifice peiorem adamat virgo, et interpretamur etiam nobilitatem quaesitam scelere.’ A Fish Diet in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 534. 42 Pouchelle 1990, 75-6. The term carnacier was also in use (in sense of executioner) in later centuries and also occurred in semi-official texts. Delarue 1979, 45. In classical Latin, the verb lanio meant to tear, to lacerate, to cut up, and to mutilate. The term lanius referred not only to the butcher, but also to the skinner and to the executioner. Raynaud 2002, 639. 43 As Robert Marcihal has commented on the general significance of etymology for historical research: ‘C’est elle qui permet le mieux d’entrevoir comment et jusqu’à quel point les idées ont pénétré dans le “peuple”.’ Marichal 1961, 1327. 44 Girard & Pansier 1909, appendix. On the fees of the hangmen of Paris, Evreux, Rouen, Lisieux, and Laon at the end of the fourteenth century and in the fifteenth century, see Desmaze 1866, 77-87, 91-5 and Cohen 1990, 288. See also section 5.6. Only in the early modern period were hangmen’s fees and income augmented so that some of them became relatively wealthy men, even if the contempt remained. 45 Van Severen 1875, 201-2. The account of Ghent bailiff for 1352 shows three hangings at 10 sous 4 deniers each, 4 beheadings at 5 s. 4 d. each and one branding the cheek with a hot iron at 5 s. The account for 1364 shows payments for 2 hangings (now also at 5 s. 4 d.), burning at 20 s. 4 d. (with the materials itemised separately), the penalty of the wheel at 10 s. 4 d. Van Werveke 1970, 13-14, 680-1. 46 The right of havage was one of those small privileges that made the existence of hangman somewhat easier, but at the same time it made him more unpopular amongst the lower sections of society. On the etymology of the word havage (havee), see Greimas 1989, 331. See also Franklin 1906, 99. For the right of havage of the executioner of Paris in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see BN ms. fr. 7645, fols 331r, 332r.

66

NAMING THE HANGMAN

hangman had to take care of cleaning the streets47 or public lavatories,48 capturing wandering animals such as dogs49 or pigs50, a task that suited the official hangman particularly well for practical as well as symbolical reasons.51 In Eastern France a public executioner’s duty was to bury dead animals. He was allowed to keep the skin (so called privilege of riflerie).52 A hangman also had to bury the bodies of maleactors who happened to die in prison whilst awaiting trial. Bodies were put in a carriage and thrown in a pit in the fields outside the town walls.53 In many places the authorities ordered the public hangman to supervise prostitutes or lepers. For example, the Jouënne in Caudebec and Pierre Robert, executioner of the Duke of Orléans, supervised harlots in the fifteenth century.54 Pierre Phélippart, the official hangman of Amiens, also looked after whores in the same period. He got four deniers per week for this job. He had to see that these women did not leave their own street (‘rue de Filles ou rue du Bourdeau’). In the feast of Toussaints (All Saint’s Day) Phélippart had to see that the lepers’ procession traversed the town in good order.55 In fourteenth-century Bruges, the official executioner was often ordered to accompany a madman to the leprosarium.56 Here one 47 On the problem of waste and the means of dealing with it in late medieval France, see Leguay 1999, 76. See also Heers 1990, 306-7. 48 Private lavatories inside houses were not as common in the Middle Ages as today. In towns, the houses of wealthier people had privies but these were unknown, for example, in the village of Montaillou at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Le Roy Ladurie 1982. 49 Delarue 1979, 76; Demorest 1996, 158; Leguay 1999, 55. 50 Delarue 1979, 76. The hangman of Paris had to take wandering pigs to the Hôtel-Dieu. He got a pig’s head as compensation if the pig’s owner would not pay him the sum of 25 sous. Loiseleur 1863, 279; Lacroix 1873, 126-7; Geremek 1987, 296. 51 Some executioners were former butchers; accordingly, they knew how to deal with these animals. An official executioner had also experience of killing these animals: sometimes he had to punish pigs that had committed some crime, for example, devoured a baby. In fact, the pig was the star of the judicial bestiary (90 per cent of the animals in the court). The major reason was undoubtedly their number. The pig was the most abundant mammal in the Middle Ages and in addition, the most vagrant. In towns, they ate waste and one could meet them everywhere, in every street, in every garden and even in the cemeteries where they dug up corpses. Another essential reason was their closeness to humans. The pig (and not the bear or ape) was perceived as being the animal most similar to man. Pastoureau 2004, 33-6, 42-3. As Michael Camille has observed, in the countryside the domestic pig was an important member of the family (between December and March the killing of a pig was a time of great rejoicing and festivity) but once herded into cities its symbolic ambivalence turned to more negative feelings, and not only because a pig’s dung was a nuisance on the street. The pig had a long negative history in religious art; it stood for ‘an abomination’, its uncleanness defined by Jewish dietary laws and by Christ casting out demons from a man into pig. The pig could refer to the sins of greed and lust. Camille reminds us that anthropologists have considered the pig as a particularly striking example of an intermediary category, or an animal of the threshold, between country and town, the outside and the inside, the human and the animal, friendly and hostile. This ambiguous view about the pig explains why, in the Middle Ages, it was often associated with the outcast (the Jew, the prostitute, the leper, etc.). Camille 2003, 258, 260. 52 Delarue 1979, 82-3. 53 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 37; Monstrelet, La Chronique, III, 266. 54 Delarue 1979, 81-2. See also Geremek 1989, 405. Tenants of brothels were sometimes recruited amongst hangmen. 55 Dubois 1860, 10. 56 Spierenburg 1991, 185. The expulsion of lepers was necessary because this disease was thought to be contagious. In France there were more leprosaria than, for example, in England. This disease declined during the late medieval period but it was replaced by the plague, which was much more feared and murderous. Schmitt 2001, 325. For medieval theories about the various causes for the leprosy, see also Le livre des propriétés des choses, 157-160: ‘On peut la contracter en vivant et habitant parmi les lépreux […] Elle arrive aussi après l’union charnelle avec une femme qui a couché avec un lépreux. Elle vient du père ou de la mere qui sont lepréux, ou parce que l’enfant est conçu pedant les règles de la femme. Elle vient à l’enfant nourri du lait d’une lépreuse. Elle peut être causée par un air corrompu ou par la consommation de nourritures mauvaises […]

67

CHAPTER 3

can see concrete references to an imaginary closeness between the hangman and the ideas of sin, sickness, death and putrefaction. The hangman’s clothing and lodgings were subject to control as well. At an early stage the authorities decided that executioners should always wear a distinctive habit signalling their status to other people. The first statutes concerning the executioner’s dress date from the thirteenth century.57 A hangman should also live as far as possible from honourable and ‘normal’ citizens in a prescribed place. Sometimes his lodgings were situated outside the city walls.58 More usually, the official executioner lived in some disreputable quarter of the town, for example, in the same street as prostitutes,59 as was the case in fifteenth-century Amiens,60 or near the execution place or prison, as in Rouen61 or in some Southern French towns such as Avignon62 and Perpignan.63 The executioner of Paris lived in a small room under the pillory of the Halles from the beginning of the sixteenth century on.64 Strict definition of the hangman’s lodging place was a common practice in all of Western Europe. In many places spatial restrictions also extended to public spaces such as churches and taverns: in a church a hangman’s place was in the back row, whilst in a tavern he should always sit at one and the same prescribed table.65 Lastly it should be noted that the authorities did not accept an official executioner’s failures in public punishment ceremonies. Errors and failures naturally happened in all occupations. However, a hangman was expected to be supremely successful in every execution. If he failed, the authorities punished him by withholding his fee,66 imprisonment,67 or dismissal.68 The hangman’s task was to signal the efficaciousness and rapidity of legitimate and righteous justice. The authorities

57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

68

Enfin, elle peut être provoquée par la morsure d’un animal venimeux […] mais, quelle que soit la façon dont elle est provoquée, elle ne peut être guérie, une fois confirmée, sauf de main de Dieu.’ Pastoureau 1991, 26-7. On the hangman’s outfit, see chapter 4. Delarue 1979, 29. This practice as well as the fact that hangmen had to supervise prostitutes explains the closeness of these two categories in late medieval imagery. Norbert Elias has observed about prostitutes: ‘They have their own very definite place in the public life of the medieval town […] Their social position was similar to that of the executioner, lowly and despised, but entirely public and not surrounded with secrecy. This form of extramarital relationship between man and woman had not yet been removed “behind the scenes”.’ Elias I 1983, 177. For the status and attitudes concerning prostitutes in late medieval culture and society, see also Geremek 1987, 23873; Martin 1996, 417-21. Dubois 1860, 10. Demorest 1996, 282. Girard & Pansier 1909, 21. Desplanque 1998, 69. Hillairet 1956, 51. In some towns the hangman had to drink his beer or wine in the street outside the tavern. Spierenburg 1984, 18-19. Social segregation was, in fact, customary in inns, for example, in Antwerp: the better citizens had seats and tables upstairs, the members of the crafts guilds gathered downstairs. Montanari 1996, 24. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 26. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Premier, 167-8. The hangman of Paris Robin Serre and his aide Jacquet lost their posts after having botched an execution in 1507: ‘Le seiziesme jour d’aoust 1507, un nommé Jacquet, et l’autre Robin Serre, bourreaux de Paris, furent déclarés, par arrest de la cour, inhabiles et déposés de leurs offices pour avoir failli à décapiter aucuns condamnés, et fust par ladicte cour ordonné recevoir audict office Maistre Florent (Bazart).’ Quotation from journal of Pierre L’Estoile (Journal, tome XII, appendice, p. 345) in Demorest 1996, 275.

NAMING THE HANGMAN

knew that an unsuccessful execution could be interpreted as a sign of divine disapproval.69 At the beginning of the sixteenth century the European authorities made some concrete efforts to support their servant, for example, through legislation as well as at an ideological level.70 Josse de Damhouder, a representative of this new turn, in his La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, stressed that the hangman was an indispensable aide to criminal justice, servant of the authorities and of God, and was under the protection of the prince. A hangman did not do commit any misdeed when he carried out an execution (‘Le bourreau ne mesfaict riens par son execution’), Damhouder underlined71 and demanded more understanding for these disliked officers from the common people.72 It is worth noting, however, that Damhouder still used, beside more neutral expressions, the disparaging term bourreau. Damhouder also observed that the executioner’s name had indeed a very negative sound, ‘il a ung nom fascheux et ennuyeux, qui semble estre cruel, et severe, et pas humain’ 73 (he has a name that is hateful and disagreeable, and which seems to point to cruelty and severity and inhumanity). Damhouder’s text nicely reflects the ambiguity of prevailing attitudes among his own socio-professional group. In the early modern period, one evident indication of new support on the part of authorities can be seen in the efforts to prohibit the use of the insulting term bourreau by the threat of fines. However, these oft-repeated prohibitions turned out to be quite useless,74 which clearly testifies to the durability and continuity of old attitudes and mental habits. Terminology concerning the hangman that the upper classes employed in their mutual communication differed to some extent from the vocabulary that was used when addressing a larger audience that included poor and unlearned people. A good example is provided by Jean de Vignay, who, in his vernacular translation of the Golden Legend, a widely popular collection of saints’ legends from the middle of the fourteenth century, employed quite a varied terminology when referring to the 69 However, in the case of an unrepentant and hardened criminal, it could be interpreted as a supplementary (divine) punishment. Raynaud 2002, 305. 70 In Malines the official hangman was placed under the special protection of Maximilian. Charles V followed this example and published a warning, in Holland, forbidding the harassment of executioners. Later, he included protection of the hangman in the Carolina, criminal code for the Empire. No one was allowed to lay hands on the executioner on penalty of corporal punishment. In Germany Martin Luther opposed the old custom of apology (not only in Germany and England but also in France, in a ritual of execution, a hangman had to ask his victim for forgiveness for what he was going to do. Sometimes these two embraced each other as a sign of goodwill. See for example Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1499, 61; Molinet, Chroniques, I, 134; Basin, Histoire de Louis XI, II, 270.), because the hangman did a necessary job and no more. In the course of the early modern period the churches accorded hangmen a normal church funeral, which was, earlier, not permitted for them. Spierenburg 1984, 33-5. 71 ‘Le serviteur, ou ministre, et executeur de la iustice, et des sentences iugées, est le bourreau, et maistre des haultes oeuvres qui vrayment en conscience, ne devant le monde, de devant Dieu pesche et mesfaict.’ Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363. 72 ‘... il est mis pour la necessité de son ofice en la saulfuegarde et protection du Prince, de sorte que nulluy le peult batre, ou fraper, ne pour la vilité de son office faire quelque oultrage, ou forche, sur paine capitalle[...] doibvent tous chrestiens avoir meilleur entendement de l’office des bourreaulx, comme serviteur et ministre de la iustice, et de Dieu, par quoy ne les doibvent ne batre ou frapper, hair, ne occire.’ Ibid., 363, 365. 73 Ibid., 363-5. 74 Delarue 1979, 45.

69

CHAPTER 3

person of an executioner.75 In his text, Vignay preferred the term bour(r)eaulx, which occurs five times. Besides this term he used other, popular, terms referring to the hangman as follows: décolleur (4 times), bouchier (3), ministre (2), and tyran (1).76 The first term comes from the verb décoller, which was in common use in everyday language at this period and referred to decapitation (décollation). The word bo(u)chier referred in popular parlance both to the butcher and to the hangman. During the late Middle Ages this term replaced the older expression maceclier (maiselier, macecrier), which referred both to a butcher and to a hangman.77 The meaning of the term tyran will be discussed later in more detail. It is evident that this term was also very stigmatic. In the final analysis one perceives that the only neutral term in the work of Vignay is the word ministre,78 which referred to a servant (and thus to subordinate status). By his selection of terms Vignay expressed his unfavourable opinion about the executioners of Christian martyrs and perhaps about this professional group in general. His text was aimed at a larger audience and accordingly, he had greater terminological latitude compared to chroniclers, for example, who had to use more official language. Stories about Christian saints, their lives and glorious martyrdom, were made familiar to larger audiences not only through vernacular texts such as Vignay’s translation of the Golden Legend but also, and especially, through drama. From the beginning of the fifteenth century one of the most important forums in which the representations of hangmen were articulated, moulded, and transmitted to the uneducated masses was religious theatre, and in particular the genre of mystery plays. Whereas in the fourteenth century the roles of executioners had been still quite insignificant and undifferentiated (torture scenes were not very prominent or extended),79 from the beginning of the fifteenth century the personages of executioners were allocated much more space and were often given quite a dominant role. Playwrights frequently employed the kind of terminology that transmitted the negative messages about hangmen to audiences. In these plays based on saints’ legends and biblical stories, most executioners were representatives of a counter ideology and thus the henchmen of evil. Writers of the mystery plays especially preferred the terms bourreau and tiran as professional names for the executioner. Lynette R. Muir has suggested that the ‘tyrants’ of the mystery plays were associated more closely with the military class, while bourreau was closer to the professional hangmen in an urban context.80 The term bourreau would designate the executioner as a person to whom this office was a 75 As a translator Vignay was active from 1326 to 1350. He was a protégé of Joan of Burgundy, wife of Philip VI. Bossuat, Pichard & Rayaud de Lage 1992, 858. For the translation of literature during the Middle Ages, see Rothschild 1988, 155-61. 76 The term boureaulx occurs four times in the legend of Saint Vincent (Légende de Sainct Vincent) and once in the story of Saint Paul (Légende de Sainct Paul Apostre). Vignay used other expressions as follows: Décolleur: 2 times (Légende de Sainct Nicolas) + 1 (Légende de Saincte Marguerite) + 1 (Légende de Sainct Jacques). Bouchier: 3 times (Légende de Sainct Paul Apostre). Ministres: 2 times (Légende de Sainct Vincent). Tyrans: 1 (Légende de Sainct Andrieu). Voragine, La legende dorée, 17, 29, 48, 133, 166, 186. 77 Greimas 1989, 74, 377. 78 One can also meet this neutral expression sometimes in official language. See, for example, Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363. 79 See, for example, La Passion du Palatinus, passim; La passion provençale, passim. 80 Muir 1986, 156. Gustave Cohen has also discussed the hangman (bourreau) and tyrants as two separate categories, later being a kind of sergeants-at-law, ‘sorte de sergents’. Cohen 1951, 268.

70

NAMING THE HANGMAN

full-time function. The term tiran would categorise a person as a soldier who sometimes executed functions that belonged to a hangman. Even if one can find these two categories in mystery plays, it is not certain that their difference was primarily based on this terminology. Many writers, such as Jean Michel referred to the category of soldier-executioners by both terms in an equal manner.81 In addition, it must be remembered that the term tiran(t) was common in popular parlance as a synonym for the official hangman. In Old French it also referred to a tyrant in its original sense, that is, despot.82 This term linked the executioner to ideas of cruelty and brutal violence. It was also well suited to actual professionals for the reason that it referred to their actions in the hanging ceremony: to execute the sentence a hangman had to pull (in French: tirer) the convict up the ladders of the gallows behind him. The convict had to climb up the ladder backwards with his hands tied behind his back.83 In addition to the use of the term bourreau or tyran, writers of mystery plays transmitted negative signals about executioners by employing the term maître (maistre) in a mocking sense. This expression, which usually had quite a positive tone in late medieval culture, received a new significance in mystery texts depicting the activities of executioners of Christian martyrs. In several plays there is a scene where the term maistre is repeated for reasons of parody. Sometimes it is the master executioner himself who reiterates it, in order to underline his competence and merits.84 Sometimes it is the over-enthusiastic apprentice of the hangman, varlet, who repeats the expression mon maistre in a flattering tone while at the same time secretly envying the master executioner this office and dreaming of the time when he could himself adopt the title in question.85 The core of the joke was in the fact that it was about an office and a title that were not desired or sought after, but evoked quite negative thoughts.86 The office of the hangman was closely linked with the idea of dishonourable violence and infamy. The official executioner was a master in the dubious art of mutilating and killing criminals and great sinners (defenceless in the manner of animals in the butcher’s shop), a necessary but not very glorious task. In the language of the lower classes pejorative terms referring to the hangman were numerous and varied. One can find some valuable evidence by examining the poetical works of François Villon who often treated the theme of death (of convicted criminals) in his poems. 81 Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, passim. 82 Greimas 1989, 629. 83 One can find visual depictions of this habit in pictorial sources. See, for example, the scene in the upper right corner in Spiering, Christ Nailed to the Cross. Hours of Mary of Burgundy. C. 1480. Austrian National Library, Vienna. Ms. 1857, fol. 43v. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 454. See also Ziwès 1960, 119; Sainéan 1972, 194. 84 See, for example, Le Mistère du Viel Testament, III, 88-9; V, 55. On boasting and scenes between master hangmen and their valets, see section 6.4. 85 See, for example, Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 484-5, 495, 542; Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 76-91, 98-102, 165-77. 86 In an Old Testament mystery play there is a similar scene with a boasting master gravedigger and his envious apprentice (‘Du debat du fossoier et de son varlet’). Le Mistére du Viel Testament, IV, 349. Here, too, the joke was about the absurdity of the title. In late medieval society the title of master was, usually, perfectly honourable. In numerous contexts it had a favourable sound and was associated with guild organisation, corporations, professional hierarchies and the good order of towns.

71

CHAPTER 3

The term emboureux (amboureux) occurs in a ballad written in the jargon of the underworld (Ballades en jargon: Ballade II), where Villon repeats the sinister refrain ‘dont l’amboureux luy rompt le suc’87 (then the hangman broke his neck),88 perhaps, as a serious warning to his delinquent comrades. The term emboureux was commonly employed among the lower classes during the ending Middle Ages. This expression was synonymous with the Old French word bourrelier, bourreau (= embourreur).89 In addition to the reference to stuffer, this term had, however, another, licentious, meaning. Popular parlance could refer to the act of fulfilling the marital duty by the term embourrer. A person that practised this act very willingly was called by the nicknames of embourreur or embourreur de bas. The pun was about the words bas, or the lower half of the body and bât, load saddle.90 A hangman who executed the task of hanging forced a convict to fulfil his marital duty with the ‘Widow’ (Veuve) that is, the gallows in jargon.91 Villon also uses the expression marieux to refer to the hangman. In his ballad (Ballades en jargon: Ballade V) he advises his companions to be careful in their criminal activities so that they escape the hands of the dreadful assistant of justice: ‘Eschec qu’acollez ne soiés / Par la poë du marïeux.’92 Villon tells his friends to beware that they will not be hugged (acollez) by the hand (poë = patte) of a ‘marriage officer’ (marieux), i.e. that they are not hanged.93 The term marieux originated from the comparison between a death sentence – especially of hanging (pendaison) – and marriage (mariage), which was common in medieval proverbs as well as in literature.94 In the sense of a hanged man the term marié was adopted from jargon into popular parlance in the fifteenth century.95 Scholars have offered several explanations for the comparison of a hanging with a marriage. Some have suggested that the comparison pointed to the medieval concept of rope as a symbol of unconditional resignation (for example, to a prince or to a conqueror). In everyday reality a death convict who was sentenced to perform a public ritual of repentance, amende honorable, declared his guilt by wearing a rope around his neck. In many jokes about the disappointments and sufferings of marriage, a husband was depicted as a slave to his wife, in a 87 88 89 90

91

92

93 94

95

72

Villon, Poésies complètes, 327. suc = head or neck in jargon; rompre = to break, to bruise, to maim. Ziwès 1960, 108, 214, 253; Sainéan 1972, 194. ‘Femme pour embourrer son bas / Prendra pleinement la grant messe.’ Coquillart, Oeuvres, II, 276. (I have used the edition by Charles d’Héricault (1857) but a more recent version is Mike Freeman (ed.), Droz: Genève 1975.) ‘Et tout premier ung gentil escuier frisque, frez et friant en bon point, qui tant rembourra son bas a son cher coust [...] qu’il s’ennuya et retira et de tous points l’abandonna.’ Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, II, 461. Ziwès 1960, 109. Popular wisdom knew many proverbs relating to the gallows: ‘to shit at the gallows’ was said of a person who was not concerned about death and the authorities; whilst ‘dancing under the gallows’ was employed to describe someone who either did not see the danger or was not afraid of it. Hagen & Hagen 2000, 82. ‘Joncheurs jonchans en joncherie, / Rebignez bien où joncherez / Qu’Ostac n’embroue vostre arerie / Où accollés sont voz ainsnez. / Poussez de la quille et brouez / Car tost serïez rouppïeux. / Eschec qu’acollez ne soiés / Par la poë du marïeux.’ Villon, Poésies complètes, 335. See also Ballade X (S.I). Here Villon speaks humorously about ‘the caress of hangman’ (haure du marïeux) on an occasion of flogging. Ibid., 351. In popular parlance to hang was to accoler, which originally meant ‘to hug, to put arms around someone’. Sainéan 1972, 181. For example, in Jean Michel’s work Le Mystère de la Passion an executioner called Orillart says to three thieves who are about to be hanged: ‘Le beau gibet epouserés / Pour estre de nopces tous trois.’ Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 382. Ropemakers called the rope that they had to supply to the hangman of Paris by the name of mariage. See André Lanly’s comments in Villon, Ballades en jargon, 83. Ziwes 1960, 50-2.

NAMING THE HANGMAN

permanent state of submission, like a person having a tether round his neck.96 It was also common to speak about the ‘marriage knot’ (le noeud conjugal). In addition, the gallows was identified with marriage in many proverbs, such as ‘Qui se marie se met la corde au cou’ (‘One who gets married puts a rope around his neck’).97 Pierre Champion has explained that the comparison originates from hanged men’s movements (the agony which that caused them to kick, jump and twist their bodies), which would have reminded watchers of dancing and of feasts of marriage.98 It has also been suggested that in the popular comparison of marriage and the gallows there was an erotic connotation: in the Middle Ages everybody was familiar with the physiological effect produced by hanging, i.e. an erection.99 It is not farfetched to think that the term marieux was popular because it played with the ideas of similarity and also of the opposition between the functions of a hangman and of a priest. A priest was both marieur and a professional of death. Both personages accompanied men to the other world in their own way. A hangman made convicts marry the gallows and, besides this, in everyday life he sometimes took care of some of a confessor’s functions at the execution ceremony, advised a convict to repent and pray, or ensured that he or she had a clear conscience.100 In spite of ecclesiastical statutes, the habit of denying religious confession to convicts persisted for a long time. Some persons wanted to make sentences harder in this way – in order to make the convicts’ distress and fear of death more acute.101 This is 96 In this thematic field the Quinze joies de mariage was considered as a sort of manual. The purpose of its anonymous author had been to depict the ‘joys’ of the matrimony, that is, the horrible suffering of a married man. See Les .XV. joies de mariage, passim. 97 Ziwès 1960, 51. 98 Champion has written: ‘Et comme le pendu commençait d’abord par se débattre et gigoter, on y rattachait les idées analogiques de danse, des noces, de mélodie, en rapport d’ailleurs avec les fêtes du mariage.’ Champion I 1933, 320. 99 Ziwès 1960, 52. 100 An anonymous writer of a Parisian journal reports that in 1427 the hangman of Paris had five or six blows from the staff of treasurer Pierre Baillet, for the reason that he had expressed his concern about the religious confession of a convict. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1404 à 1449, 241. We also know that convicts sometimes admitted at the last moment some crimes or details that they had not admitted (confessed) in court. This could sometimes lead to the postponing of execution and new investigations. The criminal register of the Parliament of Paris indicates that in February 1333 a wrongdoer called Guillaume de Leans revealed to the executioner Nicolas, on the ladder of the gallows, some new details related to his former activities: ‘Item le dymence dessusdit, ledit Guillaume, confessa en l’eschielle à Nicolas, le bourriau, oultre tout ce qu’il avoit confessié dessus, que il avoit eu convenant a sesdiz freres que il leur envoieroit LX livres parisis et ainssi l’afferma il, ou peril et dampnement de l’ame de luy. Si comme ledit Nicolas, le bourriau, l’a rapporté par son serment.’ Confessions et jugements de criminels au parlement de Paris (1319–1350), 43. This piece of information did not give to Guillaume any extra time, however. 101 In 1311 Clemens V issued a statute that prohibited the refusing of religious confession to convicted criminals. Huizinga 2002, 49. The reason behind this decision was the concept that God did not condemn sinners twice for the same deed: a convict paid for his crime by his death. Ariès I 1977, 51. Jean Gerson worked hard for the cessation of malpractices and wrote a request on this matter to Charles V. Gerson emphasises in his request that refusing a convict confession is a mortal sin: ‘La loy de Dieu commende que chasqune personne qui se scet estre en peché mortel apres son babtesme, face avant sa mort confession a prestre se par empeschement legitime n’est excusee, comme par deffault de prestre ou autrement […] Quelconque personne de quelque estat ou dignité elle soit, qui scet ou doit savoir les deux verites dessus dittes et neantmois a son escient empeche une personne non avoir confession de prestre avant sa mort, puis qu’elle la demande, pesche mortellement’. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 341-3. In February 1397 the dead convict’s right to religious confession was finally confirmed by royal edict. See BN ms. fr. 21731, fol. 320r. It appears that malpractices still occurred for quite a long time, for at the end of the fifteenth century Etienne Ponchier, bishop of Paris, had to renew the statute. Huizinga 2002, 50. See also section 7.1.

73

CHAPTER 3

why a hangman sometimes had to act as a ‘substitute confessor’. One can find references criticising this malpractice in fifteenth-century mystery plays.102 The use of the term mariage and the expression marieux as synonyms for hanging and the hangman is further illustrated by the fact that in the jargon of the criminal band of the Coquillards ‘justice’ was marine. It was a pun, according to Armand Ziwès.103 It should also be remembered that the expressions faire la justice and justicier referred in Old French not only to the act of sentencing, but also to the actual act of executing sentences.104 The term fardis is also familiar in the sense of hangman from the texts of François Villon: ‘Eschec, eschec pour le fardis!’ (Beware, beware of the hangman!) the poet warns coquillards in his poem (Ballades en jargon: Ballade I.).105 This expression originated from the Old French word farde (fardre, fardel) that referred to a parcel and to a hemp rope. Armand Ziwès has suggested that, on the one hand, this term connected the hangman with a robber carrying his booty (le voleur chargé). On the other hand, this term referred to a ropemaker (celui qui travaille dans le chanvre) so that the metaphor is the same as in the case of the word emboureux.106 Because the word farde also referred to dyeing (to dye: farder = teindre; colour = farde),107 I should like to suggest that the term fardis might include a reference to the change of colour that the act of hanging produced on the face of the convict. First, it turned from pale to reddish and after death from pale to darkish as the corpse started to decompose and finally dried up by the sun – a process that Villon has mentioned in the Ballade des Pendus.108 I would also like to draw attention to the fact that the professional dyer (le teinturier) and his occupation appeared alarming and suspect to common people and were connected with several negative ideas: pollution, sickness, fraud, betrayal, etc.109 In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the expression ‘teindre sa couleur’ (to dye one’s colour) was employed by chroniclers of a person who pretended, lied, hid his intentions or changed his opinion.110 Thus, slang terms and nicknames occurring in François Villon’s poetry link the person of the executioner with ideas of violence and death in quite an ambiguous and often grimly humorous way that was typical of the verbal expression of alienated people. In his texts Villon employed the terminology of the hangman that originated from criminal circles and influenced the language of the lowest classes. Peter Burke has criticised some scholars for having used Villon’s texts as pure products of popular culture. In his view, the poet should be seen, rather, as a

102 Le Mystère de Saint Martin d’Andrieu de la Vigne, 406; Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 88, 90, 167. 103 Ziwès 1960, 101, 238, 245. 104 The writer of Le coutumier bourguignon glosé from the end of the fourteenth century has explained various meanings of the term justice. Le coutumier bourguignon glosé, 103-4. On meanings of the term justicier, see Greimas 1989, 351. 105 Villon, Poésies complètes, 323. 106 Ziwès 1960, 40-1. André Lanly has interpreted the term fardis as ‘the man with a rope’ (l’homme à la corde); he thinks that word fardis signified, in this context, a hemp rope (corde de chanvre). See Lanly’s comments in Villon, Ballades en jargon, 25, 30. 107 Greimas 1989, 280. 108 ‘La pluye nous a debuez et lavez / Et le soleil deseichez et noircis.’ Villon, Poésies complètes, 311. 109 For the dyer’s representation in the Middle Ages, see Pastoureau 2004, 173-95. 110 Pastoureau 2004, 190.

74

NAMING THE HANGMAN

sophisticated mediator between two traditions, the low and the high.111 It is true that Villon was a learned man with an academic degree. He had studied arts (theology) at the University of Paris. However, in his private life he had close contacts with marginal groups and he wrote his poems as a member of (or in close contact with) a notorious criminal gang, the Coquillards,112 to whom death by hanging seemed a very realistic and frightening option.113 One must remember that the audience that Villon had in mind, when he wrote his poems, was wider than that of official court poets. His poetry was also aimed towards the circles that were close to him, a diverse group of students, rascals, and prostitutes, and to the quite ‘ordinary’ populace. Villon’s poems best struck a chord among the inhabitants of Paris. For other folk, numerous references to contemporary characters and places (taverns, brothels) and the jargon of the streets of Paris would remain quite obscure and incomprehensible.114 Slang terms and nicknames occurring in François Villon’s poetry link the person of the executioner with ideas of brutal violence and shameful death; for Villon and his comrades the hangman represented a real threat and danger, a fact that partly explains his terminology. These professional names or nicknames tell us about fear and apprehension that related to ideas of pain, bad death and pollution (the hangman’s touch and the gibbet), but sometimes they may have signalled a critical attitude to the authorities’ actions perceived as too harsh or unjust by the hangman’s potential ‘clients’. All in all, Villon’s writings are quite valuable sources because they reveal at least some aspects of the impressions and notions related to the hangman that circulated amongst the lower classes, the poor and unlearned, criminals and other marginal groups of people. Besides the various nicknames or expressions that originated from the jargon of criminals, the lower classes had numerous other deprecatory terms for the hangman. In Normandy, the public executioner was known by the nickname of mitre (‘mon doux mitre’, doux = gentle). According to Leroux de Lincy, this expression originated from the practice common in that region: the official hangman was obliged to wear a headdress that resembled a mitre,115 the tall pointed hat worn by bishops. The mitre was an ambiguous accessory in the Middle Ages: it was a positive symbol of Christian authority but at the same time it was often used as a negative sign of heresy. In the pictorial arts as well as in the punitive ceremonies of everyday reality, heretics identified themselves by mitres. It appears that Joan of Arc, for example, 111 Burke writes that this mistake is easy to make because of Villon’s lifestyle amongst vagrants and criminals and because he wrote some poems in the jargon of the Coquillards and made use of forms of popular culture (mock testaments, proverbs) in his work. ‘However, one needs to remember that Villon was a university man, with a master’s degree from Paris. His poems refer not only to criminals and taverns but also to classical writers […] and to scholastic philosophers. His ballads are part of a literary tradition, and if the proverbial elements of one of them are popular, the whole poem is not’. Burke 1978, 68-9. 112 On the activities of the criminal organisation of the Coquillards, see Champion I 1933, 65-82. 113 Villon was himself imprisoned several times suspected of various crimes. Champion II 1933, 105; Burger 1966. Many of Villon’s acquaintances ended their days on the gallows and the poet himself closely escaped this fate in 1463. The death sentence passed by the justice of Châtelet was mitigated in the court of Parliament of Paris to ten years banishment. Champion II 1933, 289-90. 114 On Villon’s audience, see Marichal 1961, 1338. 115 Leroux de Lincy 1859, 614.

75

CHAPTER 3

was forced to wear a mitre with the inscription ‘heretique, relapse, apostate, ydolatre’ as part of her execution ritual (1431)116 In popular parlance the hangman was also known by the nicknames of taulart, rouastre and angel. It has been suggested that the expression taulart (telart, tollart, tolle) originated from the slang term torterie, which referred to the gallows.117 Tortis (tourtouse) meant hanging rope.118 In Latin the term tortor designated hangman.119 However, this term might also have originated from Old French’s verb toldre (tolre, in Latin: tollere), which meant, ‘to take, to remove’ (enlever, ôter, prendre) and could be used in the sense of ‘to kill, to take somebody’s life’ (‘Il lor voudra tore la vie’).120 The word rouastre referred both to the hangman and to the sergeant-at-law.121 This nickname originated from the word roe (roue), which referred in Old French to a wheel in general, also a torturing wheel,122 and a wheel used in capital punishment (le supplice de la roue, breaking on the wheel)123 as well as to a pillory (pilori).124 In the jargon of the Coquillards the word roe was also synonymous with the term justice. The expression angel (ange) referred sometimes to a hangman’s assistant but more commonly it was used to designate sergeants-at-law, who were highly unpopular among the lower classes of late medieval society.125 This nickname was thought to suit them well, because it identified these loathed and feared agents of justice with demons, angels of evil, anges du mal. To understand connotations and unfavourable tone of popular terminology relating to the hangman, it must be remembered that the status of a professional executioner was quite low in France and in Europe in the later Middle Ages. Official hangmen were disliked and despised everywhere; they were pushed to the very margins of the day-to-day life of the community. Whilst the public authorities laid many kinds of restrictions and obligations on their servant, the rest of society manifested its scorn not only by verbal aggressiveness but also by means of shunning gestures or by outright physical aggressiveness. The contempt and hatred of surrounding society made a hangman’s life precarious. 116 Journal de Clément de Faquembergue, III, 13-14. 117 Villon writes in Ballades en jargon: Ballade VI: ‘La giffle gardés de rurie / Que voz corps n’en aiënt du pis / Et que point à la turterie / En la hurme ne soiés assis’. Villon, Poésies complètes, 337. 118 Sainéan 1972, 181; 208-10. 119 The writer of Le mystère de Saint Sébastien used the term tortor in stage directions. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 2989. 120 Greimas 1989, 630. 121 Villon used the expression roastre of sergeants-at-law in the Ballade VII (S. I): Ballades en jargon, whilst in Ballade VIII (S. II) sergeants are anges boussus and hangmen are rouastres. Villon, Poèsies complètes, 339, 343. See also André Lanly’s translation and comments in Villon, Ballades en jargon, 103, 109, 113. 122 One questioning method was to attach a suspect to a turning wheel. 123 The penalty of breaking on the wheel was common in Europe. In France, however, it was not used from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Gonthier 1998, 166-7. 124 Greimas 1989, 569. 125 Sainéan 1972, 182. See also Ziwès 1960, 21. Villon, for example, used this term to refer particularly to sergeants-at-law. The literature of this period clearly reflects the negative opinions of sergeants. ‘Ils faisoient du mal trop plus qu’on ne leur commandoit’, complained the anonymous writer of a Parisian journal. Le journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 349. Jean de Roye calls Casin de Cholet, sergeant at Châtelet paillard, rogue. Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 59. It was common knowledge that the authorities did not expect the candidates to be blameless and irreproachable when they recruited these officials. Some sergeants did have quite doubtful ancillary occupations, such as those of a pimp or gambler. Ziwès 1960, 191. See also Gonthier 1992, 155-6.

76

NAMING THE HANGMAN

Common people manifested their dislike, for example, by carefully avoiding physical contact with an executioner126 and, in addition, contact with all objects touched by him, particularly money. This habit, which has to be understood in the larger context of the meaning of touch (and conceptions and beliefs about impurity) in the Middle Ages, explains the formation of the custom that a hangman had to use a long spoon when he wished to take his share (havage) of articles brought to market. Merchants complained that if he touched articles with his hand, no one would buy them.127 For similar reasons the hangman’s wine cup was sometimes smashed after he had left a tavern. His touch had made it unusable.128 Besides avoiding close contact with a hangman, people shunned all places associated with his person, especially the gibbet.129 For the public authority, a permanent gibbet was an important symbol of judicial power, of the high justice.130 For ordinary citizens, the gibbet represented, one the one hand, such positive ideas as security and good order. The function of a gibbet and corpses that hung on it was to signal to all folks and travellers, especially to strangers and potential criminals that in this town law and order were valued.131 On the other hand, the gibbet evoked strong repulsion and great fears.132 Josse de Damhouder had a good reason to write that: Les aultres evitent le lieu ou le bourreau converse et hante, et le poussent hors leur compagnie, comme vilipendanz non par seulement sa presence, mais aussi le lieu ou il hante et frequente, a

126 See Jouvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, 545. 127 Delarue 1979, 88-9. 128 This custom reminds one about the ‘perfects’ of Montaillou, who refused to drink from the same cups with shepherds. These holy men considered those cups polluted, because meat-eating shepherds had touched them with their dirty lips. (‘Perfects’ did not eat red meat). Le Roy Ladurie 1982, 131. 129 The gibbet was a feared place not only because beliefs related to the hangman and to the pollution of the dead, but also for the fear of ghosts and cursed spirits. The gibbet served as the burial place for criminals who had been sentenced to be buried alive (see Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 4-5.). As to those convicts who had no right to be buried in consecrated ground, their corpses hung from the gibbet until total decomposition, after which they were thrown in a pit situated in the middle of the gibbet. Hillairet 1955, See also La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, II, 263. For the fear of ghosts in the Middle Ages, see Lecouteux 1995, 180-242; Schmitt 1998a; Rampton 1999; Le Roy Ladurie 1982, passim. 130 The right to have a permanent gibbet was reserved for important seigneurs. The size and number of pillars reflected the local lord’s status of justicier and his position in the hierarchy of the nobility. In the gibbet of a hautjusticier, ‘les liens sont par dehors et patés par embas. Mais les fourches d’un moyen justicier, les liens sont par dedans et non patés’. Only the King of France was above all restrictions in this matter. His gibbet had sixteen pillars. Braun 1989, 98-100. Gibbets often appear in pictorial materials. Sometimes a wooden gibbet is decorated with carvings. (See for example BN ms. lat. 4195, fol. 149r.) On the materials of gibbets (and other constructions relating to executions) and their symbolical aspects, see Pastoureau 2004, 91-7, 100-1. 131 Puppi 1991, 30, 39. 132 In many places gibbets were neglected and collapsed. According to Pierre Braun, the reasons were partly financial. Stone pillars were more rare and expensive than wooden ones. However, as observed by Braun and Claude Gauvard the bad condition of gibbets, which was a general phenomenon, can be considered as one indication of the rarity of capital executions, and, at the same time, of unfavourable attitudes to death penalties. Braun 1989, 101-3. The judicial sources often reveal causes for the collapse of a gibbet. Sometimes the wood was rotten (AN X1a 12, fol. 285r (1.12.1348); Coutumier bourguignon glosé, 154. Gauvard writes, ‘Les témoignages relatifs à la tenue des gibets sont significatifs de cette réticence face à la peine de mort […] Au total, il existe un fort courant d’hostilité, que les textes révèlent et qui mériterait une étude exhaustive.’ Gauvard 1995, 285.

77

CHAPTER 3

cause (comme aussi dict Cicero) que le lieu infame, et devient vilain par la presence du bourreau.133 Others avoid places that the hangman inhabits and frequents, and push him out of their company. People abominate not only his presence, but also the place where he stays and frequents, because (as also Cicero says) it is infamous, and becomes vile because of the presence of the hangman. Damhouder reflects here the common view that all places became polluted if a hangman stayed there too often. The sinister aura that surrounded the person of the executioner and the gibbet made it sometimes difficult to find workers and materials to erect a new gallows.134 The antipathy related to the hangman’s person extended to all his family, likewise. A hangman’s son had great difficulties in finding any other occupation for himself, if he did not wish to follow in the footsteps of his father. Also, a hangman’s descendants had difficulties to find spouses. They were usually forced to marry their own kind.135 This was the main reason for the birth of the great dynasties of executioners. In France the oldest dynasty was the Jouënne family. Even in the thirteenth century its members served as public executioners in Normandy, and descendants of this family worked in the same profession 600 years later.136 In addition to shunning and social exclusion, public executioners had to face repeated aggression in their everyday life. They were insulted and called by nicknames wherever they went.137 Numerous hangmen were also physically harassed. In Western Europe attacks were usual, particularly in the period of the late fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century.138 Most often hangmen were assaulted when performing their duties. Executions were events where tensions and emotions could easily escalate,139 and a hangman was the most suitable target for manifestations of negative feelings. Sometimes hangmen were killed by furious spectators, as happened in Tours in 1448.140 Especially any kind of a failure could prove fatal to an executioner. It

133 Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 365. 134 In medieval Germany, the artisan corporations refused to participate in erecting gallows because such an action was considered infamous. Usually, the public authorities forced them to do so, and as the fee was good, the helpers were finally numerous. It is significant that this same idea often appears in the French documentary sources from the thirteenth century and becomes even more prominent in the fourteenth century. In some places, citizens demolished the gibbet after the execution. Braun 1989, 103. Obviously, such a gesture can be considered an important indication of the general attitudes towards capital executions. The destruction of the gibbet also had the function of symbolically erasing the memory of the crime. 135 Even if the Church prohibited marriages between close relatives an exception was made in the case of members of hangmen’s families. Delarue 1979, 41. 136 Besides France, long-lived dynasties were formed in Germany. Delarue 1979, 40-1, 57-65. On French hangman dynasties, see also Demorest 1996, 77. 137 Delarue 1979, 44-6. 138 The most famous case in France was the murder of Jehan Cousin in 1477, which is treated in detail in the Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 58-60. See also Klemettilä 2004, 163-5. 139 Bée 1983, 843; Puppi 1991, 32. 140 Geremek 1987, 295.

78

NAMING THE HANGMAN

provided a suitable excuse for over-excited spectators. A ritual that aimed at the restoration of peace and order in society easily risked being turned upside down.141 There is evidence of several cases from the late fifteenth century where spectators lynched a hangman after a botched execution.142 These attacks arose not only from a rejection of physical punishments, from a lower threshold of using violence and repulsion towards the hangman, but also from the general belief that any kind of unusual incident in the ritual might be a supernatural sign (such as the snapping of the hanging rope) and a manifestation of divine disapproval.143 If the authorities would not consent to pardon the convict – which was an age-old custom144 – spectators could avenge this denial upon their servant. Many hangmen were attacked and killed by stoning, undoubtedly in order to avoid his harmful touch and because in this way the responsibility was collective.145 The essential aim of this section was to analyse professional names relating to the office of the hangman in the later Middle Ages. Names with a pejorative and insulting tone were typical in both official language and popular speech. In various forums the ambiguous image of the executioner was expressed, constructed and strengthened by preferring terms with negative connotations instead of the more neutral or positive expressions. It is significant that the same expressions occur in most various contexts and sources, religious or secular, and were not only employed in the case of hangmen serving bad justice of infidels or enemies but quite generally. The lower classes had much more freedom in verbal expression concerning the hangman than the representatives of the upper classes, who were restricted by old conventions, notions of courtesy and other motives that will be examined in detail later (section 3.3). Thus, the lower classes had a wide range of nicknames for the hangman that usually carried quite negative connotations. One is dealing here with a habit that became a universal and long-term European phenomenon. In German culture, for example, the hangman’s popular nicknames were very varied146 and played on just the same themes as the French terms. 141 The hangman’s job was made still more difficult by the fact that some convicts were not willing to cooperate but resisted him. See, for example, Mémoires de Jacques du Clercq, 621; La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 305-6, 357; IV, 48-9, 125. 142 Spierenburg 1984, 14-16; Puppi 1991, 30. Josse de Damhouder also refers to the habit of harassing executioners in his text, see Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363, 365. 143 An anonymous Parisian cleric writes about the execution of Mansart du Bois in 1412 and reports that the convict’s decapitated body hit the block so forcefully that the executioner, master Geffroy, got very frightened and died six days later. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 45. A monk of Saint-Denis writes about the same execution and assures us that within two weeks not only the executioner but also all other persons involved in this wrongful execution died. Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, IV, 593-5. Both writers thought that the execution of the chevalier du Bois was unjust and evoked divine discontent. It should be noted that very bad weather on the day of execution could also be interpreted as a sign of divine disapproval. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 147. 144 On pardons granted after a botched execution see, Monstrelet, La Chronique, V, 8-10; La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 192; Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 241; Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Premier, 372. 145 The stoning that had been a usual mode of punishment in Jewish culture was not employed in Europe during the later Middle Ages. According to Jewish tradition, it was the principal accuser’s duty or privilege to throw the first stone in the lapidation ritual. Imbert & Levasseur 1972, 243-4. 146 In early modern Germany the hangman’s popular nicknames such as Angstmann, Hengdieb, Steighinauf, Löwe, Abkürzer, and Hauptkassier (See Lidman 2002, 265.) pointed to this professional’s violent occupations and functions as an aide to criminal justice and had a very pejorative or negative tone. The first German term

79

CHAPTER 3

The custom of using old deprecatory nicknames and inventing new ones also persisted during later centuries.147 These names linked the hangman with numerous negative contexts, particularly with ideas of violence, cruelty, and death. They also often carried connotations that were gloomily humorous. These nicknames were manifestations of a strong antipathy and at the same time efforts to control feelings of disgust, fear and anxiety (relating to capital executions and penalties of mutilation). In every culture the major function of nicknames and euphemisms is to make threatening and unpleasant things less frightening and easier to cope with. By cultivating and inventing insulting nicknames for the hangman, the lower classes and marginal groups of late medieval society both expressed their hostile views and feelings and tried to tame their emotions of dread and apprehension. This was done by preferring an ambiguous terminology that linked the hangman’s sinister figure not only to ideas of brutal violence and shameful death but also to many grimly hilarious and amusing contexts. The authorities and representatives of the upper classes, learned men, employed pejorative terms to mark their distance from this despised officer of law, as a means of social and moral differentiation. Besides hangmen numerous low or marginal categories had a multitude of nicknames: prostitutes, mendicant friars, mercenaries, sergeants, butchers. The abundance and tone of nicknames of the hangman reminds one especially of the countless names that demons and the Devil had in popular language. The appeal of their names originated from very similar motives and factors as mentioned above. As J.B. Russell has suggested, an important function of absurd names was as an antidote to the fear that demons and the Devil evoked.148 3.2 Personal Names Official sources from the late medieval period show us that the personal names of actual public executioners were usually quite normal such as Guieffroy Thérage (Rouen in 1420),149 Pierre Robert (Orléans, in the fifteenth century),150 Pierre Phélippart (Amiens, in the fifteenth century).151 This is not at all surprising. Many hangmen originated from quite ‘ordinary’ families and were only later in their life recruited to this function. On the other hand, those born in hangman families had common names because their parents wanted to give to their children a normal name. In the Middle Ages it was generally believed that ‘nomen est omen’, a name is an omen; it was crucial that parents gave a positive name to an infant. Children were named after saintly protectors, heroes or relatives and forebears. Some names were

147 148 149 150 151

80

referred to ideas of fear and death (die Angst, die Ängste: fear), the second and third to the executioner’s major occupation, hanging and to his close association with the criminal elements of society (henken: to hang; der Dieb: thief; steigen: to rise; hinauf: up), the fourth expression stresses the hangman’s connection with the idea of bestiality (der Löwe: lion, i.e. beast), the fifth and sixth terms point again to the executioner’s duties and particularly to maiming and decapitating (abkürzen: to shorten / cut; das Haupt: head; kassieren: to take off). Similarly, in early modern Sweden and Finland the terms bövel and pyöveli were considered insulting, more neutral were mastermännen and mestarismies. See Virkkunen 1953, 435; Toropainen 2004, 192. Delarue 1979, 45. Russell 1984, 62-91. See also Muchembled 2000, 25. Desmaze 1866, 82. Delarue 1979, 82-3. Dubois 1860, 10.

NAMING THE HANGMAN

transmitted in the family from one generation to the next.152 As Michel Pastoureau has reminded us, a personal name was never insignificant or neutral but the first emblem of an individual.153 Of course, a hangman with quite a normal first and family name could have all kinds of personal nicknames. In the thirteenth century the executioner of Caudebec, Nicolas Jouhanne, was known as ‘La Justice’.154 This nickname was twoedged, since the term justice pointed not only to the act of distributing justice but also to the gibbet, as explained above. In 1386, Escluve, the official hangman of Cambrai, was known as ‘le Pendeur’,155 as a reminder of his sinister job. Sometimes it is impossible to know if a name that appears in a written source was a real name given at baptism or a name invented later. This is the case with Capeluche, the official hangman of Paris at the beginning of the fifteenth century. His name sounds more like a nickname. In any case, it did not have a positive sound since the term pointed to the idea of folly. According to Jelle Koopmans, in popular language this word referred to a fool’s cape, capuchon de sot.156 During the second part of the fifteenth century, Parisians called Jehan Cousin, son to the official hangman of Paris, Petit Jehan, ‘Little John’.157 The prefix ‘little’ was significant and might indicate, here, lack of respect as well as does the habit of using the diminutive (-on). In many cultures the essential function of both forms has been to lower a person’s social importance.158 We are all familiar with the fact that in the Middle Ages, it was quite habitual to connect attributes to various persons’ names, high or low, instead of using original family names. Best known are undoubtedly royalties and princes names such as Peter the Cruel, John the Fearless, Philip the Fair, Charles the Sage, etc. Usually, these names pointed to some feature (negative or positive) considered as central to the person in question. They were habitual for various well-known figures, not only princes but also prostitutes, fools, hangmen, etc.

152 Michel Pastoureau has studied anthroponomy related to Arthurian heroes from the thirteenth century on, and stresses that peasant culture did not differentiate from seigneurial culture in this matter. The most favoured name was Tristan. Pastoureau 2004, 299-303. Among royal families the custom of calling princes by the name of their birthplace was common in the fourteenth century. In England, all the sons of Edward III, except the eldest, were given their names in accordance with this custom. The most famous of them were the Prince of Wales, known as the Black Prince and John of Gaunt (Ghent). The Black Prince’s son (later Richard II) was called Richard of Bordeaux. Calmette 2001, 297. 153 ‘Le nom de baptême n’est jamais neutre. Il est le premier “marqueur” social, le premier attribut, le premier emblème. Il identifie celui qui le porte – pendant sa vie mais aussi après sa mort – et appartient à sa sensibilité la plus profonde.’ Pastoureau 2004, 305. 154 Delarue 1979, 60. 155 Demorest 1996. 156 Koopmans 1998, 546, 621. Koopmans has analysed the vocabulary of sermons joyeux and suggests that the term was an allusion to the ‘roi du Coq’ who wears ‘un bonnet de fou avec une crête phallique.’ 157 See, for example, Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 360 ; II, 58. It seems possible that Jehan had a brother – Denis Cousin, known as ‘maître Antithus’, who worked as the official hangman of Arras in 1477. Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 84; Champion 1933, 339. Denis’ nickname was undoubtedly given after some sinister character in a mystery play. 158 As Jean Verdon has observed on the function of the diminutive: ‘le diminutif de façon générale constitue alors une injure en minorant l’importance sociale de celui auquel il s’applique.’ Verdon 2001, 22. Robert Muchembled writes about diminutives relating to devils: ‘L’usage de diminutifs [...] ou de dénominations familières [...] rapprochait ces diables des hommes, limitant sûrement la peur qu’ils pouvaient inspirer.’ Muchembled 2000, 25.

81

CHAPTER 3

Some scholars have considered it a telling indicator that Henry Cousin, official hangman of Paris c. 1460–c. 1480, appears in some literary texts only by his first name. It has been suggested that this feature might point to a general disrespect for Henry and his professional category. An example is provided by an anonymous robber-farce from the end of the fifteenth century (or early sixteenth century), the Farce des Maraux enchesnez: COQUI[LLON] Se maistre Henry ne fust mort, Nous fussions pièça despechés. If master Henry were not dead, We would have been put to death for a long time ago. SOU[DOUVRER] Dieu luy pardoint ses pechez, Hélas! c’estoit notre bon père! God forgives his sins, Alas! He was our sweet father! COQUI[LLON] Nous estions la meilleure paire De pig[e]ons de son coulombier.159 We were the best pair Of pigeons in his dovecot. Bronislaw Geremek has commented on this scene by observing: ‘There is certainly an element of mockery here, but the familiar tone between the executioner and his potential client is significant.’160 Geremek suggests that the use of the first name in this farce is a feature that reflected the everyday practices and attitudes of the common people. Undoubtedly, Henry Cousin was a familiar figure to the inhabitants of Paris who regularly saw him accompanying convicted criminals to the gallows. He was widely known not only in the capital but also elsewhere in France and its neighbouring regions. In my view, the anonymous writer of the farce has let the two robbers speak of the famous hangman by using only his first name in order to stress the ambiguity of this servant of law, the closeness between an executioner and his potential clients. This impression is further emphasised when the other robber depicts the late master Henry as a fatherly figure (– the writer is also playing with the idea of the disciplinary roles of father and hangman). In the last replies, the writer makes a grimly comic reference to the violent functions of Henry Cousin. He 159 Farce des Maraux enchesnez, 329. 160 Geremek 1987, 295.

82

NAMING THE HANGMAN

identifies the famous executioner with a cook or a butcher: the message is that robbers sitting in a prison gaol are similar to the inhabitants of a dovecot that will be dispatched one day by the executioner-cook, after which, the victim-pigeons will end up roasting in an oven or on a grill. In a similar way convicts who were hanged by master Henry on the gallows of Montfaucon in Paris would finally end up roasting slowly in the eternal flames of Hell. It is worth noting that also in François Villon’s poetical work Le Testament, the Henry Cousin is again simply and plainly Henry – without title or other additions, as if all explanatory attributes were quite unnecessary for Villon’s varied audience: Item, et à Noël Jolis, Autre chose je ne lui donne Fors plain poing d’ozier[s] frez cueilliz […] Unze vings coups lui en ordonne, Livrez par les mains de Henry.161 Item, and to Noël Jolis, I do not give anything other But a handful of freshly picked willows […] I order for him 220 strokes, Delivered by the hand of Henry. In his poetical testament, François Villon gives amusing gifts to his friends as well as to his enemies. A man called Nöel Jolis was among these162 and thus the poet wished to give him a proper whipping carried out by the well-known executioner. Henry is presented in this passage as Villon’s revenger, as a threat to his enemy. In Villon’s poetry not only Henry but many other well-known Parisians are referred to only by their first name or their nicknames, for example, sergeants, monks and prostitutes.163 Villon’s Testament was aimed, especially, for a Parisian audience, at his own circle and ordinary town-dwellers, who could easily recognise the various names and personages appearing in his text. Pierre Champion has observed that Henry Cousin is mentioned only by his first name in some official documents, for example, in a record preserved in the Archives nationales in Paris. The record in question reports an incident that occurred in Paris in December 1468. A certain Henry Croix had sent his young servant-boy on some business to meet Jacques Cauchoys, sergeant to the provost of Paris. The notorious Cauchoys unsheathed the boy’s sword and beat him. Henry Croix went with his brother to clear up the matter, to the Tournelle criminelle. Cauchoys asked them: ‘Qui esse là?’ (Who is there?), and Croix replied: ‘C’est Henry’ (It is Henry). Cauchoys inquired: ‘Lequel Henry? Je ne congnois point.’ (Which Henry? I don’t know any.) Croix answered: ‘Je te le feré bien congnoistre.’ (I will 161 Villon, Poésies complètes, 221. 162 On reasons for the enmity between Villon and Jolis see, Champion II 1933, 164, 303-4. 163 Parisian prostitutes are called simply Jacqueline, Perrecte and Ysabeau, Grosse Margot and Jehanne, etc. Villon, Poésies complètes, 199, 217, 219.

83

CHAPTER 3

cause you to know.) Cauchoys said: ‘Je ne congnois sinon celluy qui se tient au pillory’ (I don’t know any other than the one who works on the gallows.) and gave at that very moment five or six blows of his sword.164 Champion writes that this example suggests the familiarity and the habit of common people of using only the first name when speaking about executioners.165 It is possible that not only ordinary or unlearned folk but also some officials followed the habit of calling the public executioner only by his first name in various informal situations. It must be noted, on the other hand, that in documentary sources, numerous servants of justice and ordinary citizens appear sometimes with their whole names but occasionally only their first name followed by a professional attribute: Estevenot le bourrel,166 Michel le serjeant, Robin le geolier, Gilles le bouchier, Nicolas le berbier, etc.167 This is also usual in literary products of a more official tone aimed at the upper classes. In chronicles, for example, one meets references to some hangmen by their first name followed by the professional attribute. Sometimes the family name also appears. Omitting the family name was not necessarily an insulting gesture, even if chroniclers were very keen on accumulating and listing different titles and offices in their texts. Masters of various professions were often mentioned only by their title and first name and so were kings: maître Jacques, roi Charles, etc. In my view, the evidence presented above might point to a process of ‘iconisation’: to late medieval Parisians, the name Henry had become synonymous with the term ‘hangman’ and vice versa. This phenomenon is also, undoubtedly, quite typical of our modern world, for example, in the case of some famous politicians. Thus, the common habit of calling the official hangman – the representative of law and order – by his first name was not automatically a sign of disrespect. Rather, it pointed to his familiarity. The official hangman was a widely known public figure.168 The symbolism of names often played a considerable role in medieval literature, for example, in stories about saints. The name spoke out the truth about a person, made it possible to trace his or her history and to announce an individual’s future and destiny.169 In late medieval religious drama, and especially in mystery plays, one encounters numerous executioners. While some of these characters are anonymous,170 most have names (first names or nicknames – in most cases it is impossible to know their categorisation) that had a clearly negative meaning. One does not meet any hangmen with such positive names as Vaillant, valiant, or Sage, wise, or

164 165 166 167 168

Champion II 1933, 339. Ibid., 339. Registre criminel de Sainte-Geneviève, 362. Ibid., 362; Registre Criminel de Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 470, 519. However, I must observe that the example of Henry’s predecessor, Capeluche, points in quite a different direction. As I will explain later (in section 7.1), in fifteenth-century chroniclers’ writings this name become a negative symbol for the murderous rage of the riff-raff in Parisian uprisings in the year 1418. 169 Pastoureau 2004, 16. 170 As Grace Frank has noted, the anonymity of Christ’s executioners and of other non-biblical figures is an archaic feature. In fifteenth-century drama, many of those figures that were previously anonymous (un juif, un temoin, un valet, etc. – ‘a Jew’, ‘a witness’, ‘a servant’) have names. See Introduction written by Grace Frank in La Passion d’Autun, 20.

84

NAMING THE HANGMAN

Michel, after the archangel. Most hangmen have names that correspond well to their characterisation.171 The names that fatistes, mystery writers, gave to executioners in their plays can give us valuable insights into the reasoning of medieval people as well as to the different ways that terminology could function as a useful tool for image-making in the field of literature. The names of executioners of martyrs are situated mainly in the semantic axes of violence, cruelty, and evil. Also names referring to poverty, defective reason, and negative historical personages are quite common.172 It should be noted that not all the names one finds in mystery plays naturally fit into these categories. In addition, one sometimes meets names, the significance of which remains unclear.173 It is evident that to understand the many possible connotations of executioners’ names one should have lived in fifteenth-century France – and even then some of them would have remained quite obscure. It is not surprising that the late medieval play writers in their works especially favoured referring to violence and its consequences, pain and death. In the play dedicated to Saint Lawrence the executioners are called Bruslecosté, Fieramort, Maulevault and Malengrogné174 (brusler = to burn, costé = side; fier, férir = to beat, mort = death; mau / mal = pejorative prefix (‘bad’), valoir, valeur = worth; grogner = to growl); in an Old Testament play (III: XXV) there is a hangman named Maudollé;175 (doler = to slice with a cutting weapon, la doloire).176 In La passion d’Auvergne one can meet the compassionate Maliferas (faire = to do) first in the story of John the Baptist and later again in the Passion story among Christ’s many torturers, this time as an evil figure. Other executioners are called, for example, Malque, Malbec and Malegorge.177 These particular names with the Mal -prefix refer, in my view, expressly to the consequences of the executioner’s violent activities: to a sore back (or tail, que), nose (beak, bec), and throat (gorge). One may think that the name Malegorge is especially associated with hanging.178 In Le mystère de saint Christofle, the executioners 171 A rare exception of this general rule is Maliferas, a compassionate hangman with a typical negative hangman’s name in La passion d’Auvergne, 100-1. 172 The categorisation of the hangman’s names presented by Jelle Koopmans (1997) has been very useful to me, but my interpretations and emphasis are sometimes different. (I also thank Dr Koopmans for his critical comments upon my manuscript and some of my interpretations or translations.) In his study, Koopmans suggests that the names can be situated on three semantic main axes that refer to exclusion and associate the executioner with 1) the third estate, i.e. non-privileged classes; 2) carnival culture and excessive eating, Charnage; and 3) – as a still more powerful means of exclusion – the disorder of Maugouverne and sorcery. Koopmans 1997, 109-12. Mihail Bahtin’s analyses of the (nick)names in Rabelais’ works can also be helpful in understanding this topic. Bahtin 2002, 409-11. 173 For example, such names as Gournay and Micet (in an Old Testament play) may sound quite neutral to a modern person. But it is probable that they had negative connotations since these two characters incarnated many typical negative features of hangmen in mystery plays. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI. 174 Le mystère de Saint Laurent, passim. 175 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 88-91. 176 Greimas 1989, 196. 177 La passion d’Auvergne, passim. One can also encounter an executioner named Mal Feras in a play dedicated to Saint Sebastian. Le mystère de saint Sébastien, passim. 178 Jody Enders has suggested that the names Malbec and Malegorge refer to the act of singing. As already explained, according to Enders’ theory the function of torture scenes in mystery plays would have been to make violence and pain pleasurable and beautiful, even musical. Enders 2002b, 95. See also chapter 1 and sections 2.3 and 6.4 of the present work.

85

CHAPTER 3

are named Malferas, Agrippart, Rifflart and Malcuydant179 (grippe, griffer = claw, to claw; rifler = to skin, to flay;180 cuyder = to think, to intend), while in a play dedicated to Saint Bartholomew one meets the executioners Rifflart, Trenchart and Mordechays181 (trenchier, trancher = to cut, to slice; mordre = to bite). It is obvious that the executioners’ names were indicative of a great eagerness to kill, maim, injure and hurt. Names having the mal (mau) -prefix are very common and point emphatically to the idea of evil. This category of names can be considered a powerful expression of marginalisation and exclusion. Some of the names referring to violence and cruelty pointed at the same time to bloodthirsty aspirations and a great lust for food, especially for meat, and sometimes for wine, such as Picolardon182 (picoter = to peck, to prick, lardon = lard); Grandent and Friant183 (dent = teeth, the popular expression ‘avoir la dent’ = to be hungry; friant = an adjective pointing to a gourmet, to a lust for delicacies); Goulu184 (= gourmet); Humebrouet, Menjumatin, Masquebignet and Hapelopin185 (humer = to lick, to lap, brou = stock; menju = to eat, matin = morning (a person who starts to eat early in the morning because of his excessive appetite); mastiquer = to munch, to masticate, beignet = a sort of pastry; happer = to snap, lopin = bit); Taliebodim and Rifflandoillie186 (tailler = to slice, boudin = a sort of sausage (usually made of blood); andouille = a sort of sausage (made of pork); Tirevin (tirer = to pull, vin = wine) and Gastevin187 (gaster = to spoil). Jelle Koopmans has suggested that these alimentary names linked the executioner figures closely to the themes of medieval carnival culture and particularly to the greasy kitchen and excessive eating, Charnage, as the opposite of Lent (Carême).188 To medieval people, the carnival meant the final days one was permitted to eat meat, drink and have fun before embarking on the strict self-control and discipline of Lent. During the carnival week (from jeudi gras on) there was a state of war between the supporters of the Carnival and those of Lent. The followers of the Carnival – hams, lards, and cheeses – were armed with various instruments from the kitchen.189 While the Carnival was associated with the excessive consumption of meat, Lent was associated with fish and vegetables. According to Koopmans, the play writers made use of the festival traditions of carnival 179 Le mystère de saint Christofle, passim. One can find an executioner called Rifflart, for example, in La Passion de Seumur and the Vengeance de Notre-Seigneur (Compiègne 1464). Henrard 1998, 302. 180 For other meanings of the verb rifler in Old French, see Greimas 1989, 567. 181 Henrard 1998, 392-3. 182 In a play from Southern France entitled Istoria Petri et Pauli. Henrard 1998, 285. 183 The Istorio de Sanct Ponz, from the end of the fifteenth century. Henrard 1998, 289, 301. 184 Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 635. 185 Le Martyre de S. Denis, 117. These same four names also appear in a play on Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Le Martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul, 77. 186 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, passim. As Koopmans has remarked, the amusing name Tailleboudin (Taliebodim, Talibodin) is closely linked to medieval carnival culture. Koopmans 1997, 110-1. 187 Tirevin appears in a play dedicated to Saint Andrew. One can meet Gastevin in a play about Saint Geneviève. Koopmans 1997, 111. 188 Koopmans 1997, 109-14. On the Lent and fasting, see Montanari 1996, 78-9. It must be observed that in Nicholas de La Chesnaye’s famous morality play (c. 1503) that aimed to condemn excessive eating and drinking, Diette (= diet) appears in the role of the hangman. He hangs Banquet on the orders of Lady Experience. La condamnation de Banquet, 261-80. 189 Verdon 2001, 141. On the carnival see, also Spierenburg 1991, 64-5, 85. In mystery plays the executioner was associated with the devouring of meat not only through naming but also at the level of verbal expression, see section 6.3.

86

NAMING THE HANGMAN

culture and thus produced a curious fiction of the ‘other’.190 The executioners of mystery plays are linked to the ideas of the world turned upside down (which the carnival represented), disorder and chaos, and thus are stigmatised. One may think that executioners’ names referring to the devouring of meat and excessive eating were intended be perceived as hilarious and hideous at the same time. Dramatists used them to make the executioners of martyrs appear ridiculous and extremely brutal. They served to reveal hangmen’s bad character, sinfulness and ferociousness. They suggested that just like wild beasts and gluttons, these executioners loved to devour meat. One may assume that in religious drama one function of these names was to criticise the immoderate liking for meat dishes. Gluttony (Glutonnie, Gula) was one of the seven deadly sins, and one of its forms was excess in red meat. This criticism also reflects the suspicious attitude of the ecclesiastical world towards over-eating in general.191 During the Middle Ages opinions about meat eating were equivocal. On the one hand, superabundant eating of meat could be associated with sin and bestiality, but on the other hand, it could be seen as a positive sign of wealth and status, and of power over nature (and the lower classes). The consumption of meat varied a lot according to social class (and within these, too). Among the secular upper class the eating of meat was very important and it grew from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century.192 A nobleman was perceived as noble, in part, because of the noble food (meat) he ate.193 Many members of the nobility despised milk products and vegetables as food for peasants. The consumption of meat among peasants was often quite restricted in the Middle Ages. The difference between the eating habits of the poor and the rich became more evident when the price of meat rose because of population pressure. While there were positive attitudes towards meat eating among the laity, negative opinions were typical of some ecclesiastics. Numerous clerics had the same diet as the wealthy laity, but then there were also some strict vegetarians amongst the most ascetic devotees.194 As Joyce E. Salisbury has suggested, one 190 Koopmans 1997, 109-14. 191 Late medieval society has sometimes been described as ‘obsessed by food’. On attitudes towards food, eating and feasting in general see Le Goff 1988a, 356-67; Camporesi 1988, 68; Laurioux 1996, 459-77; Montanari 1996. When the rich feasted on delicious meats, the common people could search for consolation from stories and dreams of the Land of Cockaigne, that wonderful place where penury did not exist (As Pieter Spierenburg has noted, it was only during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, however, that the depictions of this earthly paradise became most numerous. Spierenburg 1991, 86. On Cockaigne see also Pleij 2001.) or from the promises of theologians who assured them that the saved would be delivered from the sensation of hunger and bestial appetite in the hereafter. Salisbury 1994, 76. In Hell, on the other hand, sinners were tortured by voracious, unending hunger (Mormando 1999, 124.) or alternatively, by forcing them to eat contaminated, disgusting food. On linking the hangman to excessive drinking, see section 7.2. 192 On the consumption of meat in royal and ducal households, see Le Menagier de Paris, 171. 193 The kind of meat one consumed was revealing of one’s social position. Pork, for example, was not perceived as suitable for high-ranked persons. In early modern France the expression ‘a man of pork and beef’ pointed to someone who was rude, uncivilised and infamous. Honourable men ate fine meat such as mutton, capon and partridge. Van Uytven 1999, 25, 27. 194 Lacroix 1873, 125-42; Elias I 1983, 117-8; Salisbury 1994, 57-9, 62-5; Gréco 1996, 479-90. Erasmus, who himself resisted too severe fasting and had learned to hate fish when studying in Paris and staying at the College of Montaigu, often returns to the theme of diets in his writings. Erasmus connected the feature of excessive meat (pork) eating instead of the executioner with another professional of violence, the widely hated mercenary. Erasmus, Colloqvia, 315, 495-536. See also Huizinga 1953, 30-1, 157.

87

CHAPTER 3

evident explanation for these opinions was that in the Bible vegetarianism is depicted as a more holy state than a diet of meat. According to Genesis, humans and animals ate only plants in the Garden of Eden. (Gn 1.29-30.) Presumably, negative attitudes towards meat eating were also connected with the idea of death and the fear of being consumed alive. As Caroline Walker Bynum has observed, the depictions of the mouth of Hell devouring sinners point in this direction. The destruction of the body by digestion was one of the most horrible ways of annihilation that medieval people could imagine.195 In mystery plays one often encounters names referring emphatically to the idea of evil such as Songemal (songer = to think, to intend) in the Mystère des Actes des Apôtres and Malingre in the play dedicated to Saint Barbe,196 and Malcuydant in Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes.197 In Arnoul Gréban’s famous and widely popular work the executioner serving Herod (and later Caiaphas) is called Dragon;198 one of the executioners of Pilate, who mocks and tortures Christ very cruelly, is named Griffon.199 These names patently point to evil and fear, to the monstrous aspects of executionners. This last name referred to a specific category of monster, griffon, a mythical creature with the body and tail of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle.200 As to the dragon (le dragon), it is widely known that this creature was the most feared of those countless monsters that haunted the imagination of late medieval men; they sincerely believed in the existence of monsters, dreadful and deformed animals and human beings.201 The dragon infected the air, poisoned wells, and laid its semen in springs in order to lure people to the sin of lust.202 Numerous persons were convinced that the dragon was an incarnation or image of the Devil. Consequently, one of the main tasks of valiant knights and saints was to destroy dragons.203 195 196 197 198 199 200 201

202

203

88

Bynum 1995, 198. Koopmans 1997, 112. Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 635. Gréban, La Mystère de la Passion, 98, 272. An executioner called Dragon (in the service of Caiaphas) also appears in Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 202; Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 635. Gréban, La Mystère de la Passion, 282, 298-301, 324. One also encounters an executioner called Griffon (and serving Pilate) in Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 31 and passim. Le Bestiaire, 62. See also Lecouteux 1999, 49; Salisbury 1994, 139. On monsters see Claude Lecouteux’s study Les monstres dans la pensée médievale européenne (1999). Chroniclers usually considered it worth mentioning all the births of monstrous babies. Philippe de Vigneulles, for example, tells in his work about a baby born in Bar le Duc who was half a man, half a demon. Vigneulles seems to be well informed about the (supernatural) reason for this unnatural birth: the father of the child had been playing the role of demon in a play and had made love to his wife after the presentation, without undressing from his costume, declaring that he wanted to ‘faire le dyable’. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 114-5. In Jacopus da Voragine’s Golden Legend (in the legend of Saint Martha) appears a dragon called Tarascon. The legend tells about the activities of this fearsome creature that ‘Si se tapissoit en l’eau, tuoit les poissons et noyoit les nefz […] Et quant on le suyvoit par un espace de temps, il mettoit hors l’ordure de son ventre, ainsi comme ung dard, et ardoit tout ce à quoy il touchoit. Marthe, à la prière du peuple, alla là, et le trouva mangeant ung homme en sa gueulle, et lors jecta dessus luy de l’eau benoiste, et luy monstra une croix. Lequel fut tantost vaincu, et se tint comme une brebis. Et lors Marthe le lia de sa ceinture, et il fut tantost tué du peuple à lances et pierres.’ Voragine, La légende dorée, 158. Sometimes, however, a dragon was only a human being under a spell. The term dragon was also the vulgar name for lightning, whilst in learned language it could refer to a comet or to some other alarming atmospheric phenomenon such as a collision of winds. It should be noted that as a symbol the dragon was complex: it could point to the combativeness and courage of knights (when light coloured as in Roland’s shield), but sometimes it was a sign of treachery, pride, or malice (especially when coloured black or red). Lecouteux 1999, 62, 64-6, 70.

NAMING THE HANGMAN

Jelle Koopmans suggests that the executioners’ names referring to meteorological phenomena, such as Eclistre, Tonnoire, Tempeste and Fourdre (eclistre (éclair) and foudre = lightning, tonnerre = thunder or lightning) in the play dedicated to Saint Quintian, linked the executioners to sorcery and especially to the capacity to manipulate the weather that witches often possessed.204 There is also other evidence that could be interpreted to point in the same direction: in an Old Testament play, one can find a scene where the master hangman Gournay boasts about his professional skills and says: ‘Je suis Gournay qui fais fouldre et tempeste’205 (I am Gournay who makes lightning and the tempest). In the Actes des Apôtres the famous executioner chief Daru depicts himself as a descendant of sorcerers. His grandmother had been a ‘superlative sorcerer’ (‘La superlative sorcière’). The fate of Daru’s father – ‘Mon pere fut tout vif bruslé’ (My father was burnt alive) – seems to indicate that he was in the same business as his grandmother. Burning at the stake was a common punishment for witches in the late Middle Ages.206 Did the play writers try to suggest that executioners, in general, had magical powers similar to those of witches? Some scholars have thought that the beliefs concerning the magical powers of the executioner only arose during the period of the great witch-hunts in Western Europe. Pieter Spierenburg writes that these beliefs were based on the fact that executioners were capable of burning witches at the stake and remaining unharmed by their sorcery. For this reason early modern people would have believed that hangmen also had to be some sort of witches or magicians themselves.207 It is evident, however, that the concepts related to the professional hangman’s magical powers had already arisen amongst the masses during an earlier period. In my view, these beliefs were not based only on hangmen’s contact with convicted witches, but rather upon these professionals’ regular exposure to the blood and bodies of all sorts of criminals. Their repeated contact with these invested a hangman with some special powers: his touch could be sometimes polluting, sometimes beneficial.208 The magical powers of hangmen were limited, however, and did not resemble those of great sorcerers (i.e. as capable of manipulating the weather, etc.). It must be observed, too, that chroniclers, who usually were extremely interested in every occurrence or phenomenon connected with sorcery (the multiple references to sorcery in chronicles are evidence of the growth of this obsession during the second half of the fifteenth century), never mention anything about the special magical powers of hangmen.209 I feel that a more evident explanation for the ‘meteorological’ names of executioners (apart from connection with sorcery) in mystery plays is that these served to point to their similarity to devils and to the idea of evil in general. Names

204 205 206 207

Koopmans 1997, 113. See also Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1404 à 1449, 295. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 176-7. The monologue of Daru has been quoted in Muir 1986, 155. Spierenburg 1984, 30. Spierenburg has remarked that ordinarily the magic of executioners was not of the evil kind (black magic) but beneficial (white) in popular beliefs. In some folktales the executioners recovered lost children, located stolen goods or even exorcised demons. 208 See section 4.6. 209 On the sorcery and the punishments of the witches see, for example, La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 84, 115, 131, 271-2; IV, 99, 310-11.

89

CHAPTER 3

referring to lightning and thunder were also common to demons,210 with which the executioners in religious drama actually shared many other names such as Agrippart, Dentart, etc.211 These names were especially well suited to devils whose arrivals were usually accompanied by sound effects representing thunder.212 In the Middle Ages, alarming meteorological phenomena were frequently believed to be the deeds of evil forces even if they had quite natural explanations in learned thinking.213 Storms evoked feelings of anxiety and fear, because they were linked with ideas of Hell, destruction, and the final chaos preceding the end of the world.214 Chronicle writers, for example, paid much attention to the weather and to different meteorological phenomena, especially negative ones. Bad weather, storms, thunder, shooting stars and comets were quite commonly connected with evil supernatural powers or interpreted as warning signs predicting some catastrophe or the end of the world.215 It should be noted, too, that in the Hell depicted by theologians and poets, sinners were harassed by an eternal storm.216 Therefore, I suggest that the executioners’ ‘meteorological’ names pointed to their similarity with demons, colleagues in the hereafter. Hangmen in mystery plays were not powerful manipulators of the weather, but simply very evil men who enjoyed hurting and maiming, just like demons. Jelle Koopmans suggests that the medieval play-writers sometimes used names that clearly referred to the lower classes, because of their connotations of penury, hunger and cold. In the Mystère de la sainte Hostie the executioners are called Maigredos and Affumé,217 that is ‘Thinback’ and ‘Starved’ (affumé is a variant of the adjective affamé). One can meet an executioner named Claquedent both in the text of Arnoul Gréban

210 Koopmans 1997, 115. In an anonymous mystery play from the first half of the fifteenth century we find a scene where Herod has gone raving mad after having received news about the death of his son. He calls on demons to put an end to his wretched life and to carry his soul to Hell: ‘Dyables, venez a grant maisnie, / Fouldre, tonnere et grant tempeste.’ Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 62. 211 Agrippart and Dentart – ordinary names for demons – are the names of executioners, for example, in Gréban’s work. Gréban, Le mystère de la Passion, 98, 202. See also Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 199. In mystery plays we also find demons with traditional biblical names (Lucifer, Satan, Belial, Beelzebub (Bellezebuth), Astaroth. Le mystère de Saint Laurent, 11.) but in a general way the names of demons are as varied as the names of the executioners. J.B. Russell has examined demons’ names in medieval drama and lists several categories such as modifications, classical names, ironical names, injuries, historical names, allegories, and folkloric names, names referring to the common people, nicknames, and names referring to natural phenomena. Russell 1984, 249-50. 212 On sound effects and mechanical devices in late medieval theatre, see Frank 1954, 172; Mazouer 1998, 158-9. 213 For lightning, see Le livre des propriétés des choses, 204-5. Bartholomew Anglicus, an encyclopaedist from the midthirteenth century, explains that ‘La foudre est engendrée par d’épaisses vapeurs composées de choses diverses et opposées qui sont dans les zones élevées et qui sont fortement enflammées. Elles se heurtent, se déplacent sous l’action des vents et des nuages, s’assemblent alors et se durcissent à la façon d’une pierre qui serait enflammée, puis jetée violemment ici-bas comme une flèche […] Il y a une foudre sèche qui ne brûle pas, mais qui disperse; une foudre humide, qui noircit. La troisième est claire et d’une nature étonnante, car elle vide le vine en laissant le verre intact et fond l’or et l’argent sans nuire à la bourse où ils se trouvent.’ 214 Delumeau 1978, 36-41, 68-70. 215 See, for example, La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, I-IV, passim and II, 267; III, 108-11, 131, 307; IV, 147; Molinet, Chroniques, I-V, passim. 216 For example, Jean Gerson, distinguished theologian, wrote about storms and tempests that fall on the damned in Hell. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, X, 318. In Dante’s depiction of Hell from the beginning of the fourteenth century, sinners (especially luxurious) were harassed by an eternal storm, ‘La bufera infernal, che mai non resta’. Dante, La Divina Commedia, 38. 217 Koopmans 1997, 112.

90

NAMING THE HANGMAN

as well as in that of Jean Michel.218 This name refers to the familiar effect caused by cold, the chattering of teeth. Consequently, there is good reason to think that one is dealing here with references to the lower classes and to marginality. In the later Middle Ages hunger and cold especially harassed and struck the poor, who could only dream of such an earthly paradise that would provide them with safety, warmth, food and happiness – a place contrasting with the misery and suffering of everyday reality.219 Some names in the mystery plays refer to filth, which was also often conceived of as being a very alienating trait.220 In Le Martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul221 and in the Mystère des Actes des Apôtres222 there is an executioner named Maubué. This expression meant, ‘badly washed’ (mal lavé) in Old French.223 Jelle Koopmans suggests that this particular category of executioners’ names pointed to poverty and the non-privileged classes. It is quite true that poverty was many times – even if not systematically – perceived of as a negative, marginalising feature in late medieval culture.224 In addition, it should be noted that the ideas of cold and filth were also closely linked to the idea of Hell. In Hell sinners were tortured, not only by burning fire but also by ice, freezing wind, and terrible cold. In Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers (from the end of the fifteenth century) there is a wood cut of the torture that was reserved for the envious: an ice-cold stream.225 Jean Gerson assured his audience in one of his sermons that the cold of Hell is quite unequalled, many times more frightening than one possibly could imagine.226 Hell was not only the kingdom of ice and darkness, but also that of dirt and squalor; the Devil was the Lord of Filth.227 Consequently, names pointing to filth were particularly well suited to the hangman. On the one hand, executioners of martyrs were perceived as colleagues of foul demons. On the other hand, everybody knew that in urban reality an official hangman not only handled the unclean and rotting bodies of dead criminals, but also often performed various dirty and polluting extra jobs, such as the cleaning of streets, of public lavatories, etc. 218 This is one of the ‘tyrants’ of Pilate. Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 282; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 31. 219 As Piero Camporesi explains, the different ideas of Paradise, earthly or celestial, were often mixed with one another. At the popular level the acme of earthly paradise was a land of abundance that offered its treasures to all senses. It is worth noting that even the most ascetic Church Fathers thought that blessedness was founded on physicality and earthliness. Camporesi 1988, 223, 238. 220 However, filth could also have a positive meaning in the context of religious vows and ascetic practices. 221 Le Martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul, 78. 222 Koopmans 1997, 111. 223 The verb buer referred to the washing of laundry (faire la lessive). Greimas 1989, 86. 224 It has been suggested that during the later Middle Ages and especially by the end of the fifteenth century, attitudes to poverty became more negative. Leading classes started to see it as a problem and a serious threat. As Robert & Lévy have put it: ‘Dans cette époque charnière des XIVe–XVe siècles, la pauvreté apparaît de plus en plus, non plus seulement comme un état relevant de la charité, mais comme un problème […] L’image du pauvre tend à se segmenter: toujours figure du Christ et donc moyen de rédemption pour les riches menacés par la malédiction du “Mammon d’iniquité”, il devient en même temps menaçant, surtout sous les espèces du vagabond. La contradiction latente contenue dans cette segmentation va se négocier en une nosographie binaire tendant à distinguer les “bons pauvres” – ceux qui sont à la fois inaptes au travail et soumis – des “mauvais”, simulateurs paresseux et éventuellement révoltés’. Robert & Lévy 1985, 486. On attitudes to poverty in the Middle Ages, see also Geremek 1974, 347; Delumeau 1978, 410; Mollat 1986, 193-293. 225 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, 66. See also Dante’s depiction of Hell: sinners are tortured by eternal fire as well as cold, ice and a freezing wind. Dante, La Divina Commedia, 25, 38, 270-3, 285, 292-3. 226 ‘… les dyables trebuchent iceulx dampnés et les gectent heureusement es grands abimes sans mesure, toutes plaines d’eaues si froides que toutes les froidures de nege et de gelées rien ne montent au regard d’icelles. Se une montagne de feu y cheoit, elle tantost devendroit glace.’ Gerson, Œuvres complètes, X, 318. 227 See sections 2.3 and 6.3.

91

CHAPTER 3

Some names of executioners in the mystery plays refer to a lack of reason and mental disorders. The name Daru is famous, especially from the Mystère des actes des Apôtres where it belongs to the impressive master executioner. Later this name was borrowed, for example, in a southern French play called the Istoria Petri et Pauli.228 As Raymond Lebègue has noted, the name Daru was synonymous with the French word lourdaud.229 This was a common nickname or slight for members of the lower classes. It meant something like ‘blockhead’, ‘boor’, and ‘bungler’. Besides the names referring to stupidity, one often encounters names that link the executioner with severe mental deviancy and downright madness. In a play dedicated to Saint Martin one finds, for example, the names Toutpervers, Lenragé, Sans raison,230 that is, ‘Totally perverted’, ‘Deranged’ and ‘Without reason’. As will be clear in the following chapters, the idea of lack of wit was very central to the image of the evil executioner and it was made explicit by many means in numerous contexts. A hangman’s defective reason pointed to sin and the animal kingdom. Some playwrights made use of negative biblical, historical, and legendary names in indicating and fashioning the representation of the evil pagan hangman. In Le Mystère de roy Advenir we meet the executioners Agripart and Barbacas, the first serving the provost Sanar and the second, the bailiff of Grantmont. The name Agripart points to Herod Agrippa, king of the Jews 10 B.C.–44 A.D., and Barbacas is a modification of the notorious Barabbas. In some versions of the southern French play the Istoria Petri et Pauli we encounter an executioner called Antigonus.231 This is probably a reference to Antigonos, king of Judea 40–37 B.C. In La Passion du Palatinus, which is the most ancient mystery play still surviving, one of the executioners of Pilate is named Cayn232 – the namesake of the son of Adam. Before closing this examination of fictitious names, it must be observed that one does not find a perfectly ‘pure’ series of executioners’ names in the mystery texts. Just as Jelle Koopmans suggests in his study, dramatists regularly made use of different thematic groups: names referring to violence appear together with those pointing to the lowest classes or negative historical and legendary names. One is dealing with groups of names in which various thematic axes connected to the obsessions of repulsion are fused.233 The whole forms a very versatile interpretation in which the executioners are linked to various negative ideas and contexts: to penury and marginality, to cruelty and violence, to madness and the kingdom of Satan. Most part of these names had a specific etymology and meaning in late medieval culture; their various connotations were quite clear to play writers and their audiences.

228 229 230 231 232

Henrard 1998, 286. Lebègue 1928, 13. Koopmans 1997, 112-3. Henrard 1998, 286. La Passion du Palatinus, 22, and passim. This work dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century and the only manuscript is in the collections of the Vatican library. See Introduction in La Passion de Palatinus, iii-iv. 233 Koopmans 1997, 113-4.

92

NAMING THE HANGMAN

3.3 Namelessness At the level of verbal expression the attitudes of contempt could be effectively communicated not only by means of negative terminology, but also by total silence – by excluding some individual or object from its usual or known context. I shall next discuss framing and controlling efforts that made use of the tactics of shunning and evasion instead of direct attack (by means of insult, for example). This method was used particularly in the literary products that members of the upper classes and the learned aimed at their own circle, such as chronicles and legal treatises. It was also typical of clerics who kept official criminal registers. These documents were not meant to be read by any wider audience, they were just records. As explained above, the chroniclers often labelled the hangman as a socially distinct (also, morally suspect) category by their choice of words, i.e. preferring the use of the pejorative popular term bourreau to more neutral expressions. Another favoured method of degradation was the one that functioned through namelessness and silence. It is quite a usual feature for the chronicle texts to carefully avoid any mention of the hangman in such contexts where reference would, however, seem quite natural and relevant (– natural at least to modern readers), for example, in depictions of punishment ceremonies. When leafing through chronicles and journals one cannot help noticing that writers have quite openly shown the general violent tenor of their time: one finds countless depictions of wars, riots, fights, and murders. In fifteenth-century texts, the public rituals of punishment are described more often and in a more detailed way than in the works of the previous centuries.234 One conspicuous feature is that the hangman is often an invisible agent in these reports: most writers do not mention his person at all. They recount the course of the punitive ceremony and its culmination in the passive or impersonal form, as if sentences could be executed without any intermediary.235 A good example of this procedure of silence is afforded by an anonymous Parisian journal from the beginning of the fifteenth century. The writer describes the execution ritual of Jean de Montaigu, the grand maître d’hôtel of the king of France, in the year 1409. He writes about the convict’s transport from prison to the scaffold at the Halles of Paris and depicts carefully Montaigu’s rich habit. The culmination of the ceremony is reported as follows: ‘Là on lui coupa la tête, et après fut porté le corps au gibet de Paris, et pendu au plus haut, en chemise, à toutes ses chausses et éperons dorés’.236 (There his head was cut off, and afterwards the corpse 234 One reason to depict, in detail, executions and other public rituals in narrative sources was, naturally, that they formed the perfect means of illustrating group cohesion, social position and exclusion. Blockmans 1999, 15. For the general aims and features of late-medieval historiography, see Blockmans & Stein 1998, 336-7. 235 In illuminated chronicles pictures show us the executioner at his work more often than texts. This reminds one of the fact that art and literature often followed their own internal rules and conventions in the late Middle Ages. Artists could show many such things which writers preferred to ignore and they could even express their deviant opinion (upon some execution that the writer of the text considered just) by making use of iconographical codes. On this topic, see Raynaud 1990 and section 2.3. 236 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 34.

93

CHAPTER 3

was carried to the gallows of Paris, and hung at the highest [level], dressed in skirt, trousers and golden spurs.) The hangman is not worth mentioning to this writer, whilst the most interesting thing for him seems to be the convict’s sumptuous red and white dress and its various details.237 A little later the same anonymous writer depicts the culminating point of the execution ceremony of the traitor Colinet de Puiseux in 1411 in an equally opaque way: …fut mis en l’échafaud et dépouillé tout nu, et lui coupa-t-on la tête à lui et 6e, et le 7e fut pendu car il n’était pas de leur fausse bande. Et ledit Colinet, faux traître, fut dépecé des quatre membres, et à chacune des maîtresses portes de Paris (fut) l’un de ses membres pendu, et son corps en un sac au gibet, et leurs têtes ès Halles sur six lances, comme faux traîtres qu’ils étaient.238 … [he] was put on the scaffold and stripped naked, and his head, as well those of his five comrades, was cut off and the seventh [convict] was hanged, for he did not belong to their mean gang. And the said Colinet, ignoble traitor, had his four members chopped off and each of his members was hung at one of the major gates of Paris and his corpse was hung in a sack on the gallows, and their heads were mounted on six lances [and exposed] at the Halles, because they were vile traitors. As one can notice, the course of the ceremony is told in the passive form and the person of public executioner is not revealed to readers. The curt style or even total silence relating to the person of the hangman in numerous chronicles and journals is striking for the reason that judicial violence and various elements and details of the punishment rituals are, at the same time, depicted so often. In these reports the focus was ordinarily on the person of the convict, on his or her attitude, and on various gestures and the stages of the ritual.239 It is very common that the main actor, the active agent of the punitive spectacle, the official hangman, is not mentioned at all in the text. When the writers occasionally broke this rule, the impact was considerable, as I will explain later. Chroniclers do not directly state their reasons for avoiding mentioning the hangman. Some enlightenment on this matter is offered, however, by Philippe de 237 As Colette Beaune has explained, the impact of this kind of execution ritual was based particularly on the strong contrast between the attributes of the nobility (red and white habit, golden spurs of a knight) and those of infamy (tied hands, driven in a cart, the exposure of the body after decapitation). Montaigu’s only fault was that he was enormously rich and not bourguignon. The execution of Montaigu evoked severe criticism and made all the allies of the convict join the Orléans party. See Beaune’s footnotes 13.-16. in Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 33-4. 238 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 44, see also 59, 93, 94, 188, 272, 367, 442. See also Lefèvre de SaintRemy, Chronique, I-II, passim; Monstrelet, La Chronique, I-VI, passim; Chronique de Jean le Bel, I-II, passim. 239 Chroniclers usually considered the convict’s attitude worth mentioning: an unwillingness to co-operate or a particularly exemplary attitude, belle repentance. One reason for this was that according to common belief the convict’s attitude gave hints as to his or her destiny in the hereafter. On the other hand, an exemplary attitude provided an important model for a ‘good death’ for all spectators as well as for readers of these reports.

94

NAMING THE HANGMAN

Vigneulles, writer from the town of Metz. Vigneulles explains why one should not too often write about executions: Or est il ainssy que en mon temps, en diverse année et en diverse saison, j’au veu faire pour plusieurs raisons diverse justice, et essécuter diverse parsonne, tant homme que femme, pour diverse cas: desquelles je n’en dis riens pour cause de briesté, jay ce que plusieurs en ayent escript. Mais à moy ne plaît de mestre tel chose en mon livre; et me semble une chose de petitte vallue de tel follie mettre en cronicques: car chose semblable et perreille avient tous les jours, de pouvre lairon ou aultre malfaicteur qui desroube, puis sont pandus. Et pour ce n’en fais compte d’en rien mettre, se n’est doncquez pour aulcuns grant cas lesquelles n’aviennet pas souvant, ou sinon doncque qu’il a aye aulcune chose à esmerveillier et non accoustumée de veoir ou ouyr.240 During my time, in different years and different seasons, I have witnessed many kinds of executions, for many kinds of crimes and of many kinds of persons, men as well as women: I do not speak about these cases for reasons of briefness and because many have already written about them. It does not please me to put such things in my book; and it seems unworthy to me to put such follies in chronicles: for similar cases happen every day, some poor robber or some other malefactor is hanged for his crimes. And for this reason I do not intend to write anything about these matters, except for some important cases that do not often occur, or for those cases where there has been something extraordinary and unusual to see or to hear. The keywords in this quotation are petitte vallue and follie. Vigneulles explains that one should avoid describing public executions in chronicles for the reason that the topic is too banal and trivial, futile and stupid. Only important and exceptional cases are worth mentioning in chronicles. These would be chiefly those executions where the convict was some highly ranked person or some notorious criminal (– renowned because of the exceptional cruelty of his or her crime, which was reflected in the form of the punishment). Regardless of his strong opinion, Vigneulles describes execution ceremonies – as an eyewitness or on the basis of other sources – more often and more carefully than most of his colleagues. Accordingly, his chronicle provides very valuable information for the investigation of late medieval punitive rituals and practices. Obviously, chroniclers also considered worth mentioning those cases where something unexpected or new occurred during the ceremony, for example, when some novel kind of instrument of execution was used for the first time. Jean d’Auton, for example, systematically used an opaque and concise style when 240 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 146.

95

CHAPTER 3

depicting execution ceremonies. He makes only one exception to this general rule of silence. In the depiction of the execution ceremony (1507) of a certain Demetry Justinian from Geneva, where a new kind of machine was used, Auton mentions the executioner twice, describes his proceedings and the novel instrument that functioned like a guillotine.241 Other chroniclers showed the hangman only when he had difficulties in performing his tasks. The Chronique normande du XIVe siècle provides us with a good example. The anonymous writer has mentioned the person of the executioner only once: he reports the execution in 1358 in the place of Grève where the official hangman of Paris suddenly fell ill, but then recovered and could finish his task. (‘Et avint que quant le bourreau eut saisie la doulouere pour eulz justicier, il chay devant le peuple de mauvaise et villaine maladie et ne se peut relever en grant piece, et au relever ne se peut il excuser de la justice faire et les despeça chacun d’eulx en IIII quartiers’).242 The anonymous writer or compiler243 considered this extraordinary incident to be a good enough reason for breaking the silence. In this particular case many persons probably interpreted the executioner’s sudden illness as a divine sign and were doubtful about the justness of the sentence. Evidently, these learned men – chronicle writers and their readers – shared a common interest in all kinds of new machines and their details and functioning principles. A failure by the executioner, however, was always an important occurrence, for it was traditionally interpreted as sign of divine discontent (especially amongst the common people) and it often made witnesses question the sentence. This kind of incident could lead to the pardoning of the convict. All in all, it is clear to me that chroniclers used silence as a means to signal their unfavourable conceptions and opinions about the hangman, their feelings of contempt and revulsion. Sometimes the silences were perhaps quite involuntary, not premeditated, but often they were intentional. The hangman was considered a taboo topic in the context of chronicles, one of those subjects that one should not mention when writing about legitimate judicial violence. Another missing central element is blood. Even if everybody knew perfectly well that the convicts’ blood ran abundantly in punitive spectacles – that it soaked the clothes of the convicts, spattered the instruments and habit of the hangman, the scaffold and the surrounding ground, sometimes also the clothes of spectators244 – it was not customary to speak about these facts.245 One encounters the same silence in depictions of war, as JeanChristophe Cassard has observed. Even if blood had such a significant role in the sinister reality of the battles fought during the period of the Hundred Years War, chronicle writers avoided mentioning it. Writers speak often and comprehensively 241 242 243 244

Auton, Chroniques de Louis XII, IV, 279-80. Chronique normande du XIVe siècle, 126. On hypotheses related to originality of this chronicle, see Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 289. Philippe de Vigneulles, who spoke quite openly about such things that his colleagues usually avoided, gives us a glimpse of the very bloody reality of execution ceremonies. He describes in a detailed way an execution performed in 1494 in Metz, where the blood gushed out of a convict’s neck after decapitation so forcefully that it spattered the clothes of several spectators (‘le sanc […] se lansait dehors par telle force qu’il sambloit que ce fût une trinsoire à bairbier, et en furent plusieurs en la compaignie des gaistés et dessaigniés’). La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 306. 245 Even if in illuminated chronicle manuscript pictures show us many details absent in the text, the blood is depicted, nonetheless, in a rather reticent manner.

96

NAMING THE HANGMAN

about battles, but they only describe the various stages of fighting and list the dead and wounded (amongst the nobility). They do not mention the blood covering the victims and the battlefield at all.246 The habit of avoiding showing the blood in depictions of violence points to an old convention and expression of a mental attitude that was widely apparent in the cultural products of the earlier era. Before the period of the later Middle Ages, blood was absent not only from chronicles, but also from religious art and literature, for example, from hagiographies.247 At that time flowing blood was an element closely associated with ideas of sin, death and impurity.248 At the beginning of the fourteenth century it made up part of the desolate scenery of Hell in Dante’s famous work. Dante describes a river of blood where violent men are boiled (‘la riviera del sangue, in la qual bolle / qual che per violenza in altrui noccia’) and the horrible wounds of the damned.249 From the fourteenth century on, blood symbolism became more ambivalent and to describe or mention blood was more possible. Especially the blood of Christ and the martyrs started to flow profusely in works of religious art and literature.250 In religious drama blood was a very essential element in the fifteenth century. The staging of executions was made as realistic as possible: it was common to use great quantities of fake blood, as well as weapons and instruments of torture painted red, and dolls (feintes) that could be decapitated or torn in pieces by four horses (écartelage), for example.251 In this context, Christ’s and the saints’ wounds and blood could be regarded as a source of great comfort, not as offensive.252 The wonderful blood of saintly persons was, nonetheless, a case apart. The blood of ordinary sinners was still considered extremely vile and polluting, and as such not worth describing, for example, in chronicles. Writers and artists also had to avoid showing this substance for the reason that a danger of misinterpretation existed as flowing blood was now widely used as a special sign of martyrdom. 246 Cassard 1999, 294, 299. 247 Jean-Pierre Perrot, who has studied the blood imagery of the twelfth and thirteenth-century martyr legends (in prose), observes that here blood is either absent or replaced by some other substance, such as water or milk. According to Perrot, one reason for the silence related to blood was that flowing blood was commonly interpreted as impure and polluting. It was connected with the passing of time and death. Perrot 1999, 459, 467. 248 For example, in clerical thinking of the early Middle Ages ‘bad blood’ referred to sin and death, whilst ‘good blood’ symbolised life and divine sacrifice. Voisenet 1999, 111. 249 Dante, La Divina Commedia, 95-6, 98, 233-41. 250 In Bruges (in the thirteenth century) some devotees founded a fraternity dedicated to this mystical liquid, Confrérie du Saint Sang. The Bruges’ Holy Blood cult concerned, originally, a relic brought by crusaders. The adoration of the Christ’s blood became more important towards the end to the Middle Ages. Mâle 1995, 10610. Late medieval artists very carefully depicted the blood and wounds of Christian martyrs. A fine example is Henry Bellechose’s Retable de saint Denis: the saintly victim has a huge, open wound in his neck as a result of the first unsuccessful blow of the executioner’s axe. There is also a depiction of a later stage where the saint’s head has been cut off and blood pours from his neck. In the middle of the painting Bellechose has depicted the bloody wounds of the crucified Saviour. Bellechose, Retable de saint Denis. 1416. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 251 Cohen 1951, 148-52; Frank 1954, 172; Gatton 1991; Davidson 2002, 189-91, 257. Gustave Cohen has written about the fifteenth-century mystery plays: ‘Leur principe est de ne jamais cacher une exécution dans les coulisses, mais de présenter le fait dans toute son horreur, dans toute sa crudité’. As Cohen observes, this tendency was in contradiction with classical theories according to which murders or executions should not be presented on the stage, but these should take place behind the scenes. On violence in Greek drama, see for example Goldhill 1991, 15. 252 On sacred blood in late medieval theatre, see Davidson 2002, 180-204.

97

CHAPTER 3

Depicting a sinner’s blood in other contexts than in descriptions of Hell, for example, in depictions of punitive spectacles, was problematic. Therefore, it is not surprising that when chroniclers in some rare cases mentioned blood in the context of executions, they obviously used it as a means to elevate the victims and stigmatise their opponents. Extremely bloody depictions of executions served to point to sin and evil, to bad justice, male justice, which was unjust and cruel. A good example is a Saint-Denis monk’s report of the execution of crusaders by order of the notorious Bajasid in 1396. The writer describes the whole affair as repulsive butchering and depicts Bajasid's horrific executioners covered with blood from head to toe. He claims that this sight was so awful that the executioners even disgusted the tyrant Bajasid himself,253 who was famous for his cruelty. The description of the executioners’ habits soaked with their victims’ blood was meant to be understood as an extremely negative stigma, a climax of horror. This writer (Michel Pintoin) wanted to mark Saracen justice as male justice and Bajasid’s executioners as brutal murderers, impure and bestial men, unnatural creatures that would be doomed to perdition.254 Another piece of evidence is provided in a text by Philippe de Vigneulles. After having described an exceptionally profuse spouting of blood in the context of a fully justified decapitation,255 which did not succeed as planned mainly because of the convict’s fierce resistance, Vigneulles hastens to explain that the amazing profusion of blood had, in fact, quite a natural reason in this particular case. He explains that it was brought about by the exceptional hotness of the convict’s blood; the man was very warm after having had a long fight with the executioner (‘Pour ce qu’il estoit fort eschauffés, le sanc qui estoit en luy bouillant’).256 As a writer Vigneulles was less reserved than most of his colleagues. But one may think that here the clarifying explanation was necessary and important, for he had no intention of condemning this execution as unjust. One may suppose that he had decided to report in detail this particular execution, because it had so many dramatic turns and thus it might interest his readers. But he must explain the spectacle of spouting blood in a satisfactory manner, so that no one would be tempted to interpret it as a supernatural sign of divine discontentment. I have discussed in depth the problematical aspects of showing blood in various contexts to shed some extra light on the motives for not showing the hangman in chronicles. The sinner’s blood and the hangman were both topics that pointed to appalling and threatening concepts and ideas. Their presence in a chronicle text would have made any sentence and its execution appear mean and 253 Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, II, 518-9. 254 Nicole Chareyron suggests that the end of the crusaders in Nicopolis was a factor that contributed to the preservation of the image of the bloodthirsty Saracen for a long time in Western imagery. Chareyron 1999, 330. Miniatures in illuminated chronicles show the blood-covered, mutilated bodies of the crusaders. The executioners of Bajasid are not covered by blood but are clearly stigmatised by other negative attributes. (See for example BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 255v.) Jean d’Auton, who is ordinarily very reticent in describing blood or violent actions, writes in his chronicle, nonetheless, in a very detailed way about the death of the besieged French at the hands of the enemy (Genovans) in 1507 and shows us the cruel wounds, intestines and blood. In my opinion, he does this to emphasise the inhuman, bestial cruelty of the enemy. Auton, Chroniques de Louis XII, IV, 140-2. 255 (Example cited above.) La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 306. 256 Ibid., 306.

98

NAMING THE HANGMAN

shameful, cruel and horrible in the imagination of late medieval readers. This was a major reason for not mentioning them. After all, chronicle writers wanted to report noteworthy and noble topics that would interest and please their sophisticated audiences. The fundamental aim of these works was to signal, fashion and strengthen the positive self-image of a ‘civilised’ society, the justice of which was ‘good justice’ and not bad, like that of ‘others’, namely enemies, infidels and pagans. As I will explain later, medieval people, even the learned, could speak more openly about certain topics that have become too embarrassing to modern sensibilities (such as various bodily functions, etc.).257 But at the same time then there existed certain issues they found quite unsuitable to discuss in chronicles. It must also be observed that in chronicles, the hangman was not the only silenced lowly person. He had numerous fate-mates such as prostitutes, pimps, and gravediggers who occupied infamous functions, or some groups considered vile for other reasons, such as homosexuals. After having said all this about the topic of silence, I wish to pay attention to some chroniclers who were not afraid of showing the executioner. Some of them exploited the hangman figures for propaganda purposes, a theme that will be discussed more in detail later in chapter VII. The official chronicler monks of the abbey of St Denis (Pintoin and his successor Jean Chartier), in their text, showed the hangman especially in negative contexts, in cases where they wanted to express an unfavourable opinion about a sentence or alternatively, about a hangman. For example, in one passage we can read about a newly recruited executioner (a French convict) who showed abominable cruelty of character in volunteering to decapitate his relatives. Later, we meet notorious Capeluche who was claimed having murdered innocent citizens, women as well as men, in the streets of Paris during the uprising in 1418.258 In Jean Froissart’s chronicle the hangman is mentioned for a similar reason, mainly in the context of reports about sentences viewed as excessively harsh, deserved or not.259 Jean Molinet, an official chronicler of the court of Burgundy, also mentioned the hangman in the context of famous and ‘cruel’ executions such as the decapitation of Constable Louis de Saint-Pol in 1475 – an ally of the Duke of Burgundy and therefore condemnable in the eyes of Molinet – and the execution of Jean Langlois in 1493, a heretical priest (an abominable criminal who received a deserved punishment for his crimes), and when criticising the justice of rebellious Flemish towns in 1488.260 Jean de Roye was a chronicler who paid unusually much attention to the hangman.261 In Roye’s text, one can encounter the official hangman of Paris, Henry Cousin and his son, Petit-Jehan. In one passage, Henry is depicted as the avenger of 257 258 259 260 261

See chapter 6. Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, II, 384, 520; VI, 265-8. See also IV, 273-7, 593-5. BN mss fr. 2643-6. Molinet, Chroniques, I, 134, 600, 608, 613-4, 624; II, 375-6. Jean de Roye belonged to a bourgeois Parisian family and served as a notary in Châtelet at the beginning of the reign of Louis XI. Later, he worked as a secretary and guardian of the palace for the dukes of Bourbon. Roye’s work also was known from the sixteenth century on by the name of Chronique scandaleuse, because of the numerous details related to Louis XI that were unfavourable to the king. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 846.

99

CHAPTER 3

the common people; he fustigates Casin Cholet, a notorious and unpopular sergeant. Spectators were satisfied and even encouraged the hangman to hit harder. Later, Henry assists his son at the execution of Constable Saint-Pol at the place of Grève in 1475. Roye gives a lengthy report about this case. He has also discussed, in detail, the assassination (1477) of Jehan Cousin (actors, circumstances, motives) and ends his report by saying that eventually, the father received a just recompense for his loss: master Henry hanged by his own hands the four conspirators on the royal gibbet of Montfaucon.262 A possible reason for the careful description of Saint-Pol’s execution and mentioning the hangmen in this context is that Roye disapproved of the sentence. He was not the only person to do so. In addition, he was a writer who was not afraid to express his critical opinions about the king. The attention and space given to Henry Cousin and Petit-Jehan, and especially to the death of Jehan, seem to indicate a more positive opinion of the hangman than was habitual for chroniclers. Roye’s message was that violence directed against these necessary officers was condemnable and did not go unpunished. The best example about a chronicler who dared to break the rule of silence is Philippe de Vigneulles. In spite of his own recommendation quoted above he frequently depicted executions. His contradictory comment shows, in my view, that he well understood why his colleagues did not like to speak about the hangman. However, Vigneulles was not an official court chronicler and therefore he did not feel the need to observe this convention or general rule of decency, he had more freedom of expression. He was a cloth merchant from Metz who travelled a lot.263 In his work, Philippe de Vigneulles has mentioned and shown the hangman much more often than any of his colleagues. The hangman is depicted in his work, not only the one serving the good justice of the Metz authorities but also those working for other authorities in foreign towns. Vigneulles mentions several times by name master Waulter l’Allemant, the official hangman of Metz. He also reports his murder during a torture session (in 1507) by a suspect who had managed to hide a knife in his clothing. Master Waulter died instantly. We learn about the great difficulties of the Metz authorities in finding a new hangman. Finally they succeeded and the murderer got a richly deserved penalty. Vigneulles signalled that a professional hangman was a valuable servant of law who merited some respect in his role under criminal justice, especially if capable and talented. (However, respect as well as deprecation are both relative attitudes – it is by no means probable that Vigneulles would have recommended to his son this particular job, considered vile and shameful by the rest of the society.264) In his chronicle, above all, Vigneulles 262 Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 82, 355-63; II, 58-60, see also I, 4-5, 73-4; II, 82-4. 263 Philippe de Vigneulles (1471–1527/8) was quite a productive writer who also wrote, in addition to an extensive chronicle, poems, novellas and a journal. The chronicle of Vigneulles is a universal history that focuses especially on the history of Metz and that of France. Vigneulles was not interested in the history of Germany. One reason for this was that Vigneulles did not speak German. Furthermore, his hometown was clearly oriented towards France. His chronicle extends from the thirteenth century to the early sixteenth century. See the Introduction in La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, I, ii-xv. 264 People of the past could see and observe some positive aspects in any figure generally considered lowly. For example, a hangman (like master Waulter), a skinner, a gravedigger, etc. could appear, on the one hand, a necessary professional, indispensable, even very skilled, but at the same time, they were viewed and considered mean, low and suspect, because of their base and polluting occupations. Needless to say, deprecation was not

100

NAMING THE HANGMAN

sought to praise good justice practised in his home town. On some occasions, Vigneulles also criticised the hangman of Metz, for having failed to perform his duty in a satisfactory manner.265 All in all, Vigneulles and Roye were quite original chroniclers. However, in spite of their more favourable attitude, one can still observe some reservation, for example, in the fact that both writers chose to occasionally employ the disparaging term bourreau by side of more neutral words such as executeur and maistre.266 Lastly, it must be observed that judicial authorities and officeholders, too, were often absent from execution reports in chronicles. But this feature was not significant in the same way as in the hangman’s case; an omission might have various reasons such as the need to avoid connecting the names of certain esteemed personages with any nonglorious affairs. When the key persons or authorities (who had the responsibility) were explicitly mentioned, and when this was done in a stigmatic purpose, the hangman was also shown together with various negative details such as the convict’s pain, effusion of blood, etc.267 Besides chronicles, the texts written by legal experts offer fine examples on how to use silences as a means of transmitting negative messages about the executioner. In the Middle Ages, there existed several categories of legal texts, as three sources inspired the medieval judicial thinking: canon law, roman law and customary law. The code of Justinian, the Decret by Gratian and the Decretals of Gregory IX were the best diffused works in the high Middle Ages; they were the essential bases of the juridical science. Compilations of customary laws (coutumiers) started to appear from the thirteenth century on. They focused on non-literary norms and were written in the vernacular, not in Latin. These texts were not disseminated via universities but through cabinets d’avocats and notaries in tribunals. These works elucidated more immediately the actual legal practices.268 Compared to chronicles, in legal experts’ texts the namelessness of the executioner is even more systematic and striking – at least to a modern reader who would not perhaps expect this absence in this particular context. Writers of coutumiers, for example, have listed over and over again in their works the numerous penalties of mutilation or death prescribed for various crimes in customary law, but they never mention the executioner in these contexts. They do not say a word about the person who was supposed to carry out these penalties – as if these could come

265 266 267

268

only linked to a ‘representer’s’ and his intended audience’s social position (i.e. automatic classification of certain individuals as ‘inferior’) but to moral views as well. Therefore any figure at the top of the social ladder could also be the target of contempt. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 26, 49, 493. See also III, 44, 91, 104, 192, 263-5, 305, 354, 357; IV, 37, 71, 83-4, 86, 91, 125, 131-2, 148, 226, 511, 541-4. Some of these latter examples clearly belonged to the category of excessive or arbitrary justice in Vigneulles’ thinking. For Roye’s and Vigneulles’ terminology, see section 3.1. The writer of the Parisian journal, in his report on the execution of Sauvage de Frémainville’s (in 1427), mentions the responsible authority (the regent, Duke of Bedford), and observes the presence of the provost, his men and the regent’s treasurer Pierre Baillet in the ritual. According to the anonymous writer, Baillet behaved in a very inappropriate and non-Christian manner: he did not want to allow confession to the convict, hit him with his staff (the executioner, too, received 5–6 blows), and did not show any mercy when the hanging rope snapped and Frémainville broke his leg but ordered the executioner to continue and complete his task. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1404 à 1449, 241. Jakob 2002, 208.

101

CHAPTER 3

about without any intermediaries. It is significant that writers do not mention the hangman even in those instances where they write about the various agents of justice and describe their different functions, responsibilities and rights. Jean Boutillier writes in his renowned Somme rural quite exhaustively about the numerous physical punishments that were common under the late medieval penal system,269 and also examines in a very detailed way the functions of all kinds of agents of justice, judges, lawyers, sergeants, and even jailers, but totally omits the hangman.270 In a similar manner the anonymous writer of Le coutumier bourguignon glosé (from the end of the fourteenth century) has considered it appropriate to explain the responsibilities and tasks of sergeants, for example, in depth in eight sections but at the same time to completely exclude the hangman from his work.271 Jacques d’Ableiges (c. 1350–c. 1402), the writer of Le grand coutumier de France, is one of those rare writers who admit the existence of the most infamous agent of justice: he mentions the hangman, once, in his work, in a section where he writes about dealing with the personal possessions of death convicts. Ableiges observes briefly that the belt of the convict and its possible contents would usually go to the gaoler and all that remained below the belt to the hangman.272 This curt style is striking for the very reason that Ableiges wrote so extensively about the physical penalties for different crimes,273 the carrying out of which was the ‘privilege’ of the official hangman and especially because he described and defined so carefully and comprehensively in separate chapters the responsibilities and duties of other agents of justice, such as Parisian sergeants and even of those of the clerk and jailer of the prison of Châtelet, in a chapter entitled Du clerc de la geolle et geollier.274 It must be noted that Ableiges was a practitioner, not a university man, and his work (written c. 1371– 1391) was especially aimed at his relatives, colleagues and friends.275 In my view, the silence of the legal experts might, in this particular context, express a need to distance themselves from the hangman, if not direct antipathy or hostility. In works from an earlier period, such as Les coutumes du Beauvoisis written by Philippe de Beaumanoir (c. 1252–1296),276 the anonymity of the hangman can partly be interpreted as a reflection of the non-established position of this novel assistant 269 BN ms. fr. 201, fols c iiii ivv–c iiii vvjv; BN ms. fr. 202 cc iiii xr–c iiii vivv. 270 BN ms. fr. 202, fols lixr-c iiii iiijr. Boutillier’s work, finished in 1396, was the last of the great coutumiers of the later Middle Ages. The Somme rural was a very influential work; it became a great success and numerous manuscript copies of it were made during the fifteenth century (ten of them have survived). In the period 1479–1621 there were 23 editions of Boutillier’s text. One important reason for its success was that it was a collection of legal costumes in Northern France provided with explanations. At the same time it was one of the first works that contained systematic references to Roman and canonical laws. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 752-3. 271 Le coutumier bourguignon glosé, 76-84. A non-illuminated fifteenth century manuscript of this work can be found at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BN ms. n. a. fr. 1230). On the agents of justice (not including the hangman) and their status, functions, and origins in late medieval France, see Guénee 1963. 272 Le grand coutumier de France, 657. 273 Ibid., 652-72. 274 Ibid., 66-81. 275 Twenty-eight manuscripts of this text, some of which are from the fifteenth century, have survived. Ableiges has made use of the same sources as the writers of the coutumes of Senlis (1493), of Sens (1495), of Clermonten-Beauvaisis (1496) and of Melun (1506). Ableiges’ work became immensely popular in the sixteenth century; between 1514–1539 it was edited and published eleven times. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 7204. 276 Beaumanoir, Les coutumes du Beauvoisis, I-II.

102

NAMING THE HANGMAN

of justice. By the end of the thirteenth century there were still several different practices concerning the performance of the hangman’s functions. Judges themselves sometimes carried out the sentences,277 whilst in other places the task was given to some lower court officers,278 or to a death convict. At the end of the fourteenth century, however, the hangman’s office was already seen as a clearly separate category. Consequently, one may think that at that time the main reason for the silence of legal experts was no other than delicacy and repulsion. The mute message was that those individuals who held this office were not to be confused with the higher, honourable officers under criminal justice.279 Legal experts wrote their works especially for their own circle. They wanted to signal and enforce the notion of the hangman as an ‘other’ (in their circle as well as in all civilised society), even if he was an indispensable assistant of justice. It was impossible for men of law to see the executioner as one of them, to fully accept him in their number. Reasons for this resistance were linked to notions of the hangman as being from an infamous category. The executioner was regularly associated with ideas of meanness and ignobility, impurity and bestiality, disorder and evil, concepts that were shared by all classes of society. That the attitudes were so disparaging among other men of law is actually quite understandable. The need for exclusion is always the strongest in a category that feels itself most threatened by being mixed with some other group. It was especially all the other servants of justice, therefore, who had the most urgent need to maintain their distance from the hangman, to clearly mark the boundaries between categories, to define their own group as separate from that of the executioner in order to be seen in a more positive light, and not to be connected with any negative ideas. 277 Because the institutionalisation process was so slow, it was usual that practices concerning the performance of the executioner’s duties varied greatly long after the emergence of the first professional executioners. In many places a judge personally executed the corporal and capital sentences he pronounced. For example, in Aurillac (in Auvergne) at the end of the thirteenth century, it was the viguier, the judge of the local lord (abbé de SaintGéraud) who personally performed executions and various corporal punishments. The office of viguier was hereditary until 1298. Two noble families shared it: the Moisset and the Astrog d’Aurillac. Documentary sources prove that three generations of the Moissets occupied this office in turn and also included the executioner’s duties. The Astrog d’Aurillac, likewise, personally performed the hangman’s charges belonging to the office of viguier. Grand 1941, 82-4. In the larger towns of Northern France it was usual that the hangman’s charges belonged to the maïeur, the first councillor. Delarue 1979, 36. 278 In some places these tasks could be offered to the lower agents of justice, e.g. to sergents. At the Échiquier reunion (annual assembly of Normandy judges) of Rouen in 1312 one topic was the difficulty in finding executioners. The bailiff of Rouen suggested that these duties belonged to the sergents of the viscount of Eu. Sergeants replied that they could not be obliged to accept such charges that their predecessors had never been forced to perform. Finally, it was decided that their duty was only to fetch a hangman in cases where one was not available in the neighbourhood, and that this would be carried out at the expense of the crown. Delarue 1979, 38. In the Netherlands the hangman’s task was often performed by the bodel, a court messenger, before the early modern period. In Germany the unpopular task belonged to the youngest judge (in age or in office) in many places. Sometimes the task could be required of the most recently married man in the community or of the newest immigrant. Spierenburg 1984, 25. 279 Similar tactics were also used by Étienne Boileau in his works on practices and legislation relating to different trade guilds or professional groups in late thirteenth century Paris. Boileau does not mention executioners or any such professional groups he considered ignoble – even if these were already, in his time, quite important (e.g. butchers, tanners and dyers). Boileau, Le livre des métiers du XIIIe siècle, passim; Boileau, Reglements sur les arts et métiers de Paris, sédigés au XIIIe siècle, passim. Paul Lacroix has noted on this absence that possibly the butchers and dyers were not yet registered at Châtelet at that time. Lacroix 1837, 302. It is, nonetheless, much more likely that Boileau, provost of Paris and rich bourgeois, intentionally avoided mentioning professional categories considered as infamous and vile.

103

CHAPTER 3

One of the rare exceptions among legal experts is Josse de Damhouder. In his treatise La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles Damhouder dedicated a separate chapter to the hangman. Damhouder lists his tasks and makes some very revealing comments upon this officer. The paragraph quite nicely reflects the ambivalent status of the executioner at the beginning of the early modern era. On the one hand, Damhouder stresses the purely executive role of an official hangman. He is a valuable and indispensable aide to justice. Therefore common people should show more understanding for this officer. On the other hand, Damhouder still employs the disparaging term bourreau in his text and complains, in addition, that many professional hangmen are pitiless brutes who ill-treat their convicts.280 As clarified earlier, Damhouder’s text represents a phase where authorities tried to make some concrete efforts to support the hangman, at the level of legislation as well as at an ideological level. Nevertheless, the results were not evident; the hostility prevailed, hangmen everywhere remained unpopular, and disliked, objects of contempt.281 As to the judicial iconography, hangmen could appear in illuminated legal manuscripts but not as often as a modern person might perhaps presume. In general, the hangman does not play a prominent role in these manuscripts, since artists and especially their clients found other figures more worth depicting: popes, emperors, judges, lawyers, counsellors, scribes, plaintiffs, defendants, sergeants. Through the Middle Ages, the canon law texts were the most illuminated category. One evident reason for the minor role of the hangman in canon law texts was that the death sentence was quite a delicate issue for the Church. Roman law text contained fewer images, undoubtedly, because their texts were so dense. As regards French customary law texts, these were often completely non-illuminated,282 whilst some contemporary German texts were very richly illuminated (sometimes every phrase has been illuminated and the symbolism is very rich). As Robert Jacob observes, the juridical iconography of the later Middle Ages was thus not homogeneous, which was also the case with agents of law and the relations they formed with authorities.283 280 Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363-5. Josse de Damhouder (1507–1581) was a lawyer and commissioner to the government in Brussels 1551–1576. His Praxis rerum criminalium was published in Louvain in 1554. The shortened French version of this work dates from the same year and a shortened Dutch version from the year 1555. See Monballuy & Dauwe 1999, 2-4. 281 See section 3.1. 282 For example, all the fifteenth-century manuscripts of Jacques d’Ableiges’ famous Grand Coutumier at the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale are non-illuminated (BN mss. fr. 4369, 5277, 5279, 10816, 18099, 23637, n .a. fr. 3555). Numerous other manuscripts on coutumes from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century are also without miniatures, for example, Coutumes d’Anjou (15th c., ms. fr. 11868, ms. n. a. fr. 4172), de Beauvaisis (13th c., ms. fr. 11652), de Bourbonnais (15th c., ms. fr. 11501), de Bourgogne (15th c., 5324), de Bretagne (15th c., mss fr. 1938, 2832, n. a. fr. 4173, n. a. fr. 4465), du Maine (14th c., ms. fr. 5359, 15th c., ms. fr. 11865), de Normandie (15th c., mss fr. 5330, 5335-6, 5341, however, one can find some dessins à plume (but not any hangman figures) in ms. fr. 5337 from the 14th c.), de Paris (15th c., mss fr. 2833, 5270, 5294, 14th–16th c., ms. fr. 5256). The Etablissement le roi de France selon l’usage de Chastelet de Paris from the thirteenth century contains eight miniatures, two of which depict physical penalties (pillorisation and hanging) but the hangman is absent. BN ms. fr. 5278. 283 Jakob 2002, 209. Susan L’Engle has studied illuminated legal manuscripts at the collections of the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), and observes that illustrations of criminal punishment are most often found, in civil law manuscripts, in the Institutiones, Book IV, and the Codex, Book VI. As to canon law manuscripts, particularly the Decretales and the Liber sextus (Books II and V) deal with the judgment and sentencing of crimes. L’Engle & Gibbs 2001, 98. For the miniatures in the Decrets of Gratian and Decretales, see also Rambaud 1990a, 201-4, Rambaud 1990b, 205-9. For Scandinavian examples, see for example the Codex Aboensis, a compilation of Finnish customary laws from the fifteenth century, today in the collections of the Helsinki University Library.

104

NAMING THE HANGMAN

Silence about the hangman also prevails in criminal registers written by anonymous scribes. A modern person may find it quite peculiar that hangmen rarely appear in these documents, even if they occupied a key role in executions and as a staff member of the criminal justice. For example, in the criminal registers of Saint-Germaindes-Prés (the late thirteenth c.–the fourteenth c.) and of Saint-Denis (1200–1400) the hangman is not mentioned at all, whilst in the criminal registers of SainteGeneviève (1300–1400) and of Saint-Martin-des-Champs (first part of the fourteenth c.) there are only two references in each document.284 In these same registers, other officers of justice are often mentioned: judges, prosecutors, advocates, surgeons (‘mestre Henri Ostran, sururgien lieutenant’), notaries, sergeants and jailers. Witnesses are also mentioned (Gilles le bouchier, Nicolas le berbier, etc.).285 Even if such registers were not intended to be read by a wider (high-ranking) audience, the hangman was not shown, as if he were too low, repulsive or embarrassing.286 I find it significant that the hangman is not mentioned in these sources, which often deal with punishments and punitive rituals. This silence signals that while the physical and death penalties were accepted and approved as necessary methods of criminal justice, the officer who executed various sentences was despised and disapproved of by other agents of justice, high or lesser. It must be noticed that sergeants, too, were widely unpopular even if considered necessary. In smaller towns sergeants were not numerous, a dozen was an ordinary number. In important towns their number was more elevated: 150 men in Toulouse in Southern France and 450 in Châtelet of Paris.287 The fees of sergeants were on the same level as those of ordinary manual workers. To survive, some of them rented their services to municipal authorities or to tried to gain some extra income through various artisan activities. Some individuals abused their function for example, by taking bribes. They were often accused of excessive brutality and bad language (insults). This did not please the authorities since police officers were expected to incarnate order and moderation, to evoke respect for their functions and for the authority they represented.288 In works of literature and art, sergeants and hangmen, lesser agents of justice, shared many features but the diffe284 Registre criminel de Saint-Germain-des-Prés; Registre de Saint-Denis; Registre criminel de Sainte-Geneviève, 362, 397-8; Registre criminel de Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 496-7, 547. In Sainte-Geneviève’s register Estevenot le bourrel is mentioned at the end of the list of persons who were present at the hanging of Jehannot de Gisors, a locksmith, for repeated thieving, in 13.10.1300. 285 Registre criminel de Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 519. 286 But of course, he is mentioned in accounts relating to his fees, in payment records. See sources mentioned in sections 3.1 and 4.6. 287 In Châtelet, a provost was the head of the criminal court. He was assisted in his functions by a lieutenant criminel and a lieutenant civil. Under these high officers were numerous prosecutors, investigators, notaries, scribes, personnel of the prison and sergeants. Sergents à verge or à pied circulated by foot in Paris and in its suburbs. Sergents à cheval rode on horses and functioned outside Paris. The highest offices at Châtelet were quite expensive but at the same time economically quite profitable for their holders. Therefore they were eagerly sought after. Many of Châtelet’s offices belonged to members of ancient and wealthy butcher families. (The title of master butcher did not necessarily refer to practice of this profession but it was an old privilege that belonged to certain Parisian families.) These families had succeeded in amassing large fortunes and important political power. However, because of their background, their descendants could never receive the full approval of the best circles. For the functionaries at Châtelet, see for example, Champion I 1933, 177-93, 267-9, 384; Gonthier 1992; Cohen 1996. 288 Gonthier 1992, 154-6.

105

CHAPTER 3

rence in social status or esteem between the two groups was usually manifested clearly by a number of signs.289 In this chapter I have argued that the terminology related to the hangman’s figure – the choice of words and names – was one essential vehicle in manifesting, constructing and establishing the beliefs, notions and representations relating to executioners in late medieval culture. Its exploration can open up interesting insights into the patterns of thinking and patterns of viewing the world amongst people in the past. Executioners were linked by means of terminology to several such ideas and intellectual categories that medieval people found embarrassing, unpleasant or revolting. Even if a popular proverb states that ‘silence is a sign of approval’, this is not always true. Actually, silence, like any sign, is profoundly ambiguous. It may be significant and pregnant with meaning but this is not invariably the case. On the other hand, when a silence is significant – when it is a sign – it may be either negative (point to a taboo or at various negative ideas) or positive (carry a message of approval). Silence, like any sign, receives its full (+/-) significance from the surrounding universe of meaning. For example, in the case of a hangman on a scaffold: silence (-) is associated with actions involving bloodshed (-), pollution (-), punitive pain (-), shameful death (-), public slaughtering of a convicted criminal (-), and bad or excessive justice. All in all, the issue is complex; silence may have had different motives and meanings in different contexts. Late medieval chroniclers quite skilfully exploited these techniques when expressing their opinions about judicial violence and various agents of law. They usually avoided mentioning the hangman for reasons of decency, and when they showed him, his presence carried a very unfavourable message about the justness of the sentence or circumstances in the ceremony. When it comes to the texts of legal experts, not mentioning the object of disapproval (in a known context) was, here, as clear a message of shunning as any degrading verbal formulation. Every medieval reader would have realised the actual meaning of this silence. It was obvious that one should not mention the hangman in discussions related to various legal customs, to the duties of many agents of the law, so that his infamous and embarrassing person could not blemish the prevailing system and the honourable men serving it. The attitude of silence was a long-term phenomenon amongst legal experts. It was characteristic not only of the late medieval period but also of the following centuries. Michel Bée, who has called this phenomenon a ‘conspiracy of silence’, observes that it produces an impression of strong taboo connected with the hangman’s figure, ‘comme si un interdit mystérieux et puissant empêchait le plus souvent d’en parler’290 (as if some mysterious and powerful interdiction often prevented him being spoken about). It is apparent that this silence was a manifestation of feelings of disdain and aversion and of a great desire for exclusion. It was through his ab-

289 See chapters 4 and 5. 290 Bée 1984, 71.

106

NAMING THE HANGMAN

sence, finally, that the figure of hangman obtained in these contexts its full negative meaning as a mean, infamous, and ignoble category.

107

CHAPTER 4

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT Paré comme un bourreau qui est de fête / qui fait ses pâques A popular proverb from early modern France

In late medieval society and culture, the important function of clothing was to manifest and support the social order. Various garments and accessories signalled the rigid hierarchies of estates and countless offices, as well as emotional states (joy, sadness or mourning) and relations between friends and lovers.1 Close links between clothing and social class helped to define the social status and moral character of each individual; everybody was expected to follow the rule ‘the right clothes to the right person’.2 The nobility wanted to reserve certain colours, patterns, fabrics, furs and jewels for its own use only. Deviations – and the blurring of class differences that these might produce – were resisted by means of royal edicts, sumptuary laws, ecclesiastical regulations and sermons. The goal of ecclesiastics and conservatives was to maintain decency and propriety in clothing. Fashionable novelties such as chaussures à la poulain, or long pointed shoes, trains, and extravagant head-dresses were repeatedly condemned.3 As clothing had such an important function in moulding identity, it is not surprising that in efforts to classify the hangman it was common to make use of cultural dressing codes. In this chapter I will examine representations of the hangman’s habit.4 I will put special emphasis on the testimony offered by pictorial material. The focus is on the most essential signs that served as constitutive elements in representations of the executioner’s clothing and their depictions in art. I will analyse and interpret these signs in the context of iconographical language as well as against the wider background of late medieval culture, attitudes toward clothing and bodilyness.

1 2

3 4

Huizinga 2002, 89-90. A prince and his favourite (mignon), for example, could signal their special friendship by wearing identical clothing. See also Huizinga 1953, 19. Le Goff 1988a, 358. Le Goff writes: ‘To wear the clothes of a social condition other than one’s own was to commit the serious sin of ambition or of derogation.’ An important function of clothing was also to indicate the difference between the sexes. A woman who wore men’s clothing, such as Joan of Arc, was generally considered as unnatural, revolting and dangerous. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 292, 294-5. See also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q155-170, 339. Mellinkoff I 1993, 6. See also Blanc 1989, 243. I have been able to profit from many excellent works when researching into this particular theme, but I have found especially useful the studies of Michel Pastoureau on the topics of striped fabrics and on the meanings and uses of colours in medieval culture. (Pastoureau 1986, Pastoureau 1991, Pastoureau 1995, Pastoureau 2004).

109

CHAPTER 4

4.1 Striped Garments In late medieval visual sources a characteristic trait of the hangman’s habit is polychromy. Some artists depicted all the garments of a hangman in different colours,5 a feature that did not appear at all as disturbing to the medieval eye as polychromy in the form of the striped pattern, le rayé, and its variation or substitute, le parti.6 Striped clothing is a characteristic attribute of the hangman in numerous illuminated fifteenth-century manuscripts both in devotional literature as well as in chronicles and historical texts. In the Heures de Louis de Laval, the illuminator7 has often used a striped design in the executioner’s clothing,8 whereas one can find both striped patterns and le parti designs in the richly illuminated manuscript of Jacopus da Voragine’s famous work the Legenda Aurea.9 In several miniatures in this manuscript, executioners’ striped garments form a striking contrast to the simple clothing of martyrs. A good example is the miniature depicting the martyrdom of Saint Agatha. Bound to a pillar, she wears a simple, white loincloth, her skin is milk white. The executioner on the left-hand side wears a yellow jacket and a pair of hose with one leg in pink and the other in white, with yellow and red striped patterns in the upper parts. On the right-hand side one can see an executioner who wears a hose with blue and yellow legs.10 As regards chronicles, the illuminator of the Grandes Chroniques de France has also often used striped patterns as well as le parti design in the hangman’s clothing.11 In a manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicle, in a picture that represents the execution of Guillaume de Pommiers and his secretary Jean Coulon in the central place of Bordeaux (Southern France) in 1377 (Comment Guillaume seigneur de Pommiers actaint de traison et j. sien clerc furent decollez en la cite Bourdeaulx), one can see a hangman in a two-coloured jacket (blue and brown).12 This manuscript was illuminated between 1470 and 1475 in a Flemish atelier in Bruges on the orders of Louis de Gruuthuse, 5

See, for example, Bréviaire de Belleville. BN ms. lat. 10484; Grandes Heures de Rohan. BN ms. lat. 9471; Bréviaire de Charles V. BN ms. lat. 1052; Miroir historial. BN ms. fr. 50; Le Rommans de Titus Livius. BN ms. fr. 30. 6 The term parti refers to a garment that has been divided vertically in two parts of different colours. 7 The illumination of this manuscript started c. 1470 by an artist belonging to the circle of Jean Fouquet. Miniatures were completed c. 1485 by Jean Colombe, a painter from Bourges. 8 BN ms. lat. 920, fols 122v, 130v, 168v A, 271r, 274r A, 274v, 275r A, 297v, 299v, 332r. In this manuscript we meet more horizontal than vertical stripes. The artist has also sometimes used spotted or annular patterns as substitutes for stripes. See, for example, fol. 297v, and fol. 332r. In Pseudo-Movaerni’s work executioners also wear clothing with horizontal stripes. Le Portement de croix dans un grand paysage attributed to Pseudo-Movaerni. Limoges, end of the fifteenth century. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 9 BN ms. fr. 6448, passim. 10 Ibid., fol. LXXVr. The illuminators of the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry (c. 1380–1412) have regularly dressed the hangmen in parti clothing. BN ms. n.a.l. 3039, passim. Miniatures have been attributed to Master of the Parement de Narbonne (Jean d’Orléans?), Master of the Holy Ghost and Master of John the Baptist. See for example Walther & Wolf 2005, 235-7. In a book of hours made for Duke John of Berry, the Petites Heures, the torturers of Christ also have hose with legs of different colours: blue and red, green and red, red and yellow. BN ms. lat. 18104, fols 82r, 83v. See also illuminations by Jean Fouquet in the Livre d’Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Le Martyre de St Étienne; Le Martyre de Ste Apolline; Le Martyre de Ste Catherine d’Alexandrie. 1452– 1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. The patron of the manuscript, Étienne Chevalier (c. 1410–74), was secretary and finance minister to King Charles VII. 11 BN ms. fr. 20352, passim. 12 BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. Ir.

110

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

chamberlain of Duke Charles of Burgundy.13 Froissart, in his text, considered this sentence as ‘very cruel’ (molt cruelle justice). Pommiers and Coulon were accused of treason. According to the chronicler, this execution evoked great pity, was considered as a great shame for all people of Bordeaux and evoked bitterness towards the King of England.14 The picture transmitted the same message about the resentment felt towards the arbitrary and harsh justice of the English occupiers. In the miniature the executioner is the main actor; he is placed high on the scaffold. His colours may not, at first sight, appear particularly striking to a modern person. However, he is the only person dressed in parti (his jacket is blue and brown), a significant detail for late medieval spectators. Whilst miniatures of devotional literature and of chronicles were painted for the select eyes of the upper social classes, larger audiences could familiarise themselves with pictorial interpretations of the hangman’s habit when attending church or having business in the courthouse. In the church of St John in Bruges, one could admire an altarpiece painted by Rogier van der Weyden.15 In the right wing of the triptych there is an executioner wearing hose in red and yellow that has been rolled up to his knees.16 In the courtroom of the City Hall of Louvain people could see the Judgment of Emperor Otho (1470), painted by Dirk Bouts. The hangman has yellow and green legs to his parti-hose.17 I would also like to draw attention to Bout’s painting on the martyrdom of Saint Hippolytus on view today in the St Saviour’s Cathedral in Bruges. In this triptych the parti-design appears on the executioner depicted in the upper left corner of the central panel and on the heathen servant in the right wing. Besides the parti-design and other striking patterns, polychromy and bold colour scheme have also been employed to contrast the four mounted hangmen and the other heathens with the martyr (his blue robe lies spread out on the ground) and with the kneeling patrons in simple dark robes in the left wing.18

13 Ellena 2002, 68. 14 ‘Et furent seigneur de Pommiers & son clerc publiquement decollez en la cite de Bourdeaulx sur la place devant tout le peuple dont ont eu grant pitie. Et tint on ce fait a grant deshonneur et blasme par especial ceulx du lingne et party de bourdeaulx & bourdeloys [...] Et print ce fait a grant vergoigne et si jura que jamais pour le roy d’Angleterre ne s’armeroit et s’en ala outremer au Saint Sepulcre et en plusieurs aultres voyaiges.’ BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. IIr. 15 Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1399–1464) was born as Roger de la Pasture in Tournai. He worked in Robert Campin’s workshop from 1427 to 1432. He became an independent master painter in 1432 and settled in Brussels around 1435, where he was appointed municipal painter. He received commissions from the City Council, civil institutions, the Church and also from the Burgundian court. Smets 2000, 17; Martens 1999, 389, 398. 16 Van der Weyden, Martyrdom of St John. C. 1454. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. Staatliche MuseenPreussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 414. As an example from the fourteenth century it can be mentioned, that in a cupola painting in the church of Cahors (c. 1324) the executioners of Saint Stephen wear two-coloured hose. Mérindol 1989, 210. See also Master of Cappenberg (Jan Baegert), Christ before Pilate. C. 1520. National Gallery, London. 17 Bouts, Judgment of Emperor Otho: Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. 18 Bouts, Martyrdom of St Hippolytus. C. 1470–1474. St Saviour’s Cathedral, Bruges. The left wing was painted by Hugo van der Goes. See also Herman Pleij’s comments on this painting and on his ideas about the meanings of multicolouredness and bold colour schemes in late medieval culture. Pleij 2004, 73. It is evident that polychromy as such (even without striated patterns) signalled or received a particularly stigmatic connotations when it appeared systematically and exclusively on negative figures in some individual artist’s work or in some illuminated manuscript.

111

CHAPTER 4

Late medieval people could also see hangmen wearing striped clothes in everyday life in many places. As mentioned in section 3.1, the official executioner’s clothing was under the authorities’ strict control. Legislative sources indicate that in several towns in Southern France public executioners were ordered to wear a habit (or a single garment, usually hose or head-dress) of striped fabric even in the end of the thirteenth century.19 In the mid-fifteenth century, in town of Amiens the authorities obliged the public executioner to use part-coloured clothing which changed periodically: half yellow and half blue, green and red, or red and black.20 Thus, here we can observe an example about reality corresponding to representations and their artistic expressions, i.e. the professional hangman as ‘the man of stripes’. In order to understand the logic and message of the hangman’s striped garments in art and in everyday life, it is necessary to examine more closely the status and significance of this particular pattern in late medieval culture. Striped fabrics had become common in Western Europe in the twelfth century, at first in the habits of servants in princely courts. This phenomenon was connected with heraldry: servants adopted the heraldic colours of their lord in their clothing. This is how the habit that was, in later times, to be called livery was born.21 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries striped fabrics became popular amongst all social classes. In princely courts, however, le rayé and le parti were still reserved especially for servants. A strict hierarchy existed amongst fabric patterns in medieval courts: certain patterns were reserved for the prince and his close circle, such as le marbré, ‘marbled’. Persons of high rank wore striped fabrics seldom, perhaps on some special occasions such as solemnities connected with transitional rites and some princely visits. L’échiqueté, or check, was a design that was not usually worn by any other category of person than fools at court. Striped fabric was also used, besides servants’ clothes, as a furnishing material, to cover pieces of furniture and walls.22 There is considerable evidence that the new patterned fashion initially evoked strong resistance in conservative circles. From the thirteenth century wearing striped clothing was the target of countless restrictions, regulations and statutes in France and in Europe. In France such prohibitions were issued, for example, by kings Philip III in 1279 and Philip the Fair in 1294.23 This legislation is a factor that reveals the extent of the popularity of striped fashions in the Middle Ages. The wearing of striped fabrics was totally prohibited for the clergy. In 1295 Boniface VIII forbade, in a bull, monks of any monastic order to wear striped garments. Medieval synods and councils several times prohibited clerics from using patterned, multicoloured fabrics, both striped / parti patterns and chequered fabrics.24 Many 19 Pastoureau 1991, 26. 20 Delarue 1979, 42. 21 It has been supposed that fools, troubadours and other entertainers wore multicoloured and patterned fabrics before these became usual amongst other categories, possibly even from Roman Antiquity. There are also examples of striped clothing being worn by servants from Roman Imperial period. Mellinkoff I 1993, 17-18. 22 Mérindol 1989, 182-8; 204-6. For the connotations concerning the check pattern (dynamic, musical, mediator and macabre) in medieval culture, see Pastoureau 2004, 285. Pleij suggests that the check pattern was seen as an expression of utter disharmony and this is why it was so often depicted on floors, which were trodden up by feet, the floor symbolising the impure earth. Pleij 2004, 73. 23 Mellinkoff I 1993, 9. 24 Pastoureau 1991, 26.

112

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

secular people did not approve of striped clothing being worn by clerics. Philippe de Beaumanoir wrote c. 1280: ‘Il n’afiert pas à clerc qu’il veste robe roiée’.25 (It is not tolerable that a cleric wears a striped robe). As to secular society, efforts were made to make their use obligatory for certain categories of infamous people, various groups of outsiders that in honourable people’s opinion should be visibly segregated from society by means of their clothing. The sumptuary laws of numerous towns in Southern France indicate that professional executioners were amongst these categories at an early stage.26 The purpose of legislation concerning the striped clothing of the public executioner and of other representatives of various infamous categories was to impose a clear visual sign designating their marginal status that would prevent these individuals mixing with honourable citizens. The function of medieval sumptuary laws was both ethical and economic but also – and especially – ideological and social. The goal was to establish such a segregation concerning clothing that every individual wore the kind of habit that would indicate his or her sex, class and estate. In this kind of discriminatory system a striped pattern has been a usual sign: it shows up best and also underlines in an efficient way the violating of the social order.27 As already mentioned, amongst medieval moralists and conservatives, the striped fashion was condemned from the very beginning. It was regularly linked to indecency, lust and pride.28 At the end of the fourteenth century Geoffrey Chaucer criticised striped fashion in the Canterbury Tales (c. 1386), an extensive description of contemporary society, by letting the personage of the Priest especially ridicule hose of two colours. The Priest connects this garment with various painful sicknesses, which pointed to sin in the late medieval imagery: ‘semeth that half hir shameful privee membres were flayne […] semeth it, as by variaunce of colour, that half the partie of hire privee membres were corrupt by the fir of seint Anthony, or by cancre, or by oother swich meschaunce’.29 Negative attitudes also found their clear expression quite early in the field of pictorial art. In iconography a striped pattern was employed as means to designate infamy even before the eleventh century30 and this method became even more popular from the middle of the thirteenth century. Lucifer and the fallen angels were pictured with bodies covered with horizontal stripes in the miniatures, whilst striped patterns had also begun to be connected with famous traitors in literature, such as Ganelon in the Chanson de Roland and, in addition, to numerous individuals who were considered mean or evil, or were otherwise despised in medieval society. Besides the hangman these included practitioners of many inferior or infamous occupations (valets and servants, jesters, jugglers, prostitutes, smiths, butchers, millers) 25 Beaumanoir: Coutumes de Beauvaisis, I, 173. On clerics and striped habits, see also BN ms. fr. 21731, fol. 56r. On monks’ habits in general, see Pastoureau 2004, 152-6. 26 Pastoureau 1991, 27-8. 27 Pastoureau 1991, 29. 28 Mellinkoff I 1993, 10-11. 29 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 556. 30 In visual arts the first personages to whom was attributed this special accent (firstly in miniatures, then in murals, and later also elsewhere) were biblical characters, such as Cain, Delilah, Saul, Salome, and Judas. Pastoureau 1991, 41.

113

CHAPTER 4

and representatives of all those categories that somehow placed themselves outside the law (forgers), those who were considered suspect and outsiders because of their physical or psychic deviancy (lepers, mentally sick persons) and infidels (Muslims, Jews).31 In late medieval art and society, the honourable, good and pious could often be discerned and identified by their plain garments. This division reflected a traditional conservative taste, which valued monochrome clothing (couleur unie /plaine) as superior to any combination of one or several more colours (particularly, combinations in the form of stripes).32 Whilst the monochrome surface usually had quite a neutral significance in iconography, the pattern called semé (‘scattered’) was almost always associated with the idea of the sacred. It was perceived as an opposite not only to the monochrome surface but especially to the striped and spotted surfaces having often very negative connotations.33 However, these were only general rules in that world of changing fashions and trends. The striped pattern, as any sign, was a very complex and ambiguous cultural category. Therefore it is not surprising that stripes could also appear on figures other than infamous or totally negative ones in iconographic sources or in everyday life. In religious picture material, Saint Joseph, Salomon, and David sometimes identify themselves by striated clothing.34 In illuminated secular manuscripts two-coloured hose is often seen on sergeants-atlaw,35 and persons of high rank and courtiers are depicted wearing striped fabrics on special occasions and festivities.36 It is evident that in every instance a medieval spectator had to consider the whole configuration and other signs in order to work out the more exact (positive or negative) meaning of a striated pattern. The reasons for unfavourable opinions and attitudes concerning striped patterns in the Middle Ages were partly religious. Some opponents referred to the Bible when arguing against this fashion. In the nineteenth chapter of the Leviticus, amongst the other moral and cultural regulations concerning mixing practices, the nineteenth verse reads: ‘Veste quae ex duobus texta est non indueris’.37 (You are not 31 Pastoureau 1991, 10, 33, 41. One can see a hangman wearing a two-coloured jacket in a stained-glass window of the right wall of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, 1242–1248. 32 Mérindol 1989, 204-5. See also Pleij 2004, 73. As regards the polychromy in form of stripes, Pastoureau writes, ‘Le regard médiéval attache souvent plus d’importance à l’épaisseur des objets et des images qu’à leur étendue, et ne confond jamais ces deux paramètres. Au XIIIe siècle, par exemple, porter une chemise blanche, une tunique bleue, une robe verte et un manteau rouge, ce n’est pas porter une tenue bariolée. En revanche, porter une tunique ou une robe à rayures rouges, vertes et jaunes, c’est porter un vêtement polychrome, donc laid, indécent ou dégradant.’ Pastoureau 2004, 367. 33 As Pastoureau has put it, ‘La sensiblité médiévale a horreur de ce qui est tacheté.’ He suggests that one reason for the horror of spotted (le tacheté) surfaces was that spots pointed to sickness in that world where various skin diseases were frequent, grave and feared. Therefore, spots appeared mysterious, impure and debasing to medieval man. Pastoureau 2004, 105, 206. 34 Pastoureau 1995, 18, 21-6. 35 According to Robert Jacob, the striped clothing of sergeants-at-law is, however, more common in German pictural material from the medieval period. Jacob 1994, 118. 36 In the manuscript of the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V (1380) one can see noble personages wearing striped or parti clothing in the baptism procession of prince Charles (BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 446r), in the welcoming festivities of the emperor in Paris (fols 467r, 470r A, B, 470v, 472r.) and in the funeral procession of the queen (fol. 480v). The miniatures were made by numerous artists active at the Parisian court, including a number from the atelier of the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy. See Walther & Wolf 2005, 231. 37 Lv 19.19.

114

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

to wear a garment woven with two kinds of yarn.) This prescription can be interpreted to refer to clothing made of two different fabrics, for example, of wool (which is of animal origin) and of linen (which is of vegetable origin)38 but some medieval exegetes thought this formulation expressly meant the striped pattern of fabrics.39 Undoubtedly, late medieval people were also very familiar with the story of Joseph: here the youngest son’s multicoloured coat (tunicam polymitam), which was a special sign of paternal favour, landed Joseph in trouble with his brothers.40 Another important reason for negative attitudes toward striped fabrics was that the medieval mind often connected stripes with the idea of deviancy or diversity. The term ‘striped’ (rayé, lineatus, virgatus) and ‘deviant, diverse’ (varié, varius) were sometimes synonymous. In late medieval culture, deviancy and diversity referred to something unclean, aggressive, immoral, or deceitful. A good Christian, a honourable person could not be varius.41 Robert Jacob has suggested that the word ‘striped’ also bore the connotation of punishment and suffering in medieval culture. In several European languages this word was synonymous with the expression ‘to punish’.42 In Latin, for example, the word virga referred to a whip, an instrument of flogging, and in the plural, to the actual penalty of flogging. For this reason stripes were particularly suited to the lesser officers of the criminal justice, such as sergeants and executioners. One factor that might explain the negative view toward stripes was the difficulty of their visual perception. We are all familiar with the blurring effect produced by various striped surfaces. The perception of striped patterns is particularly difficult for persons with failing eyesight. Numerous persons in the later Middle Ages shared this inconvenience: even if spectacles were not unknown at that time, they were not widely used. One can, nonetheless, sometimes see spectacles on learned figures in late medieval pictorial material.43 Michel Pastoureau has argued that medieval people shunned all such surface structures that the eye could not easily detach from the background. In the case of stripes there was no separate background plane; there was only one, bichromic plane, which was divided in alternating colour sections. The structure was the pattern.44 For modern people a structure begins only from tripartition but for medieval man a binary structure (binaire) was exactly the same as a tripartite,

38 In Deuteronomy the prohibition is clearly intended to be understood in this sense: ‘Non indueris vestimento quod ex lana linoque contextum est’. (You are not to wear clothes woven with two kinds of yarn, wool and flax together.) Dt 22.11. 39 Pastoureau 1991, 11. For the mixing prohibitions of Leviticus and for the conceptions of impurity and taboo, see Douglas 1988. 40 Gn 37. 41 Quite logically, the same suspicion concerning stripes also extended to the animal kingdom. Those animals that had striped (or spotted) furs were regarded as especially dangerous or diabolical. Pastoureau 1991, 43-4. 42 Jacob 1994, 118. 43 See for example Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry. C. 1380–1412. BN ms. n. a. lat. 3039, p. 62; and Van Eyck, Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele. 1436. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. 44 According to Pastoureau, ‘L’œil médiéval est particulièrement attentif à la lecture par plans. Toute image, toute surface lui apparaît structurée en épaisseur, c’est-à-dire découpée comme du feuilleté. Elle est faite d’une superposition des plans successifs, et pour bien lire, il faut – contrairement à nos habitudes modernes – partir du plan du fond et, passant par tous les plans intermédiaires, terminer par celui de devant.’ Pastoureau 1991, 12-13.

115

CHAPTER 4

quadripartite, or tenfold structure. On the one side there was unity, oneness (l’uni, le plain) and, on the other, all that was not united and coherent.45 All in all, there were many factors that could contribute to the unfavourable attitudes and opposition towards striped fabrics and clothing in the Middle Ages. From an early phase, efforts were made to establish the striped pattern as an attribute and warning sign regarding executioners and other individuals whom the medieval mind associated with the transgression of the social order, otherness, low status, sin and evil. In fifteenth-century pictorial material striped garments are regularly depicted on hangmen and on various marginal, ignoble or evil figures.46 When striated clothing became again fashionable at the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was redefined and started to appear more often in other than negative contexts, on depictions and portraits of highly ranked persons, young and noble warriors and aristocratic women.47 Many types of patterns in clothing were employed to indicate, alternatively, moral decadence or refinement.48 During the fifteenth century, cutting ornaments that patterned clothing in a manner of stripes also became fashionable in France and Burgundy. Accordingly, they began to appear in art not only on elegant aristocrats but also on prostitutes, heretics, bastards, fools, mercenaries, executioners and infidels.49 Stripes were, however, the most usual category patterns exploited in these purposes. 4.2 Connotations of Colours So far I have discussed the patterning function of colour in the executioner’s clothing. Next I will investigate other significances and functions of colours, both in the habits of hangmen and also in late medieval culture in general. In medieval iconography colour contrasts were a traditional means of giving a negative association to disreputable and evil figures.50 Therefore it is not surprising that in pictorial material, especially in religious art, one frequently sees executioners 45 Pastoureau 1991, 46-7. On the spatial system in late medieval art, see also Panofsky 1997, 47-8, and section 5.3 of the present study. 46 For example, in a manuscript of the chronicle of Jean Froissart illuminated by Loyset Liédet and his collaborators (Anthony of Burgundy, etc.), one can meet two-coloured clothing both on the executioner as well as on many kinds of despised and subordinate individuals: mercenaries, servants, musicians, and fools. BN mss fr. 2643-6, passim. In a manuscript (1470–1475) of Ovid’s work stripes have been used as an attribute of suicides, murderers and servants. BN ms. fr. 874, fols 17r, 32r, 47r, 72v, 170r. 47 Pastoureau 1995, 57-60. ‘Parallèlement à la rayure domestique, qui traverse sans éclipse tout l’Ancien Régime, l’époque moderne voit se diffuser une autre catégorie de rayure, non plus diabolique ou dépréciative, mais au contraire valorisante.’ For the stripes as a favourable sign, see for example Clouet, François Ier. C. 1525. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 48 Patterned clothing appears regularly, for example, in rhe Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65. Illuminated in 1411–1416 and completed in 1485–1489. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 49 For the cutting ornaments on the hangman’s dress see, for example, the mystery play manuscript illuminated by Hubert Caillaux. BN ms. fr. 12536; Provoost, Execution of St Catherine. Early sixteenth century. Right-hand panel of a triptych. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. On cutting ornaments in late medieval art, in general, see Mellinkoff I 1993; on their negative symbolical meanings, see Pastoureau 2004, 91. 50 The use of colour contrasts as a means to identify infamy was established as early as in the twelfth century. On the use of colours as a sign of infamy in northern European art in the later Middle Ages, see Mellinkoff I 1993, 35-8, 54, 56.

116

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

wearing clothing that (the whole habit or else parts of it), through its colour, is in strong opposition with everything else in the same picture. The famous French illuminator Jean Pucelle often employed this method in the Bréviaire de Belleville (1323– 1326),51 a manuscript unfortunately greatly mutilated, today in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Another good example is the Bréviaire de Charles V (1364–1370) illuminated by Jean le Noir.52 Le Noir has regularly used colour contrasts in depicting the hangman’s figure. For example, in a miniature representing the martyrdom of Saint Valentine the executioner’s bright red jacket immediately attracts the spectator’s attention, because it is the only red object in the picture. The dark blue background also serves to emphasise the bright colour of the jacket.53 Henri Bellechose, official painter to the Duke of Burgundy, also employed a colour contrast method in his painting Le Retable de S. Denis (1416) made for the church of the Carthusian monastery of Champmol near Dijon: bright green has been used exclusively for the hangman’s jacket, so that this garment naturally catches the observer’s attention and helps to identify this person as an executioner, and an evil one.54 I would also like to mention here Hans Memling’s55 Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, on view today at the Musée du Louvre: when one stands in front of this large painting, one’s eyes are automatically drawn to the left wing of the triptych and to the bright yellow jacket of an executioner who is aiming his bow at the saint.56 Colour contrasts were a simple, efficient and popular means of indicating deviancy and marginality in art. It helped to focus attention on evil, lowly and shunned individuals and to warn of them. It carried a message about the individual’s particular status and imperfect moral character. The colours used as a means of contrasting the hangman vary widely in the pictorial material: from blue to red, from yellow to green, etc. One reason for this is that any bright colour functions in the same way when used exclusively. Ruth Mellinkoff has called this method ‘the isolation principle’. She stresses that the power of a colour is particularly strong 51 BN ms. lat. 10484, fols 242r A, 260r, 301v, 318v, 364r. The breviary was probably intended for Jean de Belleville, the wife of Olivier de Clisson. See Walther & Wolf 2005, 207. 52 Jean Le Noir was the disciple of Jean Pucelle, and also the most talented of his successors. Pucelle (?–1334) was a French miniaturist and the head of an important atelier in Paris 1320–1334. He illuminated, for example, the Heures de Jeanne d’Évreux, today in the Musée des Cloîtres in New York. Le Noir worked in Paris between 1335 and 1380. Chastel 1993, 290. 53 BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 345r. See also fols 359v, 386r B, 391r A, 393v, 408v, 417r, 428r, 429r A, 458r, 447r A, 454r, 498r, 495v, 507v; Miroir historial. BN ms. fr. 50, passim. In a fifteenth-century manuscript of La legende dorée the anonymous artist has systematically used bright yellow as an attribute of the hangman and of various negative figures. Bright yellow is distinguished from other colours particularly well in this manuscript, because otherwise the colours that the artist has used are often quite opaque or muddy. A good example is a miniature that represents the execution of Saint Marcellinus. The bright yellow head-dress of the hangman is a most efficient eye-catcher in this picture. BN ms. fr. 6448, fol. Vixxr. See also fols Vixxv, Ixxx VIv. 54 Bellechose, Le Retable de S. Denis. 1416. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 55 Hans Memling (c. 1440–1494) was of German origin and worked in Bruges from 1465/6 onwards. He had developed his skills in the workshop run by Rogier van der Weyden in Brussels and soon started to receive important commissions from wealthy burghers and clergymen. He worked for some noblemen as well, but never for the Dukes of Burgundy. Memling became one of Bruges richest citizens and employed at the height of his career (in the 1480’s) numerous assistants. Kluckert 1998, 416; Smets 2000, 12, 27, 30; see also De Vos 1994a; De Vos 1994b. Many of Memling’s works are still in Bruges in St John’s Hospital (Memling Museum). 56 Memling, Martyrdom of St Sebastian. C. 1490. Left-hand panel of the Triptych of the Resurrection. Musée du Louvre, Paris. See also bright yellow garments on executioners in the Legend of St Ursula. Before 1482. Groeninge Museum, Bruges; Mount Calvary. C. 1500. Historisch Museum, Amsterdam; Christ with the two thieves. C. 1525. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Leiden School, Mount Calvary. C. 1520. Picture published in Os, Kok, Luijten & Scholten 2000, 125.

117

CHAPTER 4

when used in an isolated context, that is, when a certain colour appears exclusively in the habit of one individual only (or of only a few persons or objects) and in contrast with everybody and everything else in the same picture.57 It is worth noting that there existed certain contrasts that the medieval eye perceived as particularly striking, even if these may not appear as such to a modern person. Whilst the juxtaposition of red and green represented a relatively feeble contrast, the opposition of yellow and green, on the other hand, was perceived as being extremely violent, the most brutal of all.58 In everyday reality the official hangman was also often contrasted with other (lesser) people because of the strikingly bright colours of his habit. In the late Middle Ages brightly coloured clothing was an ordinary sign of infamy. In many places hangmen and the representatives of other marginal or despised categories were obliged to wear garments (striped or plain) of very bright colours, most usually red or yellow, colours that were easy to notice at a great distance.59 However, the brightness of a colour as such was not necessarily a particularly negative sign in medieval culture and society. In many cases, it was a sign of high status, and appeared on the robes of wealthy and powerful persons. In the Middle Ages, all clothes were dyed, even those worn by the poorest sections of society. The essential difference between the clothes of the rich and the poor lay in the solidity, density and brightness of the colour. Luminous, intense and resistant colours were technically difficult to achieve.60 The fabrics dyed with less costly colorants faded rapidly. Therefore, brightly coloured fabrics that best preserved their original colour were only available to rich persons.61 Scholars have drawn attention to the important taxonomic and emblematic role of colours in late medieval society. It is obvious that people in the past wanted to give a significant role to colours in their efforts to delineate, categorise and structure their society.62 In addition to dress codes, all social uses of colour were essential. From the thirteenth century onwards, efforts were made to establish such a system of colour segregation where every individual’s place in the social hierarchy would be manifested through the colour of one’s clothing (or of some part of it).63 The key idea was to reserve bright colours exclusively for the use of the secular upper classes and for liturgical habits.64 Clerics65 and the secular lower classes – the bourgeois, 57 Mellinkoff I 1993, 38. 58 Pastoureau 2004, 121. It must be repeated and emphasised that a clear distinction was made between the juxtaposition of colours that might appear disturbing and very unpleasant to the medieval eye, and the superposition of colours (i.e. colours on different planes), an appreciated and harmonious system. ‘… ce qui nous semble aujourd’hui bariolage, excès de couleurs, débordement polychrome, n’était pas nécessairement conçu, senti ni vécu comme tel.’ Pastoureau 2004, 144-5. 59 Pastoureau 1986, 39. 60 Pastoureau 2004, 182-6. Great secrecy surrounded recipes for dyestuffs. Dye merchants rivalled with each other and tried to demonise their competitors. This led to dyers in general being accused of engaging in illicit practices, polluting the air and the water, and conspiring with the devil (they were blamed for interfering with God’s Creation by falsifying its true colours). Pleij 2004, 18-21. 61 Pastoureau 2004, 129. 62 Mérindol 1989, 195-6. 63 Pastoureau 1986, 39. 64 Mellinkoff I 1993, 54. 65 Heers 1997, 40.

118

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

peasants, poor people and servants – were expected to use dark colours (dark brown, grey and black). There were some exceptions, however, such as the liveries of officers, soldiers and servants at princely courts (they were expected to wear the emblematic colours of the prince),66 the official gowns of urban officers,67 and brightly coloured habits imposed on hangmen and members of certain despised categories of society, as already explained. The use of colour as an instrument for structuring and etiquette, as a visual sign that distinctly expressed with whom one was dealing, succeeded only imperfectly. It worked best with the marginal categories of society. It was easier to compel the members of these groups to wear habits of a specific colour as a sign of their status than to impose the use of fixed colours on other people. This phenomenon was principally urban and it is best documented in the southern part of France in the fourteenth century.68 That the project of creating a coherent system of colour symbolism was a failure explains the great diversity of colours in the hangman’s and other persons’ clothing in late medieval art and society. In iconography, one of the rare characters whose colours do not vary very much is the king of France.69 Mostly there were no fixed colours in art, which was also the case in everyday reality. Whilst some artists preferred to employ bright colours in the hangman’s habit, some others chose a faded colour scheme or employed bright colours as well as faded ones, as one can observe in the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry: in a miniature depicting the flagellation of Christ we can see garments that are bright blue, pale blue and brown.70 In medieval thinking both polychromy and fading were symbolic of terrestrial things from which all vestige of the divine had vanished. It has been suggested that if any one era could be singled out as being the most preoccupied with colour, it would be the Middle Ages. Colours were encountered especially at courts and in cities (in the countryside their role was less prominent) – everything had to be coloured: textiles, leather, bone, wood, metal, human hair and beards, the fur and feathers of animals, food, etc.71 Certain colours were worn to express not only birth, status or political inclination72 but also powerful emotions such as sorrow, loathing or the stage of passion between lovers.73 Throughout the Middle Ages colours caused heated debates at every level of society, even among laymen. Colour cultists were convinced that colour was the product of a divine light that brought matter to life. Colours were the advance guard 66 Mérindol 1989, 196; Van Uytven 1999, 33. 67 In the Low Countries, numerous cities offered, yearly, to their civil servants robes in a colour and cloth befitting their rank and position. Blockmans 1999, 13. 68 Pastoureau 1986, 39. 69 For the royal blue, see Pastoureau 2004, 130-1. For the lily (fleur de lis) and other attributes of the king of France, see Ibid., 99-110. 70 Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fol. 144r. Miniatures from 1411–1416 and 1485–1489 by the Limbourgs (Paul, Jean & Herman), later additions possibly by Barthlélemy d’Eyck and Jean Colombe. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 71 Pleij 2004, 4. 72 Emblematic colours (Armagnac violet, Burgundian green and Cabochian white) also played a role in various political riots. See Calmette 2001, 107. 73 Pleij 2004, 29-31 and passim.

119

CHAPTER 4

of God’s creative powers. Detractors such as Bernard of Clairvaux took a very dubious view of colour, believing that it was corrupted by the Fall that had made material world ephemeral and transient, a plaything of the devil. The elusiveness of colour was recognised both by the colour cultists and by the opponents. Satan was believed capable of deceiving human perception by entering the body and confusing the senses. Some ecclesiastics were quite doubtful about colours, because they thought that all that strongly attracted one’s gaze was an obstacle to devotion. However, the debate of the wickedness of colours focused more on clothing than on buildings or sculpture.74 Scholars have observed that the end of the Middle Ages witnessed a gradual development of decolourisation even if well into the fifteenth century a countermovement managed to create bright colour contrasts. On the one hand, all the provocative colours in public life caused so much restlessness that measures had to be taken. On the other, a much boarder cultural movement demanded distancing oneself from nature, controlling one’s emotions, and creating a private domain. Dark colours (blue and black) became the colours of princes and urban elites. Colourful clothing was denounced ever more frequently as a powerless parade of the part of the nouveaux riches. Bright colours came to represent worldly pleasures and vice.75 Michel Pastoureau and Herman Pleij have discussed in depth the many difficulties (documentary, methodological and epistemological) encountered by the historian who wishes to study the role of colour in medieval culture and society.76 Pastoureau stresses that the historian must absolutely renounce any attempt to look for any realistic significance of colour in works of art. The medieval image never ‘photographed’ the reality. For example, a red garment was red, essentially, because it contrasted with some other piece of clothing (blue, black, green, or another red) either in the same picture or else in quite another picture that mirrored or was opposed to the first. A colour was never isolated; it was only given a meaning when associated or juxtaposed with one or several other colours.77 As regards epistemological difficulties, here lies a great danger of anachronism. The appreciation and conceptualisation of colour is not fixed but colours have a history; they are subject to a wide variety of interpretations and colour preferences are culturally determined. In the Middle Ages colours were not perceived in the same way as today. Past observers 74 Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was a famous opponent of colours. He often stressed that men are blinded by colours. He considered colour to be sign of transience, an earthly veil that Satan had thrown over Creation to conceal its authentic nature from human sight. The notion that colours were tools of the devil is actually as old as Christianity. Much depends on whether colour is thought to be the refraction of light or a substance in its own right. Seen as the latter, it can be regarded a devious addition to Creation, one that obscures the true nature of things. Pleij 2004, 2-5, 63, 67. See also Pastoureau 1986, 35; Le Goff 1988a, 335, 338-9. 75 Pleij 2004, 33-6. In the sixteenth century the dominance of the black-white colour scheme was furthered by the arts of bookmaking and engraving. The decolourisation movement was given a powerful stimulus by the Reformation and Calvinism and resisted in vain by Romanticism. Today dark colours live on, for example, in tails and dinner jackets in the West. 76 Pastoureau 2004, 113-33; Pleij 2004. 77 Pastoureau 2004, 118. As Pastoureau observes, the same is true for texts: ‘Tout document écrit donne de la réalité un témoignage spécifique et infidèle. Ce n’est pas parce qu’un chroniqueur du Moyen Âge nous dit qu’en telle ou telle occasion le manteau de tel ou tel roi était bleu que ce manteau était réellement bleu. Cela veut non plus dire que ce manteau n’était pas bleu […] Tout description, toute notation de couleur est idéologique, même lorsqu’il agit du plus anodin des inventaires ou du plus stéréotypé des documents notariés.’

120

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

were different, both physically and psychologically.78 One should bear in mind, for example, that in the Middle Ages, black and white were considered as colours and in addition, as strong poles in all chromatic systems. The spectrum as well as the spectral order of colours was unknown; blue was considered a warm colour, and the colour green was closely related to blue but not at all to yellow.79 For centuries red (not black) was thought to be the opposite of white.80 In late medieval culture all colours were ambivalent signs and could indicate negative or positive ideas depending on their context.81 This means that there were such notions as ‘good red’ and ‘bad red’, ‘good yellow’ and ‘bad yellow’, etc. In addition, any colour could be assigned a negative significance when it appeared on some low or malevolent figure. In these cases several surrounding negative signs regularly appeared, which served to reinforce the unfavourable meaning and message of colour. Colours had more specific meanings only in particular works. Therefore, when examining colours, for example, in illuminated manuscripts, one must pay attention not only to the colour scheme allotted to each image but to the entire work.82 Next, I will discuss the meanings and connotations that various colours could have when depicted on executioners in different contexts. Red – with its varying shades, bright red, dark red, pink, and brownish red, le roux – is perhaps more common than other colours in late medieval depictions of the executioner. Artists employed it on a hangman, for example, as a reference to his occupations under the criminal justice and to ideas of bloodshed and violence. Red could refer to authority and legitimate justice,83 or alternatively to illegitimate justice, brutal violence, and several very negative ideas (for example, flames and blood streams of Hell). ‘Bad red’ was frequently associated with such vices as pride, cruelty and wrath in the late medieval imagery. Le roux was the most stigmatic shade and was associated with numerous negative ideas.84

78 Moreover, the same persons could view colour differently at different times, even under seemingly identical conditions. Pleij 2004, 2-5. Late medieval people thought that colour usually said something significant about the very essence of a person or thing. This conviction had important effects on the exploitation of colour in art and everyday life. Nonetheless, Herman Pleij thinks that an overwhelming urge to interpret often threatens to obscure the modern historian’s view of more expressive use of colour in the Middle Ages. He suggests that in late-medieval book illumination, for example, one can find examples of an aestheticising use of colour as an end in itself. Ibid., 10, 47. 79 Pastoureau 2004, 119-21. 80 Pleij 2004, 17. During the first part of the medieval period red-white-black was the basic colour scheme. It was thought that these colours, together with green, had shaped the world. This interpretation based, for example, on the Bible (Apc 6.2-8). These four colours were also associated with the gifts of the Holy Spirit: piety, fortitude, charity and hope. However, the colours noted in the Bible are not as numerous as one might perhaps imagine. Ibid., 15-16. 81 Pastoureau stresses that colours have always and everywhere had a very extended symbolic field. This field varies according to period, milieu, and the techniques that artists use. Colours are at the same time cultural categories and material products that are difficult to examine apart from the context of time, period, or document. Furthermore, all colours are ambivalent: there is a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ yellow, red, green, and so forth. Pastoureau 1986, 29, 40. For the symbolical meanings of colours in the later Middle Ages, see also Baxandal 1972, 81. 82 See Schmitt 2003, 28-9. 83 The magistrates of the Parliament of Mechelen, for example, wore scarlet on the days when judgments were pronounced. Blockmans 1999, 13. 84 Pastoureau 2004, 197.

121

CHAPTER 4

In everyday reality red was a colour that was frequently used to segregate those Christians who were engaged in some infamous trade (not only executioners but also prostitutes, for example) whilst the common colour used to stigmatise nonChristians was yellow. Generally speaking, red was very popular during the Middle Ages. Until the late thirteenth century red was clearly the most popular colour amongst all classes of society. Only in the thirteenth century did blue and related hues rise in popularity. People also began to acquire a taste for in-between shades, which could reinforce the impact of the primary colours.85 Red was displaced by blue as the most popular and most valuable colour. Blue soon became the colour of royalty in France and then also in most of the West.86 What about other colours and their possible associations in the hangman’s habit? When ‘bad yellow’ was connected with the hangman, it could be interpreted as a sign of infamy and impurity. In late medieval culture bad yellow was associated with deception, treachery, avarice, envy, and sloth. It was also connected with the idea of transgressing norms. Bad yellow was the colour of bile, lies, betrayal and heresy. It was a usual attribute of servants, pagans, Jews and criminals.87 Generally speaking, yellow was quite an unpopular colour in the late Middle Ages. It was seldom used in clothing, appearing at most in accessories.88 Yellow lost its popularity especially during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.89 Jean Verdon has suggested that yellow had a bad reputation because it reminded people of saffron and its noxious effects. In too large quantities saffron can have an impact on the nervous system and provoke compulsive laughter and even attacks of madness.90 I do not find Verdon’s suggestion very convincing. Saffron’s positive medical effects were greatly valued at that time. Furthermore, saffron was a highly favoured spice 85 Pleij 2004, 17. 86 On red colour, see Pastoureau 1986, 17-18, 40-1; Mérindol 1989, 195, 199, 203. The most valued of red tones were graine, vermeil and sanguine, and of blue tones azur, ‘ynde’ and violet. On the value of different hues, see also Baxandal 1972, 82-3. On the ‘revolution’ of blue colour that began in France in c. 1140, see Pastoureau 2004, 130-1. Naturally, in the Middle Ages, blue was also the colour of the Virgin Mary. 87 In medieval society, yellow was often employed to punish all who disgraced themselves in any way. Yellow badges of infamy were pressed on Jews and on many other categories of outsiders. In the Meuse region and Flanders the houses of defaulters and counterfeiters were ordered by the court to be painted yellow. Pleij 2004, 78-9; see also Pastoureau 1986, 30, 40. The artist painting the pictures in the fifteenth-century manuscript of the Golden Legend (BN ms. fr. 6448) favoured bright yellow as an attribute of evil hangmen (see for example fols Vixxr, Vixxv, Ixxx VIv.) as well as of other negative characters, such as demons (In a picture representing the encounter of Saint Patrick with demons, the body of the leader of a diabolic group is bright yellow: fol. IIIIxx XIIIIr.) or dragons (In a miniature depicting Saint Doriac with a dragon, the monster is bright yellow: fol. CC XVIr.). In Jean Froissart’s chronicle a miniature relating to the story about soldiers from Ghent who left to conquer Grantmont and neighbouring towns one can see a naked fool wearing a yellow cape with donkey ears and fighting with monkeys, whilst in the bottom corner a monkey wearing a yellow hood flogs a soldier’s buttocks. This picture by Loyset Liédet (atelier) condemned war as a form of madness. BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. VIxx XVr marg. On links between violence and madness, see also section 7.3. 88 The lowest in rank at court (e.g. pages and jesters) occasionally dressed in yellow. Catalogues of virtues and vices condemned the colour yellow as being totally inappropriate for female clothing. By dressing in yellow people could express their negative feelings: in 1474 Hendrik van Württenberg wore yellow as a way of demonstrating his dislike of Charles the Bold. He ordered his whole suite to dress in yellow livery as they marched past the Duke. The wearing of certain colours to make a statement during a procession was usual in the Middle Ages. Pleij 2004, 77-8. 89 Mérindol 1989, 203. 90 Verdon 2001, 98.

122

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

used, for example, in all kinds of sauces. Saffron was the most expensive spice, and it was much appreciated amongst the wealthy upper classes.91 Presumably, the use of yellow as a negative colour was partly linked to the massive generalisation of gold as a colour in every field of the visual arts. From the thirteenth century onwards gold was perceived as ‘good yellow’,92 whilst all other yellows (that is, tones of yellow such as orange-yellow, green-yellow or lime) were categorised as ‘bad’. The devaluation of yellow is quite interesting because it is a long-term phenomenon. As usual, iconography has been more systematic in this matter than everyday reality.93 When the colour green (‘bad green’) was connected with the hangman’s figure, it could be associated, for example, with ideas of bad death, impurity and madness. Opaque green, vert perdu was considered an especially negative tone.94 Bad green was the colour of the Devil, Islam and destruction in medieval imagery. It was frequently connected with social or mental disorders and disturbances of the established order. Bad green referred to chaos, deceitful love and avarice. It has been suggested that one factor underlying these conceptions was that green is a mixed colour. However, as Michel Pastoureau has observed in his recent study, late medieval dyers and painters did not prepare the colour green by mixing yellow and blue. Technical difficulties in fabricating beautiful, deep and resistant green is one factor that probably explains the lack of interest in this colour in France, in the latter half of the Middle Ages. Elsewhere it was more popular.95 It is worth noting that in modern (science) fiction, the colour of extra-terrestrial creatures is often green (people speak of ‘little green men’). So, even today, green is sometimes linked with ideas of ultimate otherness and of threat. Black was a typical element in the hangman’s habit and accessories and could refer here, for example, to low status, sin and death. In everyday reality, poor and individuals of low status in particular dressed in black (or in very dark clothes). ‘Bad black’ was often linked to despair, sorrow and death in medieval imagery. Black (or a dark) colour was also the most usual colour of the Devil and demons in pictorial arts.96 The use of yellow (and of red, in accessories) as a negative colour was a factor on account of which black was attributed less importance in the late medieval era than might perhaps be imagined. In princely courts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for example, in Burgundy, black was considered a very 91 For the use of saffron in medieval gastronomy, see Marty-Dufaut 1999, 19. On spices, seasoning and dietetic in the later Middle Ages, see Flandrin 1996, 491-509. 92 In the heraldic system of colours presented by Honoré Bovet the gold that represents the sun is the ‘most noble colour’ in the world. After gold come purple, azure blue, white, and black. L’arbre des batailles, 243. 93 Pastoureau 1986, 41-2, see also Pastoureau 2004, 146-7. In fact, gold was perceived as even closer to white than to yellow. Gold was sometimes regarded as a ‘super-white’. As to orange, this chromatic nuance and category was unknown in the Middle Ages. Ibid., 197. 94 Mérindol 1989, 213. 95 Pastoureau 2004, 120, 183-6. Pleij writes that green was the colour most subject to confusion. Primarily the colour of earth and nature, green had provoked suspicion from the very beginning. The evident mutability of nature, as evinced by the changing of the seasons, meant that all things green were intrinsically unstable and unreliable. Green referred to the capriciousness of fortune or fate (– this is why gaming tables were green). Nonetheless, green was the first colour God used in his Creation and ‘good green’ was the colour of hope, purity, budding love, and even optimism. Pleij observes that colour theories may vary, but they all demote the colour green to second place. Pleij 2004, 84-5. 96 Russell 1984, 210.

123

CHAPTER 4

fashionable colour.97 Associating black with mourning is a relatively recent custom in Europe. It was only during the thirteenth century that people began to avoid bright colours for mourning clothes and to favour dark colours: dark blue, grey, violet, brown, and black. Only in the fourteenth century did black become a more usual colour of mourning in France.98 One also encounters blue and white coloured garments on hangmen in late medieval visual sources, for example in the Heures de Louis de Laval. In this fifteenthcentury manuscript the colour blue appears on many executioners, for example on those torturing Christ as well as on those performing the skinning of Saint Vincent.99 Medieval spectators could connect ‘bad blue’ with such negative traits or notions as foolishness and bastardy,100 duplicity, dissembling, and deceit.101 According to Herman Pleij, the colour blue had by far the greatest variety of (+/-) connotations and the widest range of possible interpretations. Pleij also suggests that in art evil figures such as devils were at their most fearful in different hues of blue.102 In the Heures de Louis de Laval, in a miniature depicting the execution of the apostle Jacob in a medieval urban setting, one can see a master hangman standing on the scaffold and waiting for the convict. The hangman is dressed in a tight white jacket and red hose and is leaning on his sword. His aides, dressed in short red jackets, are helping the convict to climb the ladder. Jacob is dressed in a loose white shirt that comes to his knees. As the colour white appears only on the master hangman and the convict, these two figures catch the eye in this picture.103 Whilst in the convict’s clothing the colour white evidently here had a positive meaning (innocence), in the hangman’s dress it undoubtedly pointed in quite a different direction. At the same time, it unified these two totally opposed figures, the saint and his executioner.104 In iconographical language ‘bad white’ could refer to low status and death, despair and ambiguity.105 White was not very popular colour for clothing in daily life. According to Christian de Mérindol, the popularity of white increased somewhat from the first half of the fourteenth century.106 As all colours could have quite different connotations depending the context, the decoding of their messages poses, indeed, essential methodological challenges for the historian. For example, in a miniature depicting the burning of heretics in the Grandes Chroniques of France illuminated by Jean Fouquet (c. 1459) we can find two executioners dressed in tight red (red and roux) outfits. This is, in fact, the only miniature depicting an execution in this manuscript. Even the King of France is 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104

Baxandal 1972, 15. See also Stein 1999, 51-80; Calmette 2001, 233; Pastoureau 2004, 158, 169; Pleij 2004, 33-6. Pastoureau 1986, 40, 42-3; Mérindol 1989, 201, 207-8. BN ms. lat. 920, fols 25rA, 26rA, 27rA, 104v, 105v, 117v, 122v, 130v, 297v. Pastoureau 1986, 40. Pleij 2004, 78. Ibid., 86-7. BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 268r. For similar reasons, from the thirteenth century on, iconography sometimes depicted both Christ and Judas with red hair (characteristic of Judas and other negative figures), especially in the scene of the arrest. The question was about representing an osmosis that operated (here, through the kiss of betrayal) between the traitor and his victim. Pastoureau 2004, 200. 105 Pastoureau 1986, 40. 106 Mérindol 1989, 201-2.

124

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

present. He wears a long, loose red robe and a crown. His horse is covered with a blue cloth that is decorated with golden lilies, emblems of the French monarchy. The red of the royal robe is repeated both in the flames of the stake as well as the hangmen’s tightfitting clothes (red and roux). In the upper right corner we can see the place of royal justice, the famous gibbet of Montfaucon.107 As red was the colour of authority, one might think that in Fouquet’s miniature it merely served to identify the hangmen as servants of legitimate justice. The king was an opponent of heresy and hangmen were the instruments of his justice, which was righteous and good. It is also possible that the artist wanted to stress the severity (if not excessiveness) of this sentence. Yet, one could also argue that the executioners, here, were employed as stigmatic attributes for the heretics who had deserved their punishment and shameful death. Numerous alternative readings were possible; any interpretation depended on an individual spectator’s opinion about this famous and well-known sentence. Gerard David’s painting, the Judgment of Cambyses (1498), offers a second example of concurrent, often controversial, messages of colours. The master hangman wears a pale beige jacket that is of exactly the same tone as the deceitful judge’s skin (symbol of moral depravation and sin). Thus, the colour beige associated the executioner with the convict, simultaneously contrasting both with the spectators. On the other hand, Sisamnes’ removed skin also appears on the seat of the new judge (Sisamnes’ son, Otanes, in the upper right corner) symbolising purification, reconciliation and the revelation of truth. Spectators understood that that the hangman had an essential role in this process: he helped the authorities to find out the truth about the crime and to restore the harmony disturbed by the criminal deed.108 In the Grandes Heures de Rohan one can find a hangman wearing a loose blue cloth and serving the righteous justice of Moses, which coincided perfectly with divine will.109 ‘Good blue’ was the colour of divinity, royalty, harmony, and order. Here the colour blue could signal, for example, that the hangman derived his function from God. He chastised wrongdoers from necessity and pure charity, in the manner of a loving father, and did not sin when carrying out his functions.110 In this manuscript, illuminated in a Parisian atelier between 1430 and 1435, blue is the dominating colour. It systematically appears on positive figures such as God, Virgin Mary and Moses. The hangman serving Moses differs in many respects from other executioners depicted in the same manuscript.111 Whilst all individual colours could be interpreted in a multitude of ways, it has been suggested that certain colour combinations had more permanent symbolic meanings. This explains why certain combinations of colours frequently appear on hangmen in pictorial material: red and black, red and yellow, and yellow and green. These 107 BN ms. fr. 6465, fol. 236r. The probable patron of the manuscript was King Charles VII. 108 David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. Left hand panel of the justice diptych for the Council Chamber of Bruges Town Hall. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. See also Edgerton 1985, 206. 109 BN ms. lat. 9471, fol. 236r B. 110 These ideas were stressed in secular and religious contexts by some authors, see Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363; Le mystère da la Passion (d’Arras), 59. 111 See my comments on this miniature and manuscript in sections 5.2 and 5.4. For the dominance of the colour blue in certain late-medieval manuscripts, see also Pleij 2004.

125

CHAPTER 4

combinations received their full negative meaning when depicted together on the hangman serving arbitrary justice or on some low or evil figure, especially during the latter part of the medieval period. There also existed certain combinations of colours perceived in a particularly favourable light. For example, blue and white, red and white, black and white and even red and blue were very fashionable from the thirteenth century on, whilst the combinations mentioned above lost in popularity. In addition, the union of red and green (which had been very chic in aristocratic circles from the Carolingian period on) lost its popularity.112 Red and black repeatedly appear together in the executioner’s clothing in the miniatures of the Bréviaire de Charles V from the fifteenth century. The tones of red vary, as well as the accessories on which these two colours appear: for example, the executioner of Saint Nicomedes has a pink jacket, red hose and black shoes. Saint Barnabas’ torturer is dressed in a black coat, red hose and black shoes.113 The combination suited executioners well since one frequently encountered red and black on murderers in medieval art. Hell’s mouth was usually black or very dark and full of red flames.114 The fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, Death, is often dressed in red and black, as is the case, for example, in a miniature made by Jean Colombe in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (1413–1416).115 Red and yellow appear systematically in the hangman’s habit in some illuminated manuscripts. In the Heures de Jean de Montauban (c. 1440) executioners of Christian martyrs often wear red and yellow garments together. The anonymous illuminator also made use of an extra motif of red and blue stripes on the sleeves of undershirts and on conical hats.116 The combination of red and yellow was well suited to hangmen; the colour yellow activated all the wicked elements in red and their union associated executioners with demonic creatures, traitors, heretics, Jews, infidels and various other pariahs of society.117 As mentioned already, in real life, red and yellow were the two principal colours that were used to segregate those individuals who were engaged in infamous occupations. Nonetheless, sometimes red and yellow appear together in neutral or positive contexts, for example, as the emblematic colours of admired figures (princes and kings).118 Of course, especially in religious images hangmen often represented non-Christians and served the bad justice of infidels. 112 Pastoureau 2004, 131. 113 BN ms. lat.1052, passim. and fols 384r B, 387r. In a miniature (probably by Anthony of Burgundy) of the chronicles of Froissart, the executioner of Alain and Pierre Roux has a red head-dress, black jacket, grey hose and black poulain shoes. BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 42r. 114 In the late medieval theatre demons often wore black and red habits. Koopmans 1997, 125. On the colour of demons and the Devil in late medieval art, see also Russell 1984, passim. 115 The Horseman of Death by Jean Colombe in Les Très Riches heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65. 1485–1489. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 116 BN ms. lat 18026, passim. See also BN ms. lat. 920, fols 271r, 274r A, 274v, 275r A; BN ms. fr. 20352, fol. 11v; Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Le Martyre de Ste Catherine d’Alexandrie. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 117 In a manuscript of Titus Livius a traitor who has murdered a centurion wears red hose and yellow shoes. BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 472v. In a fifteenth-century manuscript of the Golden Legend we find a picture of Saint Marguerite with a dragon, the body of which is covered with bright yellow and red polka dots. BN ms. fr. 6448, fol. VIIIxx XIXr. See also fabrics and bedcovers in the miniature (c. 1496–1498) depicting husband killers in Les epistres d’Ovide. BN ms. fr. 874, fol. 170v. 118 See, for example, Portrait équestre du roi d’Aragon in Le Grand Armorial de la Toison d’or. 1435. BN Arsénal, ms. 4790. Picture published in Pastoureau 1995, 33. See also the tapestry of a royal apartment in Jean Mansel’s La Fleur des histories illuminated in Jean Colombe’s atelier around 1500. BN ms. fr. 53, fol. 9r.

126

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

The union of yellow and green also appears in the hangman’s habit in numerous visual sources. In the fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicle, we can see a miniature depicting the decapitation of Robert Trésilian, a favourite of the king of England, by order of the notorious royal uncles. A nastylooking hangman is dressed in a short yellow jacket and green hose.119 This specific colour combination was an important sign; it signalled the artist’s or his patron’s negative opinion and judicial ideals. Louis de Gruuthuse, who ordered this manuscript, was celebrated because of his high morals. Compared to other hangmen in this manuscript, the habit of Trésilian’s executioner is the most striking (the negative colour combination is surrounded by various other body-related motifs that will be discussed later in this study). The message sent out by this picture accords with the opinion of Jean Froissart, who clearly disapproved of this sentence.120 An even better example of the exploitation of yellow and green in the hangman’s habit is provided by Dirk Bouts’ painting the Judgment of Emperor Otho (c. 1470), which was ordered by the Louvain authorities to be hung in the courtroom of their City Hall. In the left-hand panel the executioner who has just decapitated an innocent man wears yellow (tones of yellow and beige) and green clothing.121 This combination suited a hangman who had functioned as a lethal instrument of a judicial error particularly well. Several surrounding signs in his depiction strengthened the central message sent out by this painting. It is quite obvious that Bouts (or his clients) chose this colour combination because of its strong symbolical value. The diptych was inspired by a legend reported by the chronicler Godefroid de Viterbe and placed in the reign of Emperor Otho III. According to this story, the empress fell in love with a count belonging to the closest circle of Otho but was rejected by him. Bitter, the empress levelled a false accusation at the count: she claimed that he had tried to rape her. The furious emperor ordered the count to be executed. Later, the widow of the victim demanded the right to prove his innocence by ordeal of fire (red-hot iron) and succeeded in it, too. When the truth was revealed, the empress received a just punishment for her crime: she was burned at the stake.122 Whilst the first panel made by Bouts123 depicts the execution of the innocent count, the second focuses on the scene of the ordeal (the burning of the empress is depicted in the upper right corner of the picture). The purpose of the 119 BN ms. fr. 2645, fol. 238v. 120 Froissart, in his text, explains that the king had sent Trésilian as a spy to London. He was so well disguised that no one would have guessed that he was, in fact, a nobleman (‘il nestoit pas en habit d’un homme de bien mais comme un villain’). During his mission, Trésilian was arrested, condemned and delivered to the hangman (‘fut delivre au bourreau et a ceulx qui s’ensoignent de tel office & fut mene hors de Westmoustier au gibet et la decolle & puis pendu par les aiselles’). Froissart thought that the good God took pity on Trésilian (‘Ainsy fina messire Robert Tresilian dont Dieu ait l’ame.’) and wrote that the King was very upset and angry when he heard about the dishonourable death of his favourite (‘estoit mort honteusement [...] Et print le roy ceste chose en grant despit’). BN ms. fr. 2645 fols IIc XXX VIIIv-IIc XLv. 121 Bouts, Judgment of Emperor Otho: Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. 122 Jacob 1994, 72. 123 Dirk Bouts (c. 1410–1475) was born in Haarlem. He moved to Louvain c. 1450 and was appointed by the town council to be Louvain’s official painter in 1468. When Bouts died (1475) only the right-hand panel depicting the ordeal of the countess was finished. His workshop completed the left-hand panel. Nonetheless, the entire composition has been attributed to Bouts. See The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium 1999, 32-3; see also Smeyers (eds.) 1998.

127

CHAPTER 4

first scene was to signal the horror of the execution of the innocent. The other signalled: ‘the truth of the crime will come out sooner or later and the guilty person will get a well-deserved punishment’. Good justice was thought to be severe and just, it spared neither the greater nor the lesser. The diptych functioned as a warning of the consequences of crime and judicial errors; it was a statement about the Louvain authorities’ values (the ideal was defined by depicting its opposite). The impressive number of imitators124 gives us reason to believe that this painting can provide important clues to past ways of viewing and defining justice and its various agents. As to the yellow and green in the hangman’s habit, it must be observed that one usually encountered this combination on fools’ habits in everyday life and in art.125 In iconography, it was an ordinary attribute of dragons and demons,126 and could appear on heathens127 and Judas.128 The union of yellow and green was perceived as particularly stigmatic in late medieval culture; these were the colours of madness and disorder. As Michel Pastoureau has underlined, medieval men did not perceive the contrasts of colours as we do. In the Middle Ages a juxtaposition of two colours that appear as a strong contrast for us could appear as relatively feeble (for example, the combination of red and green), and vice versa. The association of yellow and green, two colours that are closely situated in the spectre (and appear as a relatively feeble contrast for us), was perceived as the most brutal and violent contrast of all. Together they produced an ‘impression of noise’ (impression de bruit) and pointed to diversity, chaos and evil.129 4.3 Shape of Clothing In late medieval culture and society the shape of clothes was one important means of transmitting the message of an individual’s status and moral character. Scanty dress was a common method to mark low or negative individuals in iconography. The shortness of dress was not only a central feature of the hangman’s habit in art but this feature also became more prominent towards the end of the 124 Jacob 1994, 66. 125 In a marginal picture of Jean Froissart’s chronicle one finds a typical depiction of the fool’s costume, which includes a yellow hood with donkey ears, yellow jacket, and parti-trousers in green and yellow. BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. VIIIxx XVr. In everyday life yellow and green was also a combination that most often appeared in the habits of fools of court in the later Middle Ages. Pastoureau 1986, 27. 126 In the late medieval theatre, the combination of yellow and green was connected with demons. Sometimes Lucifer himself wore a costume vert et jaune on the stage. Koopmans 1997, 99-101. 127 All exotic, pagan people could be viewed as fools, since they were lacking in Christian powers of reason. Pleij 2004, 80. See also section 7.3 of the present study. 128 The colour yellow was typical of Judas’ clothing in iconography. Pastoureau 1986, 41; Pastoureau 2004, 198. In the Miroir historial Judas wears a green cape together with a yellow robe. BN ms. fr. 50, fol. CC XXIXr. See also BN ms. fr. 12 536, fol. 215r bis. Heraldry also made use of the yellow and green colour scheme, an example being the device of the occasionally hysterical knight Sagremor of the Round Table. Another example is Tristan, who was blinded by his passion for Isolde. Pleij 2004, 80. 129 Pastoureau 1986, 32; Pastoureau 2004, 120-1. Pastoureau writes, ‘Pour nous, depuis les expériences de Newton, la mise en valeur du spectre et classification spectrale des couleurs, il semble incontestable que le vert se situe quelque part entre le jaune et le bleu […] Dans aucun système médiéval de la couleur le vert ne se situe entre le jaune et le bleu. Ces deux dernières couleurs ne prennent pas place sur les mêmes échelles ni sur les mêmes axes; elles ne peuvent donc avoir un palier intermédiaire, un ‘milieu’ qui serait le vert. Le vert entretient des rapports étroits avec le bleu, certes, mais il n’en a aucun avec le jaune.’ Ibid., 120.

128

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

Middle Ages. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, artists dressed the hangman in a cloth that ended at (or just above) the knees and revealed only his lower legs. From the middle of the fourteenth century, the hangman’s robe became radically shorter. During the second part of the fourteenth century and in the fifteenth century, artists frequently depicted the hangman dressed in a jacket that totally revealed his legs and sometimes even his buttocks. Usually both the jacket and the hose were extremely close-fitting. As regards religious pictorial material, a good example is provided by the Bréviaire de Belleville illuminated by Jean Pucelle in 1323–1326. In this manuscript, the hangman systematically differs from other figures by the shortness of his robe. Authorities and honourable people always wear long habits. Victims (martyrs) sometimes have long robes but occasionally they are undressed.130 In a fifteenth-century manuscript of the Golden Legend hangmen are also regularly depicted in shorter and tighter clothing than the other figures in the same picture, the authorities and spectators of the execution.131 As comes to secular art, a fine example is a miniature by Loyset Liédet in a fifteenth-century manuscript of Froissart’s chronicle depicting the execution (castration, evisceration, decapitation and cutting of limbs) of Hugh Despenser, a royal favourite accused of sodomy, heresy and treason.132 Whilst the hangman’s habit does not attract attention by reason of its polychromy (green hat, red jacket with violet sleeves, blue hose) since all spectators are dressed in many colours, his jacket is the shortest. One may think that in this picture, the executioner is not differentiated morally but rather socially; this harsh penalty (of evisceration) represented the justice of ‘others’ and the real responsibility belonged to the authorities and to society in its entirety. Despenser’s crime was found hideous but nevertheless, it must be observed that such an extremely severe penalty evoked very ambiguous thoughts and feelings among many contemporaries. I would also like to draw attention, once more, to Dirk Bouts’ painting the Judgment of Emperor Otho (c. 1470). As mentioned in previous section, the left-hand panel of this diptych represents a miscarriage of justice. In Bouts’ huge painting the hangman’s habit struck the medieval eye not only because of its special colour combination (yellow and green) but also because of the extreme shortness of the jacket and tightness of the hose. In this picture, the authorities and ecclesiastics are all dressed in long, loose robes. A sergeant-at-law wears a shorter dress that reveals his lower legs. Over his habit, however, he wears a cape, that is very loose, abundantly folded and covers his upper legs. The hangman is dressed in a figurehugging jacket that hardly covers his buttocks.133 The shape of the executioner’s clothing marked him as socially inferior (to other persons in the same picture) and also morally suspect. It efficiently stressed his negative role as an instrument of judicial error. The Louvain authorities obviously wanted to signal that their justice was not only severe but just, equal and trustworthy. 130 131 132 133

BN ms. lat. 10484, passim. BN ms. fr. 6448, passim. BN ms. fr. 2643, fol. VIr. Bouts, Judgment of Emperor Otho: Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.

129

CHAPTER 4

In real life, as well as in art, the scanty shape (short and tight) was not typical of honourable and pious persons’ robes in the later Middle Ages. In iconography the scantiness of an outfit was a traditional and essential means of social and moral differentiation.134 When appearing together with other negative attributes, this sign pointed not only to low status and infamy but also to bad character. Especially in statuary and in those pictures where all the characters wear the same colour, the shape of the clothing helped spectators to identify the high and the low, the good and the bad. A good example is a miniature depicting the execution of Brunhildis135 in a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V: all the persons are dressed in white (or rather ecru) habits but only the hangman wears short and tight-fitting clothes.136 In addition to executioners, medieval artists regularly depicted such low, subordinate or marginal individuals as manual workers, servants, musicians and fools in short and tight jackets. In the pictorial material dating from the late fourteenth century and the fifteenth century one can also spot positive figures dressed in rather short jackets and tight hose, for example, such a highly ranked person as Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. It is quite natural that changing fashions started to be reflected in art. But, on closer examination, one notices that princes’ and important aristocrats’ buttocks are covered and that their jackets are not exaggeratedly tight. In addition, the non-depreciative meaning of short dress is usually signalled by means of several positive additional attributes and elements; jewels, golden belts and spurs, etc. As in the case of striped patterns, the larger context and surrounding signs essentially helped medieval spectators to decode the visual message in the right sense – that the personage dressed in the short dress was not an outcast or servant or evil person but a fashionable nobleman.137 Before starting a wider examination of the significance of the scanty habits in late medieval culture, I wish to observe that in this matter, representations and artistic depictions coincided with everyday practices; people in the past could also see hangmen in short and tight habits in their day-to-day lives. The authorities obliged official hangmen to wear shorter clothes than those worn by respectable citizens. Whilst the shape of the executioner’s habit was a sign of his status, it was at the same time quite practical from the point of view of his job. The various tasks of a public executioner demanded freedom of movement. Furthermore, there was the risk of getting soiled (by blood or other fluids) or burned (by flames) existed. In addition, an official hangman risked getting dirty when performing his various extra duties such as cleaning public lavatories, streets, etc. In these circumstances a long and loose dress would actually have been very impractical for a professional executioner. 134 Even in the high Middle Ages torturers and executioners were identified and differentiated in iconography by the means of short dress that ended at the knees. See, for example, scenes of martyrdom depicted in stainedglass windows and mural paintings in the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, 1242–1248. See also Raynaud 1990, 154-5; Mellinkoff I 1993, 21, 39. 135 Brunhildis (534– 613) was the queen of Austrasia. She was executed on the orders of Clotaire II, king of Neustrie. 136 BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 60r. 137 On tight habits in late medieval iconography, see also Piponnier 1989, 232.

130

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

The fact that the hangman’s habit became radically shorter and tighter in iconographical material from the middle of the fourteenth century is an important change that must be seen, in my opinion, as a form of criticism of the new, ‘outrageous’ masculine fashion and as a criticism that exploited the stigmatic value of the hangman’s figure. The short, tight-fitting men’s jacket (pourpoint or jaque) that more or less completely revealed legs covered with skin-tight hose (chausses) had become popular in the middle of the fourteenth century. It may be difficult for a modern person to fully understand how extraordinary and even shocking this new fashion appeared to many people in the past. The new style differed dramatically from the old one. It is no exaggeration to use the expression ‘revolutionary’ in this context. Hose or trousers now received a totally novel significance as a garment.138 Scholars are not unanimous about the origins of the new masculine mode: was it that military habit first inspired civilian clothing or vice versa? Françoise Piponnier finds the first more probable. She observes that the new garb was quite similar to that used earlier under armour (blouse and hose).139 The first sections of the population to adapt the new style were the various professionals of violence and those individuals who had an inferior or subordinate status. One obvious reason for the fact that poorer people adopted this new outfit quite early is that fabrics were costly and making a short and tight dress demanded much less material than a longer and looser gown. On the other hand, it is understandable that the young and noble warriors used these novel outfits quite early – they were in a marginal position in the aristocratic world.140 The elder members of the aristocracy and pious men did not abandon their long and loose robes.141 This new male fashion evoked strong and wide opposition at the beginning and was severely attacked by moralists and conservatives. Charles V, who was famous for his virtue, and according to Christine de Pisan (c. 1365–1430) ‘moult aimoit chastété’ (greatly loved chastity), did not approve of the novel masculine outfit and did not allow his courtiers to dress in it: ‘… ne souffrist que homme de sa court, tant fust noble ou puissant, portast trop cours habiz’ (…did not tolerate that any of his courtiers, no matter how noble or powerful, to wear too short a habit). The virtuous king, who himself wanted to observe chastity both in his deeds and words as well as in his thoughts, demanded the same from the members of his court: ‘et vouloit que ainsi fust en ses prochains et seviteurs, tant en contenences comme en abis, en paroles et fais et toutes choses’ (and wanted that this would be the case with his closest [circle] and servants, both in behaviour as well as in clothing, in words and in deeds and in all things).142 It was only during the reign of 138 139 140 141

Blanc 1989, 243, 247; Piponnier 1989, 225-6. Ibid, 233. bid., 232, 235. See also Mellinkoff I 1993, 54. Ibid., 24-8, 37, 41. See also Blanc 1989, 249. As Mellinkoff observes, long and loose dresses that originate from the ancient toga have preserved the aura of stability, dignity, and moderation until our times. The best examples are academic and clerical dresses and the habits of judges. 142 Pisan, Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, I, chap. XXIX, 82. The Livre des fais was commissioned by Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Pisan wrote it in 1404. It is a monograph on Charles V and at the same time a lesson on virtues, good manners, and chivalry. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 284.

131

CHAPTER 4

the young Charles VI that the royal circle came to tolerate this new masculine fashion.143 Some scholars have suggested that the explanation for the strong opposition to the new mode originated from elderly men’s feelings of envy: the scanty outfit was much better suited to a young and slender silhouette and even stressed it insolently.144 It can be observed, in fact, that in a miniature of Jacques Legrand’s (c. 1360–c. 1418) work on good manners, De Bonnes meurs, the short and tight habit was linked not only to the sin of lust (luxure) and to the vice of negligence (negligence) but also to the thoughtlessness and lack of judgement of those of young age.145 According to the testimony of contemporaries, an important reason for resistance was that the new masculine outfit was considered bawdy and improper (inhonestum). In late medieval culture such a short and figure-hugging garment that revealed the shape of the body instead of hiding it was a sign of savageness and animal nakedness, for only beasts that had no sense of decency (vergoigne) wandered the world undressed.146 A monk of Saint-Denis stressed in his text the impracticality of the new habit and claimed that undressing reminded one of the skinning of animal. He wrote that the young men wore ‘robes si courtes qu’elles ne leur venoient que aux fesses et si estroites qu’il leur falloit aide pour les vestir et les depouiller et sembloit que on les escorchoit quand on les depoulloit’ (so short robes that these ended at the buttocks and so tight that aid was needed in dressing and undressing and it seemed that they were skinned when helped to undress).147 In 1389 Philippe de Mézières, advisor to the late King Charles V and wellknown moralist, condemned in his turn, the new fashion in the Songe du vieil pelerin. Mézières complains that ‘... les nobles jusques a certains clercs moustrent la forme de leur derriere et de leur membres vilz et secrez de nature a femme et a toutes manieres de gens’ (... noblemen and even some clerics show the form of their buttocks and of their vile members and secrets of nature to women and to all kinds of folk). Then he continues: Je ne dy pas [...] que en alant en ost chemin ou en esbatement honneste et es guerres, la chevalerie ne doit estre plus courte vestue que es citez et solennitez; toutesfoiz par raison divine, naturelle et moralle, il doit souffrire aux jeunes gens au travail et en l’ost que la robe et le tunicle d’armes ou jacques veigne jusques au genoil. Et aux anciens et chevaliers doit passer un pou la rouelle du genoil. Ne ceste forme ne longueu d’abbit n’empeschera jà le chevalier ou l’omme d’armes qu’il ne soit habilles à tout faire, comme les sarrazins sont souvent empeschiez en fait d’armes pour leur 143 Piponnier 1989, 233 144 Ibid., 235. 145 BN ms. fr. 1023, fols 25v, 29r, 57v. Legrand wrote this work c. 1404 and dedicated it to Duke John of Berry. It is essentially a moralistic and religious text. It gained important success: today, there exist over 60 manuscripts. The work was translated into German, Latin and English. It was edited in 1478 and reprinted numerous times until the sixteenth century. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 734. 146 Blanc 1989, 244; Piponnier 1989, 233. 147 Quoted in Quicherat 1877.

132

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

longues robes qui leur en empeschent souvent monter à cheval ou d’aler longuement à pie. O quans en y a en France, qui pour leurs cours habiz se sont laissiez mourir de froit! Et les autres par force d’estraincture ne pevent degerir leurs viandes, dont les maladies viennent en place et sont multipliées!148 I do not say [...] that when going to war or to honourable fighting chevaliers should not be dressed in shorter gowns than in towns and in feasts; however, for divine, natural and moral reasons young people, in work and in the army, should be allowed to wear robes that come to the knees. And the robe of old men and knights must come below the knee. This form or length of habit does not mean that a chevalier or soldier would not be capable of everything, like Saracens who are often hindered in battles because of their long robes, which often prevent them mounting a horse or marching for a long time. Oh, how many people there are in France who have let themselves die of cold because of their short habits! And others, because of their tightness, cannot digest their food, which leads to a multiplication of diseases! Mézières stresses that soldiers’ or knights’ dresses should hide the upper legs and that this shape was more functional than a shorter one: it allowed movement and fighting but at the same time protected the body from cold, and could even save many lives… The short outfit was both indecent and dangerous and had already caused many deplorable deaths, Mézières asserts. Odile Blanc has underlined that it was the shortness of the jacket – and the exhibition of the masculine lower body – rather than its tightness that made men wearing the new outfit similar to an animal. Clothing no longer fulfilled the function it had after the Fall, that is, it did not hide the sex of the person, which it should, as a sign of guilt and shame. Moralists thought that the new fashion pointed to the degradation of the civilised state (to natural state). They saw this kind of denial of civilisation as a most serious offence to their Creator. Respect of the divine order was considered as being most essential in the later Middle Ages. Savagery was associated with original chaos and the kingdom of Satan. The new masculine mode was seen as a generator of disorder that would lead humanity towards destruction. Moralists stressed that any admiration of fashion novelties was generally futile and dangerous. For if a person promotes bodily care over attention to his or her soul, the consequences would be fatal.149 Liking this new audacious outfit could be linked to the sins of lust and pride150 – because a man who wore this kind of habit defied divine law. Alternatively, conservatives also connected it with insanity and stressed the mockery and ridicule that fell on fashionable men.151 The knight of La Tour-Landry discusses in a moralising book that he wrote for his daughters in 148 149 150 151

BN ms. fr. 22542, fols XIJ xxv-XIJJ xxr. Blanc 1989, 243. See Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 556. Blanc 1989, 247-8.

133

CHAPTER 4

1371 the dangers related to following fashions. He also tells an edifying story about a young man who was ridiculed by a famous elder knight at a feast. The elder knight pretended to take the young man for a musician because of his fashionably short jacket.152 During the fifteenth century the tightness of the masculine jacket – but not the shortness – eventually became outmoded in everyday reality. In iconography, however, the tight-fit of the jacket was still used as a negative code. In religious art negative characters were continually depicted in tight habits.153 In fifteenth-century pictorial material we meet the short jacket in its original tight-fitting form on executioners as well as on servants, workmen and soldiers. As Odile Blanc has observed, the shortness and particularly the tightness here are clear signs of physical labour and of a lower or marginal status.154 To sum up, in the later Middle Ages the remarkably scanty habit typical of the hangman had a special meaning. In art and in daily life it was a sign that often determined the low status and low moral character of various individuals and groups. From the middle of the fourteenth century the extremely short and tightfitting habit functioned as an instrument of criticism both towards various disapproved individuals and groups and towards the new masculine fashion. It is noteworthy that besides indecency of clothing, for example, in the form of excessively scanty outfits, moralists also condemned efforts using long clothing as a means of social elevation. This tendency, too, seriously violated the rule of ‘the right habit for the right person’. A good example of this view is offered by the Burgundian writer Jacques du Clercq (1420–1501), who has included in his memoirs a chapter on the fashion of the mid-fifteenth century, Chapitre III. Habillemets du tems. Clercq writes about fashionable novelties, rapid shifts of trends and showing off using clothes. In addition to the extreme shortness of masculine dress he mentions such trends as cutting ornaments, long pointed shoes, shoulder paddings and exaggeratedly long robes,155 and claims that ‘ny avoit sy petit compagnon de mestier qui n’eut une longue robe de drap jusques aux talons’ 156 (there was not so petty an apprentice who would not have a long draped robe reaching the heels). The blurring of class boundaries, brought about by men of lower social status imitating persons of high rank by using long robes, was most shocking and deplorable in the eyes of Clercq and other conservatives. In late medieval imagery sinful interest in excessively gaudy outfits was regularly connected with hangmen and other outcasts. This link was made evident not only in art but also in a comparison that became popular at the beginning of the 152 Le livre du chevalier de La Tour Landry, 102-4, 227-8. 153 Mellinkoff I 1993, 39. As Ruth Mellinkoff has remarked, warrior-saints also wear trousers, but these are usually loose, not close-fitting. Ibid., 37. 154 Blanc 1989, 249, 251. 155 ‘En ce tems aussy les hommes se vestoient sy court, que leurs chausses alloient prés jusques à la forme de leurs fesses; ils faisoient fendre les manches de leurs robbes et de leurs pourpoints, si bien qu’on voyoit leurs bras, parmy une déliée chemise qu’ils portoient; [...] et de longues poulaines à leurs solliers de ung quartier ou quartier et demy long; et à leurs robes gros maheurtres sur leurs épaulles pour les faire approistre plus gros et plus fournis; leurs pourpoints estoient garnis de bourre et s’ils n’estoient ainsy, ils s’habilloient touts longs jusques en terre de robes; tantost en habit long, tantost en habit court…’ Mémoires du Jacques du Clercq, 640. 156 Ibid., 640.

134

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

early modern period: ‘Paré comme un bourreau qui est de fête’ or ‘qui fait ses Pâques’. (Gaudy as a hangman at a feast, or, at Easter.) Leroux de Lincy has suggested that the comparison reflected the general belief that a public executioner who was only allowed to use clothes other than his official habit at Easter and when he attended confession had a special incentive to show off.157 Undoubtedly, this comparison also offered quite a useful metaphor and instrument of mocking to those who wanted to criticise dandies. 4.4 Disorder and Nudity Nudity in its different forms was typical of numerous marginal or evil figures in late medieval culture. An important function of clothing was to hide the sinful human body and an individual’s sex. The hangman’s scanty outfit, which poorly served this essential purpose, was often employed as a reference to inner corruption and bestiality and not only to his low status. In addition to the shortness and tightness, the incompleteness of the habit was a popular labelling instrument used by late medieval artists. By incompleteness I refer to the disorder of the outfit or to the absence of some essential element or garment. The motif of incompleteness or inadequacy of the hangman’s habit could manifest itself in milder forms, that is, in such details as rolled sleeves or the upturned fringes of jackets. In the Bréviaire de Belleville one often meets upturned fringes and rolled sleeves as attributes of the hangman’s habit.158 These motifs are also usual in religious paintings of the late medieval period. For example, in Quentin Metsys’ painting the Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist (1508–1511) one can see hangmen with rolled sleeves.159 The incompleteness did, however, often appear in more serious forms such as unbuttoned jackets, opened hose, revealed underclothes.160 Frequently, underpants are totally visible as well as the hangman’s naked legs. In some pictures the hangman has removed his hose. Sometimes the hose has been undone and the legs are rolled up under the knees. A more serious kind of incompleteness was usual in the depictions of the hangman’s habit towards the end of the Middle Ages. In fifteenth-century visual material this motif is frequent – as a variant or substitute of 157 Leroux de Lincy 1859, 614. Whilst the hangman’s official habit was strictly regulated by the public authorities everywhere, in some places his Sunday dress also evoked irritation because found unsuitable to his rank. In 1475 the hangman of Kampen was forbidden to ‘walk around like a noble man or a merchant’. The executioner of Augsburg was not permitted to ‘dress like a cavalier or play the big man’. Spierenburg 1984, 35. 158 BN ms. lat. 10484, fols 242r A, 282r, 301v, 318v, 364r. In a miniature of Jean Froissart’s chronicle depicting the execution of Guillaume de Pommiers, the executioner’s outfit is in order in other respects but the fringe of his jacket is slipped under the belt. BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. 1r. 159 Metsys, Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. 1508–1511. Right wing of the Retable of the Ebenists’s Guild. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. See also Scènes de la Passion. Left wing of diptych. Paris, first quarter of the fourteenth century. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 160 Sometimes the executioner’s upper body is partly uncovered, see for example, Master of Antwerp, Execution of St John the Baptist. 1480–1490. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg. Picture published in Puppi 1991, 104; Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry: Flagellation. Ms. 65, fol. 144r. Musée Condé, Chantilly. However, this feature was perhaps more usual in Italian art and appears, for example, in works of Garofalo and Piombo, see Garofalo, La flagellazione di Cristo. 1527; Piombo, Flagellazione di Cristo. C. 1517. Galleria Borgese, Rome.

135

CHAPTER 4

milder forms of inadequacy – in numerous illuminated chronicles. A good example is provided by the Grandes Chroniques de France: in one miniature, the hangman executing the orders of King Childebert is dressed in a bright yellow jacket. This hangman has rolled up the sleeves of his jacket and slipped the fringe under his black belt. He has unstrung his hose and rolled their legs up under his knees. He has exposed his white underpants and his naked legs.161 In another picture three executioners can be seen burning heretics at the stake. The executioner on the left-hand side has slipped the fringe of his short red jacket under his belt. He has removed his hose and his lower body is covered only by white underpants. The executioner who is in the middle wears a hose of two colours (green and pink) and a short violet jacket. He has rolled up his sleeves. The third hangman, in the right lower corner, is dressed in a white shirt. He has unstrung his green hose and rolled the legs up under his knees. One can see his naked thighs under his white short pants.162 Thus, even when serving as an instrument of the justice of the King of France, the hangman was classified not only socially but also morally low. The same motifs were usual in works of sacred art where most executioners were those of Christian martyrs, not only in miniatures of devotional literature163 that were intended for select aristocratic eyes but also in religious paintings which could be seen by larger audiences. In Henri Bellechose’s painting on the martyrdom of Saint Denis one can see an executioner, who is wearing a bright green jacket and white underpants (his black hose is rolled down to his knees). He is quite a striking figure in the middle of all the other persons in long and rich robes.164 In Rogier van der Weyden’s work the Martyrdom of St John (c. 1454) one can see a hangman who has opened his red jacket and totally exposed his white undershirt with rolled sleeves. His thighs are naked, for he has rolled down the legs of his hose.165 Not only lack of order or lack of garments such as hose but also some missing essential accessories such as shoes or a hat was a typical feature of the 161 BN ms. fr. 20352, fol. 11v. 162 Ibid., fol. 274v. See also Le Rommans de Titus Livius (beginning of the 14th century). The executioner of Themistus and Andranorus and their companions is dressed in a bright red long coat, white shirt, and blue trousers with an open front. BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 256r. 163 In a miniature of the Grandes Heures du duc de Berry from the early fifteenth century Christ’s executioners are depicted pulling their victim’s legs with a rope to stretch them to the nailing place. The figure on the upper left side wears a pink robe. Bright red hose is rolled down to the knees. The other hangman on the right side with a blue jacket has also exposed his naked thighs by rolling his pink hose down. BN ms. lat. 919, fol. 74r. See also Miroir Historial de Vincent de Beauvais. BN ms. fr. 50, fols CCC IXr, CCC XXVIIv B, CCC XXVIIIr, XXIXv, CCC LXIXv; Les Enluminures. Collection Wildenstein: No. 142. Portement de la Croix. Entourage du Maître aux Rinceaux d’or. Bruges, premier quart du XVe siècle. Feuillet d’un livre d’heures. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. 164 The central figure of the painting, Christ, is naked. Bellechose, Retable de saint Denis. 1416. Musée du Louvre, Paris. A good example of an executioner’s exposed buttocks in German art is the Martyrdom of Saint Barbara, panel from the St Barbara altarpiece made for St Olof’s Church in Kalanti (Finland) by Master Franck, a Hamburg Dominican. Master Franck, St Barbara altarpiece. 1410–1415. National Museum, Helsinki. An example of the unstrung hose as a positive sign is provided by Crivelli, Saint Roch. Second part of the 15th c. Wallace Collection, London. 165 Van der Weyden, Martydom of St John. C. 1454. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. Staatliche MuseenPreussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 414. In a tapestry that represents the martyrdom of Saint Stephen one can see the martyr himself praying on his knees in a scene on the right-hand side. An executioner, who is on his left side and is portrayed from the dorsal position, wears a white jacket and skin-hugging red hose with a torn back seam. Cercle du peintre Colyn de Coter (patrons), Scènes de la légende de Saint Étienne: 4. Saint Étienne mené au lieu du supplice: son martyre. Choir hanging. Brussels, c. 1500. Musée de Cluny, Paris. See also The flagellation. Sculpture no 46. Last quarter of the 15th c. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht; Memling, Turin Passion. c. 1480. Galleria Sabauda, Turin. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 421.

136

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

hangman. The central scene of Rogier van der Weyden’s work the Judgment of Trajan (1439) shows us an executioner with a kneeling convict. Both are in contrast with the numerous witnesses of the execution ceremony just because they are the only persons that have their heads uncovered.166 Such contrasts appeared also in religious art. In the church of Saint-Fargeau in Yonne, medieval people could admire a stained glass window made at the beginning of the fourteenth century where two flagellators of Christ have uncovered lower legs and the one on the right side has no shoes.167 The attribute of incompleteness or disorder of dress was a traditional iconographical code,168 used by medieval artists as a means to classify and label socially low or morally suspect figures. Scholars have disagreed on the significance of the defectiveness of the hangman’s habit. Some have proposed that the function of the disorder motif was just to reflect reality, that is, to refer to the demands of the executioner’s physical work (the need for freedom of movement)169 and also efforts to protect oneself from getting dirty or soiled. Christiane Raynaud writes that in illuminated historical texts, this feature was merely a reference to the hangman’s low origin and to everyday practices related to his work, rather than to immodesty.170 Other scholars have considered, however, that the negative value of this sign was more important. Odile Blanc has suggested that it indicated ‘the cruelty and horror inspired by the hangman’s function’.171 Ruth Mellinkoff claims that the motif of incompleteness was not only a reference to low status, but also to moral decadence and sin.172 It is clear to me that the motif of incompleteness served to identify the hangman with the non-privileged estates and physical labour. Rolled sleeves and hose legs, upturned fringes and unbuttoned jackets were very usual attributes of peasants and manual workers in visual material, in the miniatures of historical texts173 as well as in religious pictorial material.174 Ruth Mellinkoff has suggested that 166 Van der Weyden, Judgment of Trajan. Copy of the original (1439), tapestry from the mid-fifteenth century. Musée historique de Berne. Picture published in Jacob 1994, 69. Van der Weyden painted this work for the Brussels City Hall. The original panels perished in the 1695 fire. Martens 1999, 389. See also BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 447r and Les conspirateurs et meurtriers de César in Mansel’s ms. 1447–1460. Picture published in Prevenier (dir.) 1998, 111. 167 Flagellation. Beginning of the fourteenth century. Stained-glass window, Church of Saint-Fargeau, Yonne. Picture published in Maalaustaiteen historia. 1971, 28. See also Provoost, Crucifixion. Early sixteenth century. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. On executioners without shoes in Italian artists’ works, see for example Lorenzo, Martirio di Santa Caterina d’Alessandria and Pesaro, Martirio de S. Biagio. Palazzo Venezia, Rome. 168 Milder forms of disorder are common even in high medieval iconography. In a stained-glass window of the Sainte-Chapelle (in the fifth level of the gable window) Christ’s executioner has slipped the fringe of his violet jacket under the belt. Stained-glass windows, Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, 1242–1248. 169 Mane 1989, 94-5. 170 Raynaud 1990, 154-5. For the incomplete habits of manual workers, gravediggers and convicts, see for example Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470, illuminated by Master François and commanded by Jacques d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours. BN ms. fr. 9186, fols 26v, 52r, 137r. In this manuscript, the hangman’s habit is more often scanty than incomplete. 171 Blanc 1989, footnote on page 251. 172 Mellinkoff I 1993, 204. 173 Raynaud 1990, 154-5, 272. 174 In the Heures de Louis de Laval this feature is typical of both the executioners (BN ms. lat. 920, fols 26r A, 117v, 112v, 299v.) as well as of workers and peasants (BN ms. lat. 920, fols 5r A, 11r B, 14r A, 200v.) See also the Grandes Heures de Rohan: on disorder of the executioner’s habit: BN ms. lat. 9471, fols 64v, 165v, 214r B, 219r C,

137

CHAPTER 4

when using this motif late medieval artists did not intend to mark peasants and labourers as evil but only boorishly indecent and rustic, compared to the nobility.175 For example, in the Limbourg brothers’ Très Riches Heures, commissioned by Duke John of Berry (1340–1416), a great patron of artists and a passionate collector, one can observe a striking contrast between the rich and magnificent clothing of aristocrats and the simple and sometimes incomplete outfits of peasants.176 These pictures are reflections of past reality, but more importantly they show us what kind of dressing was thought of as being suitable for each estate. They also tell us about opinions concerning the moral qualities of the various estates: in general way, the lack of virtue was considered and depicted as more typical of lesser people than of the leading classes.177 In art, nakedness was characteristic of personified vices and demons.178 In late medieval culture incompleteness of habit was a mark that referred to ideas of sin and marginality and accordingly, to the loss of status this signified. In pictures, as well as in daily reality, condemned criminals were frequently dressed inadequately as a sign of the admission of their sins and a symbol of their lowered status. Lower-class wrongdoers usually had to pass the punishment ritual without head-dress,179 barefoot and wearing only a simple white shirt.180 The purpose of these public punishment rituals was to transmit information about the criminal and his crime. Anyone who was taken to his death fully clothed was recognised instantly as a noteworthy person.181 As stated by Esther Cohen, the incompleteness of a convict’s outfit was, at the same time, a very functional and humiliating feature. It was a means to make the penalty harsher. Total nakedness for convicts was, however, extremely rare in late medieval iconography as well as in actual life.182

175 176

177 178 179 180

181 182

138

221r A, 234r; and on manual workers (grave diggers): BN ms. lat. 9471, fols 182r, 192r A. On peasants’ habits: BN ms. lat. 924, fol. 8r. Mellinkoff I 1998, 208. Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fols 2v, 6v, 7v, 8v, 9v. Musée Condé, Chantilly. In this manuscript, incomplete outfits appear (as a negative sign) also on executioners (fols 40v, 144r) and shepherds (fol. 48r). The lack of clothing as a positive sign is connected with The Anatomical Man (fol. 14v), Adam and Eve before the Fall (fol. 25v), saved in the day of Resurrection (fol. 34v), Christ (fol. 152v), for example. The Limbourgs died prematurely, in 1416, probably from plague, before the miniatures were completed. In 1440–1450, Barthélemy d’Eyck, a Flemish painter working for the Duke of Anjou, finished some images (calendar pictures of October and December, as well as some parts of March, June and September). The rest of the illuminations were completed, in 1485–1489, by Jean Colombe who worked for Charles I, Duke of Savoy. See for example Walther & Wolf 2005, 281. For an Italian example about the shepherd’s exposed legs, see Domenico Ghirlandaio’s atelier (Florence, 1449–1494), The Nativity. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. On this topic, see section 7.2. On devils’ nakedness, see Russell 1984, 211. Russell has noted on the Devil’s habit: ‘He is usually naked or wears only a loincloth, the nakedness symbolizing sexuality, wildness, and animality.’ In late medieval culture, head-dress was an important indicator of social status. For this reason bishops or kings were depicted with their mitres or crowns in execution scenes. On head-dresses, see section 4.5. See, for example, Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 103-4. Defeated enemies and rebels also manifested their status by means of incomplete clothing. See, for example, Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 201. Bare feet were in late medieval culture an ambivalent sign that could refer to stigmatising marginality and extreme poverty, but could also be a positive sign of Christian humility and piety (of severe asceticism and penitence). See, for example, Bouts, Saint John Writing the Gospel. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 340. For the bare feet as a sign of humility, see also Schmitt 2002, 240-3. Cohen 1993, 186. Raynaud 1990, 58. One can find opened trousers on hanged men depicted by Italian artist Pisanello (1395– 1455). Pisanello, Hanged men. Picture published in Plumb 1961, 82.

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

The motif of incompleteness also connected the hangman with the idea of mental disorder: this feature was typical of fools183 and madmen in iconography.184 Everybody knew that mentally disordered people often tried to tear their clothes or undress themselves. Therefore, the lack of clothing was associated with irrationality, to the wanting of a man’s most important quality, namely reason.185 An unclothed individual was the opposite of one who was ‘vestitum ac sana mente’186 (clothed and in his right mind). It must be observed that the poor condition or quality of fabric was also understood as a form of incompleteness. Tattered clothes with more or less large holes pointed to nudity, marginality and poverty. One can observe this feature on the executioner’s clothing, for example, in La Vie de Saint Denis187 miniatures of which were made c. 1317 in a Parisian atelier, and in some illuminated historical texts, for example, in Giovanni Colonna’s Mare historiarum.188 However, the illuminator has not employed this attribute in a systematic way in this latter manuscript. In iconography tattered clothes were also characteristic of the insane and possessed,189 shepherds,190 peasants,191 and beggars.192 On the other hand, faded colours (pale blue, pale red / rose) typical of hangmen in some pictorial materials could also be interpreted as a reference to poverty, i.e. cheap fabric, poor quality of dyeing. The quality of the fabric was naturally an essential sign of status in late medieval society. Several documentary and literary sources indicate that in official court festivities (marriages, funerals) all participants often wore clothes of the same colour but their rank was manifested through the length of their robes as well as the quality of the fabric.193 Sometimes one can see hangmen wearing clothing in good condition and even of relatively high quality. One example is provided by Gerard David’s diptych the Judgment of Cambyses (1498). As explained earlier (in section 2.3), the left-hand 183 See, for example, Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Le Martyre de Ste Apolline. 1452–1460. Miniatures by Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 184 Raynaud 1990, 272. Suicides, too, are often depicted with disordered clothes, as a sign of their sinfulness. See, for example, the hanged Judas in Hesdin, Le Portement de croix. Grandes Heures du duc de Berry. 1409. Musée du Louvre, Paris; Horae ad usum Parisiensem BN ms. lat. 919, fol. 65r; Diptych with scenes of the Passion. Ivory. French, late 13th c. Wallace Collection, London. 185 Bottomley 1979, 219. For the nakedness of the possessed see, Katajala-Peltomaa 2004, 89-90. 186 Lc 8.35. 187 BN ms. fr. 2092, fol. 22v. This Vita was written by Yves, a monk of Saint-Denis, on the command of King Filip IV. See Bossuat, Pichard & Raynud de Lage 1992, 1506. For an Italian example about the executiners ragged hose, see Vincenzo Foppa’s (Brescia c. 1427– Brescia 1515/6) painting. Foppa, Saint Sebastian. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. 188 Colonna, Mare historiarum. C. 1447–1455. BN ms. lat. 4915, fols 121r, 191v. The miniatures for this collection of historical texts by Giovanni Colonna (c. 1298–1343) were made by André d’Ypres (known as the Master of Jouvenel des Ursins), Colin d’Amiens (known as the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio), Boethius Master and others. The probable patron was Jouvenel des Ursins, Charles VII’s chancellor. See Walther & Wolf 2005, 312. 189 Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, ms. 65, fol. 166r. 1411–1416. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 190 On shepherds’ tattered clothes see for example: Annunciation to the Shepherds in Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fol. 48r. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 191 See for example Grandes Heures de Rohan. BN ms. lat. 9471, fol. 13r A; Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fols 3v, 10v. Musée Condé, Chantilly. In this manuscript, a hunter, too, has holes in his hose (fol. 12v). For the holes in the hangman’s habit in Spanish art see, for example, Martorell, Flagellation of St George. C. 1435. Musée du Louvre, Paris; for a German example, see Schilling, Setting up the wheel and Execution by wheel. (1509– 1513). Miniatures published in Merback 1999, 111. 192 See for example Lieferinxe, Pilgrims at the Tomb of St Sebastian. C. 1497. Palazzo Barberini, Rome 193 Stein 1999, 51-80.

139

CHAPTER 4

panel depicts the arrest of the corrupt judge Sisamnes, who had accepted a bribe in return for delivering a false judgment, the right-hand panel shows his punishment (skinning). I refer, here, especially to the master hangman with red hair and beard, who wears a fashionable beige jacket194 and to his chief assistant in the lower left corner, dressed in blue shirt, red-brown hose and a yellow cape. In this diptych, the authorities wear long and loose gowns. Hangmen as well as other less important officers wear shorter and tighter clothing. The chief assistant is dressed in an outfit that is made of better fabric than those of the lesser assistants (two men and a young apprentice). His clothing may appear to a modern person as rather fine at first sight. But on closer examination one cannot help noticing that the colour scheme points in another direction: his tunic is murky blue, his shirt is pale blue, his hose is roux, and his cape is yellow. Medieval spectators found these shades ugly and unpleasant, typical of less costly fabrics. This work was commanded by the Bruges councillors to be hung in the courtroom of their City Hall. It was supposed to publicise the message of their good justice and values. It also indicated the hierarchical relations between various officers of justice, high and low, by means of their dress. It is possible to discover, in this painting, other body-related attributes in the hangman figures that signalled unfavourable messages relating to depravity and bad morals. I will return to this issue in the next chapter. It is difficult to overstress the significance of clothing in late medieval culture and society. The upper classes competed with each other in the richness and luxury of their habits,195 whilst lesser people tried to imitate fashionable aristocrats. Therefore it is understandable that the incompleteness of a person’s dress often carried a very unfavourable meaning. In iconography, the honourable and the good never expose their body by rolling up their sleeves or unbuttoning their clothes. In actual life this was also unthinkable for any respectable person. Moralists stressed that decent persons always kept their dress in order. An orderly habit was a sign of an individual’s virtue and inner harmony. Thomas Aquinas had discussed this topic in his Summa in the thirteenth century in a chapter entitled Quæstio CLXIX. De modestia in exteriori apparatu. Aquinas explained that disorder in clothing is actually as sinful as superfluity; neglected dress points to sin, vanity and arrogance just as too sumptuous a habit does. Natural reason demands that men keep their clothing, an essential sign of human condition, in good order. Aquinas writes that costly clothing is not a sin in the case of highly ranked persons, especially ecclesiastics, who wear handsome habits not for their own glory but to manifest the excellence of their function or of divine cult. Disorder or neglect in clothing is not a sin in such cases where this serves as a means for disciplining the flesh or humiliating the spirit.196 One can also quote the anonymous writer of Le Menagier de Paris (c. 1393), probably a rich bourgeois, who urges his young wife to always ensure that her dress is in order when she intends to leave the house: 194 See section 4.2. 195 Consequently, it was typical of court chroniclers to describe very carefully the various dresses and fabrics used, for example, at princely festivities. See Molinet, Chroniques, I-II, passim. 196 Aquinas, Summa theologiae,2a-2æ, Q155-170, 332-337.

140

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

Et avant que vous partiez de vostre chambre ou hostel, ayez par avant avisé que le colet de vostre chemise, de vostre blanchet, ou de vostre coste ou seurcot ne saillient l’un sur l’autre; comme il est aucunes yvrognes, foles, ou non sachans qui ne tienne compte de leur honneur ne de l’onnesteté de leur estat ne de leurs maris.197 And before leaving your room or house, you should have checked that the collar of your blouse, of your underskirt, or of your jacket does not hang one over another; as is the case with some drunkards, fools, or stupid people who do not guard their own honour, nor that of their estate or of their husbands. This writer links the disorder of clothing to vice (and particularly to drunkenness), lack of reason and dishonour. Later, he writes about the ridicule that will fall on persons that are dressed in a disorderly manner.198 Whilst the incompleteness of clothing was a feature that often carried very negative associations, in some cases, however, it could be interpreted as a neutral or positive sign. In portrayals of Adam and Eve before the Fall,199 in depictions of saved souls on the day of the Resurrection or tortured martyrs, the lack of clothing did not have any deprecatory or vilifying significance, but pointed to humility or innocence.200 Naturally, the larger context as well as several adjoining positive attributes and clues prevented medieval spectators from misinterpreting the original message of the artists.201 But in connection with the hangman’s figure and surrounded with numerous other negative motifs, revealing the body functioned as a stigma. It served to mark the hangman as a low or evil figure and at the same time it signalled that the disorder or incompleteness of his dress was indecent and was not suitable for any good Christian or honourable person. It may be concluded that a close examination the executioner’s habit can open up valuable insights into the ways of perceiving and constructing reality in the late Middle Ages. An investigation of this particular theme casts additional light on the

197 Le Menagier de Paris, 10. 198 Ibid., 10. 199 See, for example, Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. Miniatures by Master François. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 252r. 200 Frank Bottomley suggests that nudity could have four different symbolic meanings in medieval moral theology: 1) Nuditas naturalis, which was the natural state of man and was conductive to humility. This kind of nudity appears in depictions of Paradise, the Last Judgement, and the Resurrection, and in depictions of savages, martyrs, and in scientific illustrations. 2) Nuditas temporalis, which symbolised the lack of earthly goods as a result of involuntary or voluntary poverty (as in the case of ascetics or religious people). 3) Nuditas virtualis, which stood for innocence, the soul undressed of its rags of guilt. 4) Nuditas criminalis, which was a sign of lust, bestiality, vanity and the absence of all virtues. This kind of nudity was represented in depictions of pagan divinities, devils, personified vices and sinful humans. Bottomley 1979, 219. On the nudity of Christ and the martyrs in late medieval theatre, see Davison 2002, 149-79. Actors playing tortured martyrs were not really naked, but dressed in body stockings of soft leather in order to appear nude. 201 For example, in a fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicle, a miniature depicting the execution of French crusaders in Nicopolis shows mutilated victims naked, a sign that was employed, here, to raise them to the ranks of martyrs, not to disparage them. BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 255v.

141

CHAPTER 4

diverse opinions and notions related to clothing and to bodiliness, to past people’s efforts to categorise society and thus strengthen prevailing hierarchies. I have attached great weight particularly to pictorial interpretations of the executioner’s clothing. These have to be understood firstly as deliberate influencing efforts and expressions of subjective opinions and not as neutral portrayals of dayto-day practices concerning actual official hangmen’s clothing. As Christian de Mérindol has remarked, scholars have not always paid enough attention to this aspect. In a general way, iconographical testimony cannot be used uncritically as evidence of late medieval dress customs.202 Some scholars seem to have sometimes forgotten this point and write about pictorial portrayals of the hangman’s habit as exact depictions of everyday clothing practices.203 It must be also noted that whilst most fifteenth-century artists dressed all figures (contemporary or those of the distant past) in clothing that corresponded to the current fashion, there also existed those painters who tried to depict older dressing styles, for reasons of historicity.204 The essential function of the portrayals of the hangman’s habit and its various elements was to help to identify a certain figure as an executioner and at the same time place him in his slot in a social hierarchy and in the ontological chain of beings, usually, as an infamous or evil person. Artists’ depictions did not necessarily correspond with the prevailing fashions of actual professional hangmen, for they had to observe the many symbolical conventions of iconographical tradition. One factor that also influenced the depictions of the hangman’s habit, especially in religious art, was the need to criticise the trends in taste and fashion by making use of the hangman’s figure. During the late Middle Ages a typical feature of fashion was extreme exaggeration and also rapid changes in styles and trends.205 The pictures of the hangman’s habit reflect these shifts and tell us what kinds of outfits were seen as indecent (by certain conservative groups) at different times. There was no strictly fixed costume for the executioner but rather certain very typical elements or traits. Attributes that signalled a marginal status or poor moral character were common and numerous: polychromy in the form of stripes, scanty shape, incompleteness, etc. The same attributes appeared in sacred art and in secular pictures, not only on hangmen torturing Christian martyrs and or serving the bad justice of ‘others’, but also on those serving the legitimate justice of the King of France or of Flemish towns. Torturers of Christ and saints did not appear to late medieval artists or their audiences as important mythical personages but only very evil men who exemplified many deplorable faults in humankind. In religious or historical pictures pagan authorities wore richer (longer) robes but their negative moral character was expressed by other means, for example, certain patterns, accessories, facial or body-related features. In secular pictures, through his habit, the executioner was contrasted with the authorities, judges, notaries and clerics. He was also less well dressed than sergeants. At the same time, his outfit associated him with criminals who often wore scanty or 202 203 204 205

142

Mérindol 1989, 210. See Edgerton 1985, 134; Mellinkoff I 1993, passim. See Van Buren 1995, 515-25. As Johan Huizinga has observed, a special feature of the fashion of 1350–1480 was exaggeration (particularly in design) that can be considered quite unequalled. Huizinga 2002, 384.

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

incomplete habits. Pictures reflected and strengthened common belief that many professional hangmen were morally depraved; of course, everybody knew that these offices were not occupied by any decent or well-reputed citizens but mostly by ancient criminals or men of lower social origin. Artists also intentionally exploited the hangman’s provocative dress and figure to disapprove of some sentences as too harsh or to condemn the bad justice of infidels and enemies. 4.5 Accessories as Anathema In late medieval culture and society the different accessories that made up the outfit of individuals and groups were not considered as insignificant details but these had an essential symbolical meaning besides their practical functions. Accessories and ornaments signalled and defined an individual’s status and helped, for their part, to maintain the social order.206 Regarding the accessories of the professional hangmen, there was no fixed style or system but practices varied widely in everyday life, as was also the case in the artistic and dramatic depictions of them. However, in iconography certain accessories were employed as useful additional labels in signalling the hangman’s status and moral character and at the same time commenting on other topics. Depictions of the hangman’s various accessories, for example, the belt, could sometimes be identified in pictures as negative elements simply because of their colour. Knights and noble persons often wear broad golden belts as signs of their rank in iconography.207 In a miniature depicting the hanging of Thomas de Marle in the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V (c. 1380) all personages are dressed in white (ecru) but whilst the authorities’ belts are golden, the hangman’s belt is red.208 Besides red, the colour black is usual in the executioner’s belt.209 While the black belt could be interpreted as a sign of social inferiority,210 one may think that the red belt rather symbolised the hangman’s occupation, as Christiane Raynaud has suggested.211 It should be noted that in the later Middle Ages, the belt was quite an important accessory, not only because it functioned as a sign of social status but also because of its practicality: the belt kept together the folds of a long robe (later it was also worn on the short jacket, pourpoint) and it served as a substitute for pockets. Pockets were unknown at that time but one could attach various necessary objects such as keys or a purse to his or her belt. The wearer could also put the handle of some tool (axe, etc.) under the belt and leave his hands free for manual work.212

206 207 208 209

Raynaud 1990, 182. See also Le Goff 1988a, 358. BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 55r; BN ms. fr. 2813, fols 114v, 179v, 394r A, 438r; BN ms. fr. 20353, fols 131v, 176v. BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 179v; see also BN ms. lat 1052, fol. 423v. See, for example, BN ms. fr. 30, fols 55r, 71r; BN ms. fr. 50, fols C XIXv, CC XXXr d, CCC XXIIIIv, CCC XXIXv; BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 398r; BN ms. lat 18026, passim. 210 Black belts also appear in pictorial sources on the habits of servants. See BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 394r B. 211 Raynaud 1990, 155. 212 Mane 1989, 95, 97.

143

CHAPTER 4

The executioner’s belt could also be yellow, as one can observe in the Miracle de saint Quentin from the fifteenth century, today exhibited at Louvre. This tapestry depicts a ‘gallows miracle’: the hanging rope has snapped and a convict is sitting on the ground. The hangman, who is standing on a ladder, is dressed in a typical way (red hat, tight and short blue jacket, bright red hose, and brown boots). He has put a hammer under his slim yellow belt.213 One of the miracles attributed to Saint Quentin, Christian martyr during persecutions under Emperor Maximian, was this intervention on the gallows to save a horse-thief.214 In the town of Vermandois a robber stole a horse belonging to a priest. He was arrested and tortured and finally confessed the deed. The priest grew concerned that his personal loss should be the cause of imperilling a man’s soul, so he begged the judge to spare the thief’s life. But the severity of the judge could in no way be deflected, and he ordered the thief to be hanged. The priest humbly prayed to Saint Quentin to save the thief from death. Following this prayer, the ropes holding the convict on the gallows broke, and he fell to the ground. When the judge heard this, he was struck with fear and wonder and dared do no further harm to the thief. Thus, in the Louvre tapestry, the hangman’s yellow belt was essentially a negative sign: it labelled him as an agent of bad justice. As explained earlier, the colour yellow was often associated with various negative ideas and groups in the late medieval period. Besides the aspect of colour, which was often an important signal, the design (shape) of accessories – and sometimes the category itself, the choice of a garment – could be meaningful in efforts to express views about the hangman and the ideas he stood for. Head-dress, for example, was an important accessory, not only as a functional part of a person’s outfit but also as a sign of identification in later medieval culture and society. As Ruth Mellinkoff has reminded us, in history headgear has frequently been used as major indicator of status, class, character, profession, race, and religion as well as the geographical origin of individuals and groups. In Western culture one of the most widely known categories is the king’s crown.215 Actual hangmen did not have any fixed head covering in the later Middle Ages. In pictorial sources one meets executioners wearing very varying types of head-dress. Jean le Noir, the illuminator of the Bréviaire de Charles V, regularly employed close-fitting caps (coiffe) and hoods as the hangman’s attribute. For example, the executioner of Saints Gentianus, Fudrianus and Victoria has a tight white cap,216 as well as the executioner of Saint Marcellus and Saint Peter.217 One of the executioners of Saints Dionysios, Rusticus and Eleutherius has a green hood that hides 213 214 215 216 217

144

Miracle de saint Quentin. Northern France (?), the second half of the fifteenth century. Musée du Louvre, Paris. See, for example, Acta Sanctorum, vol. XIII, 1883, 781-2, 804. Mellinkoff I 1993, 61-94. BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 297v. Ibid., fol. 385v, see also fols 405v, 428r, 458r, 447r A, 466v; Bréviaire de Belleville. BN ms. lat. 10484, fol. 282r; Les Enluminures. Collection Wildenstein: No. 95. D: Crucifixion de saint André. Paris ou artiste d’obédience parisienne travaillant en Franche Comté ou en Bourgogne, vers. 1320–1330. Initial provenant d’un antiphonaire, d’un lectionnaire ou d’un légendier. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. In a miniature by Jean Fouquet an executioner has a black coif. Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Le Martyre de St Jacques le Majeur. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. The coif appears systematically as the executioner’s attribute in the Bréviaire de Philippe le Bel illuminated by Master Honoré and his collaborators c. 1296. BN ms. lat. 1023, passim.

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

part of his face,218 whilst the executioner of Saint Jacobus wears a hood which almost covers his eyes and serves as an eye-catching item because of its bright red colour,219 and one of the executioners of Saint Lawrence wears a pink hood with a long tail.220 As several historians have observed, both coif and hood were frequently used as indicators of low status or bad character in medieval iconography; one can spot these categories of head-dress on servants,221 peasants and craftsmen222 and murderers223. In everyday life, artisans used the coif in various dirty occupations or in such tasks that called for certain hygiene, for example, in the roles of baker, butcher, or fishmonger. It was also used in those activities related to fire; a coif protected a smith or a glassblower from burning.224 The coif was, however, sometimes depicted on other than low, despised and evil individuals: miniatures in medical texts show physicians wearing them, whilst some fourteenth-century sources show them in the context of highly ranked persons.225 The derogatory use of coifs seems to be more ordinary in pictorial sources dating from the fifteenth century – a change that probably reflects altering fashions in actual life. A collar with hood, capuchon, was an element that was served to link the executioner with the non-privileged estates as well as ideas of madness and bestiality. One cannot help noticing that in late medieval pictorial art, a hood is a very typical accessory not only of hangmen, but also of labourers, peasants, murderers and rebels226 as well as of fools227 and monkeys, which symbolised degenerate mankind.228 In day-to-day life a capuchon was a popular accessory amongst several classes of society in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries but later it became unfashionable.229 However, the hood was an ambiguous garment. From the fifteenth century on, a loose black hood (such as can be seen, for example, in a miniature of the 218 BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 359v. 219 Ibid., fol. 429r A. 220 Ibid., fol. 448r. The executioner of Saint Felix and Saint Audactus is dressed in a short brown-hooded cape. Ibid., fol. 490r. See also Grandes Heures de Rohan. BN ms. lat. 9471, fols 219r C, 234r; BN ms. fr 30, fol. 71r. One of Christ’s executioners appears with a long-tailed hood in an altarpiece of stone that was once situated in the church of the monastery of Saint-Denis. Scènes de la Passion. Retable, Ile-de-France. C. 1350–1360. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 221 Laborde 1911–1927, 174, 176. 222 In the Horae ad usum Trecensem a peasant slaughtering a pig wears a green hood. BN ms. lat. 924, fol. 12r. Also shepherds have hoods, see fol. 136r. 223 Raynaud 1990, 154. 224 Mane 1989, 97. 225 See, for example, BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 179v. 226 In Flemish towns a league called the Chaperons Blancs (White Hoods) had much influence in the fourteenth century. During the ‘Cabochian Revolution’ (1413) Parisian rioters adopted as their badge the chaperon blanc, undoubtedly in order to offend the Duke of Burgundy. Calmette 2001, 42-8, 105. 227 The fool’s hood is often provided with donkey ears. See, for example, BN ms. lat. 919, fol. 38r marg.; Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Martyre de sainte Appoline. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly; Froissart, Chronique. BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. VIxx XVr marg. 228 According to Joyce E. Salisbury, this association explains the phenomenon of the sudden multiplication of monkeys in the marginal pictures of manuscripts. The monkey served as a useful separating category between humanity and the animal world. Salisbury 1994, 142. On the other hand, in the Middle Ages numerous persons believed that the Devil particularly liked to disguise himself in the form of a monkey (besides that of a dragon, snake, or wolf). Russell 1984, 211. For the opinions concerning the monkey’s hideous appearance, see Le Bestiaire, 68. A manuscript of Froissart’s chronicles provides a good example of monkeys with hoods. BN mss fr. 2643-6, passim. See also the Somme rural of Jehan Boutillier. BN ms. fr. 201, fol. IVv. 229 Verdon 2001, 97-8.

145

CHAPTER 4

Heures à l’usage de Reims)230 became a central element in funeral robes. And naturally, the hood was still an essential part of the habit of a monk. On a monk this garment was interpreted as being a positive sign of humility and of the clerical estate.231 It is worth noting that one does not come across, in French, Flemish or Northern European pictorial materials, hoods with eyeholes. I mean the kind of hoods that cover the face completely and are familiar to modern people from historical films, comics, etc. This kind of head covering appears, nonetheless, sometimes in Italian illuminated legal manuscripts.232 It refers to the custom of hiding the executioner’s identity in some Italian towns in the period of later Middle Ages. This practice was connected with the activities of the secular fraternities that specialised in assisting death convicts,233 and which usually included persons of high status among their number – the same persons that were responsible for the sentence.234 It is quite understandable that these fraternities wanted to protect their members by means of a face-concealing hood. In France and Burgundy, however, official executioners did not wear this kind of hood, either in iconography or in actual life. One obvious reason for this absence is that at that time, covering the face – with a hood or with a mask – was seen as quite a threatening and harmful act. It would have suited ill to representatives of law and order. We are all familiar with the fact that the covering of the face with a mask was a common practice in the feasts and plays of popular culture. They had an important role in folkloristic traditions, in carnival feasts, in ritual manifestations relating to the cycle of life (sometimes in funeral banquets) and in charivaris.235 Outside carnivals and charivaris hiding the face with a mask (in popular language: ‘faulx visage’ or ‘fol visage’)236or a hood was generally considered a very suspicious gesture. The peasants of Montaillou, for example, followed an ageold custom and always removed their hoods when they met a friend or any acquaintance (of lower or higher status).237 This was an important gesture of politeness, as well as a signal of safety and good intentions. Of course, in the battle, knights and warriors hid their face with helmets that they were obliged to use as a protection. On the other hand, they used heraldic signs on their shields. Such signs helped to recognise fighters (enemies and others) in the confusion of a battle.238 230 BN Arsénal ms. 1189, fol. 65r. 231 For the symbolism of hoods in medieval culture, see also Schmitt 1998a, 203. On mourning houppelandes, see Stein 1999, 58. 232 I wish to thank Dr Susan L’Engle (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York) for having kindly informed me about the following Italian manuscripts with hangmen wearing face-covering hoods: Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, ms. cod. 2252, fol. 147r; ms. cod. 2259, fol. 68v; Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. canon. misc. 493, fol. 21v; Pistoia, Biblioteca Comunale, ms. c.154, fol. 255v. 233 The most ancient secular fraternity specialising in assisting convicts, and at the same time the most significant prototype for later fraternities, was the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Croce al Tiempio founded in Florence in 1343. Such fraternities proliferated, particularly from the sixteenth century on. Almost every community that executed its own death sentence had one of its own. Edgerton 1985, 178-9. See also Weisz 1983. 234 Edgerton 1985, 178-9. 235 Río 1993, 81-92; Heers 1997, 238; Schmitt 1998a, 164-8; Schmitt 2001, 211. On carnival masks, see also Brant, Das Narrenschiff, 239-43. The masks used in charivaris referred to dead people who resisted and disapproved of remarriage. Martin 1996, 280. 236 Schmitt 2001, 214. 237 Le Roy Ladurie 1982, 202. 238 Pastoureau 2004, 214. For the defensive and offensive functions of helmets and le cimier, see also Ibid., 239. For the genesis of arms, see Ibid., 213-43

146

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

Ecclesiastical authorities and moralists condemned masks during the later Middle Ages, repeatedly but in vain.239 They saw hiding the face with a mask as a pagan, indecent and dishonourable custom that encouraged sinful and evil acts. It was thought that masked individuals easily lost their sense of responsibility and also succeeded in avoiding recognition and therefore the punishment their crimes deserved. Synods prohibited the use of the masks totally for clerics.240 The mask was suspect in the eyes of the Church because it broke the only legitimate similitude; that of the man created as an image of God (Gn 1.26.); to mask one self was diabolic.241 According to a general belief, the devil had a power to transform men, and in addition, he transformed himself242 (as a human, dragon, wolf, etc., see section 7.3). The secular authorities were also suspicious about hiding the face with a mask, because they feared (and knew) that this would facilitate criminal activities.243 They prohibited it several times during the later Middle Ages.244 However, as Jean-Claude Schmitt has remarked, one should not overestimate the negative significance of masks in medieval culture. The idea of the Church’s radical resistance needs some nuancing. Masks also belonged to the religious theatre of the ending Middle Ages.245 Whilst the church condemned the diabolic travestissements (those of paganism and, later, those of folklore) it sometimes valued ‘saintly’ disguise motivated by humility and not by vanity.246 Besides coifs and hoods, quite ostentatious and exotic head-dresses also appear on the hangman in pictorial material, especially in religious images depicting executioners of Christian martyrs. In the Heures of Jean de Montauban (c. 1440) illuminated in a Parisian atelier numerous hangmen wear such accessories. For example, the executioners of Saint Lawrence wear the most striking and extravagant headgear. In the upper left corner of the miniature we can see an executioner with a white hat in the form of two long horns. In the middle of the picture, a second executioner has a yellow hat with a very large brim. The third executioner, on the right-hand side, has a white, cone-shaped turban.247 Later, in the same manuscript, one of the two exe-

239 Schmitt 2001, 220. 240 Heers 1997, 241. 241 ‘… l’homme, seule créature qui en porte les traits, ne peut sans sacrilège changer d’apparence : en se masquant il fait de lui-même une idole’. Schmitt 2001, 217 242 Ibid., 218. 243 Mathieu d’Escouchy writes in his chronicle about the highwaymen that harassed Normandy in 1444. These robbers used masks (‘avoient faulx visaiges’). Some of them were captured and later executed. Chronique de Mathieu d’Escouchy, I, 6-7. 244 In a letter by Charles VI, dated 9.3.1400, the use of hoods (chaperons) that cover the face completely and facilitate murders and thefts is strictly forbidden. AN Y2, fol. 171r. The use of masks and their sale in Paris was also prohibited by the Parliament of Paris in 1506 and 1514. AN Y64, fol. 42v; AN Y63, fol. 131r. 245 ‘… en tant que signe double (dont le masque porte les traits), le masque posait dans sa matérialité un problème trop essentiel à la théologie, et plus généralement, au christianisme médiéval – celui de la similitudo –, base de la pensée spéculaire de l’Eglise – pour ne pas susciter d’autres attitudes qu’une simple condamnation sans appel. Ainsi le masque est-il un bon révélateur du rapport dialectique de la culture cléricale et des traditions folkloriques dans la société médiévale, et d’ailleurs nous retrouvons certains masques là où ces traditions se combinent, en particulier sur la scène du ‘théâtre’ religieux médiéval.’ Schmitt 2001, 211-2. 246 Ibid., 215. 247 BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 121r.

147

CHAPTER 4

cutioners of Saint Apollonia has a red and yellow striped horn-shaped hat.248 In visual sources we also meet executioners with exotic turbans, often of bright colours (yellow or red),249 or with headbands.250 In works of art large turbans and headbands were served as deprecatory signs pointing either to servility or to sin and depravity. In the late medieval imagery, turbans and headbands were closely associated with Saracens and other infidels (who could still be employed as slaves in Mediterranean region). Therefore it is understandable that the iconography equipped many kinds of low, subordinate or evil persons with such accessories: peasants, manual workers, rebels, murderers, etc.251 As to the executioners’ long pointed, cone-shaped hats, it is worth noting that this type of headgear was actually a fashionable feminine accessory in the everyday life of the later Middle Ages. The French called it hennin. Hennins as well as extravagant horn-shaped head-dresses are worn by fashionable noble women in secular art, for example, in illuminated chronicles.252 In some illuminated historical texts we can find hennins on fashionable ladies ended in the Gibbet of Hell.253 However, in religious art, one can encounter similar headgears on numerous evil masculine figures, such as pagan executioners and Jews. To understand the use of female accessories as an attribute of negative male figures, it should be noted that the fashionable feminine head-dresses and particularly hennins aroused strong criticism amongst moralists and conservatives in the late Middle Ages.254 In the fifteenth century, popular preachers touring France impressed large audiences by vividly depicting the Passion and the approaching end of the world. They also often strongly criticised vanity and luxury in clothing. According to Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a certain friar Thomas, who circulated in Northern France and in Flanders in 1428, was very popular amongst the common people for the very reason that he severely condemned showing off with clothes (and especially for the nobility and clerics) in his sermons. Monstrelet writes that if 248 Ibid., fol. 135r. The cone-shaped hats of executioners are often quite high. In the Miroir historial the executioner of Saint Peter has a brown cone hat (BN ms. fr. 50, fol. CCC XIIIIv.) and the executioner of Saint Apollinaris wears a bright red cone hat with a brim (fol. CCC LVIr.) Later, in the same manuscript, we meet a hangman with a green cone hat with a yellow brim (fol. CCC LVIIIv A.). On red and yellow striped conical hats, see BN ms. lat. 18026, fols 117r B, 119r, 133r A. An executioner wears a green cone-shaped hat in a manuscript of the Roman history by Titus Livius. BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 28r. 249 BN ms. lat. 18026, fols 89r A, 117r B, 122r, 125r. On turbans, see also Heures de Louis de Laval. BN ms. lat. 920, fols 26r A, 297v; Miroir historial. BN ms. fr. 50, fol. CCC XIIIIv; Cercle du peintre Colyn de Coter (patrons), Scènes de la légende de Saint Étienne: 4. Saint Étienne mené au lieu du supplice: son martyre. Choir hanging. Brussels, c. 1500. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 250 The executioner of Metteus has an orange headband in a manuscript of Titus Livius. BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 20r. In the Heures d’Étienne Chevalier three executioners of Saint Apollonia wear high cone hats and the fourth one has a long headband. Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Martyre de sainte Appoline. 1452–1460. Miniatures by Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 251 We often meet turbans on peasants working on the field in the calendar pictures of devotional literature. See, for example, a miniature depicting the occupations of the month of July in the Bréviaire de Charles V. BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 4r A. See also BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 3r. See also Raynaud 1990, 151. 252 Hennins are often depicted on noble women in the fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Froisssart’s chronicles. BN mss fr. 2643-6, passim. See also Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 18r marg. 253 See for example, Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. Miniatures by Master François. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 298v. A well-known example of linking fashionable female headgears and gowns with sin is Metsys (?), A Grotesque Old Woman. C. 1525. National Gallery, London. 254 See also Bottomley 1979, 211.

148

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

friar Thomas saw any noble women wearing hennins amongst his audience, he set young boys on them by shouting ‘au hennin, au hennin!’ and that therefore those women would not dare to use any other head-dress than bonnets for some time.255 Preachers such as the famous friar Richard sometimes made such an impact on their listeners that these hurried to make bonfires of their finery. In 1428–1429 in Paris and in Artois people voluntarily brought gaudy head-dresses and all kinds of accessories and ornaments to be burned along with playing cards and other sinful objects.256 It is clear that the function of striking and flamboyant headgears that appear on executioners particularly in the religious iconography was not to refer to the everyday practices of public executioners but to symbolise bad moral character and a chaotic mental life. By linking showy head-dresses to the hangman’s figure, artists could also criticise the fashion trends and display of clothing in society in general, and especially amongst the wealthier classes. In late medieval religious iconography, pious and good persons always wear decent head-dresses that accord with their status and manifest the harmony of their inner universe. Saintly figures usually have a halo or tonsured heads. As already mentioned, in secular pictorial material, the showy headgear of executioner is not so frequent. In illuminated chronicles it is reserved for the nobility and its function was not to stigmatise individuals and groups but to indicate their social rank, which was also communicated and signalled by several other attributes related to the clothing and the body.257 The short white apron, which is a usual element in the hangman’s outfit in iconography, could have a neutral or degrading significance in the late medieval imagery. In a miniature depicting the martyrdom of Saint James in Heures d’Étienne Chevalier illuminated by a French painter and miniaturist much appreciated in his time, Jean Fouquet (c. 1415–c. 1478), we can find a depiction of the hangman with many typical features – dorsal position, black coif, short grey jacket, bright red hose open at the back – and a white apron. The hangman who is decapitating Saint James’ scribe Josias (on the left) is also wearing a white apron.258 In the same manuscript we can also see Hedroit, the blacksmith’s wife, wearing a white apron when fashioning the nails for Christ’s cross.259 Aprons appear on hangmen also in the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry (c. 1380–1412), miniatures of which sometimes attributed to Jean d’Orléans.260 In daily reality the apron was an important garment, particularly for peasants and manual workers. The apron was an inseparable part of a peasant woman’s outfit. It was also an important protective garment for men of the lower classes in 255 Monstrelet, Chroniques IV, 302-6. 256 Huizinga 2002, 32-3. 257 However, in some illuminated historical texts we can find hennins on fashionable ladies ended in the torture chamber of Hell, see for example, Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 298v. 258 Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Le Martyre de St Jacques le Majeur. 1452–1460. Miniatures by Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé, Chantilly. In the Bréviaire de Charles V one of the executioners of Saint Lawrence has covered his pink jacket and black trousers with a white apron. BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 448r. For hangmen’s aprons, see also Raynaud 1990, 154. 259 Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Le Portement de Croix. 1452–1460. Miniatures by Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 260 BN ms. n.a.l. 3039, p. 209.

149

CHAPTER 4

certain dirty tasks and occupations.261 According to Perrine Mane, the apron became, from the thirteenth century on, a permanent element for a peasant woman both at home and outside the house in pictorial arts.262 As to men of the lower classes, the use of an apron is connected in iconography with certain professional activities demanding protection from dust, dirt, or blood. Peasants wear an apron in tasks related to wine-making or slaughter.263 Other professional groups that wear an apron in pictorial sources, in addition to hangmen, are smiths, joiners, stonecutters, cooks, butchers and fishmongers.264 Christiane Raynaud has suggested that the hangman’s apron was a neutral iconographical element that referred to everyday practice.265 It is possible that some executioners wore aprons to protect their clothes from blood when performing their duties, especially punishments involving mutilation. In iconography, an apron linked the hangman to the lower classes and manual labour. It could also refer to the polluting aspect of his occupations. The hangman had not any fixed type of footwear in late medieval culture or society. In pictorial material the executioner sometimes wears high-legged (sometimes tightlength) boots. A manuscript of the Miroir historial from the fifteenth century provides a good example: executioners are repeatedly depicted with high-legged boots that are yellow or black, sometimes brown.266 One also encounters executioners dressed in boots in a stained-glass window, once in the chapel of Hôtel de Cluny,267 as well as in a tapestry ordered by bishop Jean III Baillet (1477–1513) for the choir of the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne in Auxerre, today exhibited in the Musée du Louvre.268 Boots were viewed as quite a disparaging accessory in the later Middle Ages: pagan, rustic, ugly or unfashionable. According to Jacques Heers, big boots were an essential element for the outfit of the ridiculous figure of the peasant in medieval 261 Mane 1989, 94. 262 Ibid., 98-102. 263 In late medieval devotional literature the calendar image of December often depicts the slaughtering of a pig by a peasant. Very frequently the peasant wears an apron in these pictures. See BN ms. fr. 9471, fol. 17v B; BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 16r A; BN ms. lat. 919, fol. 7r A; BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 7r; BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 6v A. 264 In the Heures de Louis de Laval workmen building a house wear white aprons. BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 198r B. See also Mane 1989, 98-102. 265 Raynaud 1990, 154. 266 BN ms. fr. 50, passim. See also a manuscript of the Golden Legend (from the fifteenth century). BN ms. fr. 6448, fols XL VIIv A, LX XIIIv, XIIxx XVIIIr; Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 91r; Les Enluminures. Collection Wildenstein: No. 150. Flagellation. Maître d’Édouard IV. Bruges, 1480–1490; No. 152. Massacre des Innocents. Maître du Livre de Prières de 1500. Bruges, vers 1490–1500. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris; Master of Delft, Scenes fro the Passion of Christ. C. 1510; Master of Cappenberg (Jan Baegert), Christ before Pilate. C. 1520. National Gallery, London. The cruel executioners of the notorious sultan Bajasid had long beards and wear bright coloured habits together with brown or red boots in a fifteenth-century manuscript of Froissart’s chronicle. (BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 256r). In the same manuscript a soldier is sometimes depicted with a boot in his other foot and a shoe in the other. BN ms. fr. 2643, fol. CCC IIII XIIIr; BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. IIIIxx Vr marg. See also Mount Calvary. C. 1500. Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. 267 Portement de croix. Chapelle de l’hôtel de Cluny. Paris, c. 1500. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 268 Cercle du peintre Colyn de Coter (patrons), Scènes de la légende de Saint Étienne: 4. Saint Étienne mené au lieu du supplice: son martyre. Choir hanging. Brussels, c. 1500. Musée de Cluny, Paris. One also finds executioners with boots in Memling, Martyre de S. Sebastien. C. 1490. Left-hand panel of the Triptych of the Resurrection. Musée du Louvre, Paris; Le Retable du Parlement de Paris. C. 1455. Musée du Louvre, Paris; Miracle de saint Quentin. The second half of the fifteenth century. Musée du Louvre, Paris; David, Crucifixion. C. 1480. National Gallery, London.

150

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

carnival processions.269 In daily life boots were not commonly worn at that time. It is evident that before the use of the short jacket and tight hose became more prevalent, the wearing of high-legged boots also was both difficult and unnecessary. Besides executioners, one comes across hunters,270 pagan soldiers and infidels dressed in boots in iconography.271 In addition to boots the long points of shoes are a typical attribute of the executioner, especially in illuminated devotional literature in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry (1372–1390) the illuminators have stigmatised, for example, Christ’s three executioners by depicting them wearing black and very long pointed shoes in a crucifixion scene.272 Le Noir’s and his colleagues’ miniatures may have also reflected their famous patron’s, Duke John of Berry’s values and taste in regard with footwear. Hangmen wear poulaine-shoes also in several miniatures in the fifteenth century manuscript of Vicent Beauvais’ Miroir Historial.273 As Ruth Mellinkoff has observed, long shoe points were quite a common attribute for evil persons and particularly unbelievers in religious art.274 In some illuminated historical texts, one can also spot poulaine-shoes on sinners in Hell.275 However, in secular art, for example, in illuminated chronicles, long pointed shoes did not necessarily have a negative significance. They appear on some executioners as well as on courtiers and aristocrats.276 Consequently, when trying to decode and figure out the exact message of poulaine-shoes, one must, at every instance, examine the larger context (topic of the picture and surrounding signs – just as in the case of tight hose, striped fabrics, close-fitting coifs, etc.) to see whether this particular accessory served to indicate a lack of dignity and low moral character or rather a high social status and refinement. In actual life the long pointed shoes that the French called chaussures à la poulaine were very fashionable at the end of the fourteenth century and also in the fifteenth century, especially among the men and women of the wealthier classes. It is not surprising that this novel footwear fashion was severely attacked by moralists and conservatives, as were numerous other innovations. As with exaggeratedly high head-dresses and outrageously long tails, poulaine-shoes were also regularly linked to the sin of pride and bestiality.277 Christine de Pisan claims in Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs that the virtuous King Charles V, who disapproved of trendy habits and show269 Other typical attributes were rude facial features, dishevelled hair, a neglected outfit, and bright colours (sometimes the colours of madness). Heers suggests that this carnival figure expressed the contempt or amusement of town dwellers concerning the inhabitants of the countryside. Heers 1997, 238. 270 BN ms. fr. 2643, fol. VIIxx XVIIr. 271 See, for example, BN ms. fr. 20313, fol. 154v. 272 Christ nailed to the cross. BN ms. lat 18104, fol. 162r. See also BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 225r marg.; Froissart’s chronicle. BN ms. fr. 2646, fols 26v, 42r. See also the miniature depicting mocking of Christ in an English prayer book (c. 1370). BN ms. lat. 765, picture published in Pastoureau 1995, 32. 273 BN ms. fr. 50, fols CC XLv, CCC XXVIIIv, CCC IIIIxx XIr. 274 Mellinkoff I 1993, 39, 41. 275 See for example striking red or yellow poulaine-shoes on knights tortured in the Gibbet of Hell in Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. Miniatures by Master François. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 298v. 276 See, for example, BN ms. fr. 2645, fol. IIc IIv; BN ms. fr. 2646, fols 24v, 40v, 141r, 176r. See also Raynaud 1990, 154-5. 277 Mellinkoff I 1993, 39. For the symbolical value of the footwear in the Middle Ages, see also Schmitt 2002, 2403.

151

CHAPTER 4

ing off with clothes, did not allow his courtiers or servants to wear ‘oltrageuses pollaines’.278 On his orders, Hugues Aubriot, the provost of Paris, published several decrees that prohibited Parisian shoemakers from making poulaine-shoes.279 Some moralists in their attacks stressed the impracticability of this new footwear: walking was rather difficult when the points were exaggeratedly long, sometimes even longer than the foot itself.280 At the battle of Nicopolis (25.9.1396), where Bajasid was victorious, the negative aspects of poulaine-shoes were proven to many, for French knights had to cut off their long shoe points in order to be able to escape and save their lives.281 As regards the close link between poulaine-shoes and the hangman’s figure, it is plain that once again one is dealing here with an attribute that did not necessarily have much to do with the everyday practices and outfits of actual official executioners. It is improbable that the public authorities allowed their servants to wear such shoes on the scaffold or when performing their other functions. This kind of footwear would have made the work of the hangman quite difficult and risky. Therefore, one can assume that in several cases medieval artists used poulaine-shoes as an expression of the negative opinions towards hangmen or towards the sentence depicted. When long shoe points appear in a systematic manner on hangmen as well as on various negative figures in one and the same illuminated manuscript, it is quite reasonable to assume that in this work they were meant to be understood as a stigmatic accent. One may think that the artists’ (or their patrons’) purpose was also to influence the late medieval audience and their taste in footwear. Particularly in religious art this sign often identified the hangman as an evil and vicious figure and at the same time condemned poulaine-shoes and most of the people who wore them as depraved and sinful. In daily reality gloves were an essential part of the official hangman’s outfit, especially when he performed his tasks in serving criminal justice. Some executioners charged for a pair of new gloves for every execution.282 Gloves were quite important accessories for a hangman: he needed them in the hanging operations (when pulling a hanging rope), whilst on the scaffold a pair of good gloves helped him to have a firmer hold of the handle of a sword (or axe, knife, etc.). Gloves also protected an executioner from different kinds of burn wounds, for example, when he had to brand a convict with a red-hot iron or burn a heretic at the stake. It is striking that one does not often come across hangman’s gloves in medieval pictorial material.283 Besides the executioner, all kinds of craftsmen are also regularly portrayed without gloves, even such categories of professionals who carried out tasks that demanded protection of their hands from injury. Scholars have been uncertain about the reasons for this absence.284 I find it quite evident that the explanation for the bare hands of executioners and different manual workers, as 278 279 280 281 282 283 284

152

Pisan, Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, I, 82. Ordonnances des roys de France, IV, 55; XII, 107. Mémoires de Jacques du Clercq, 640. Huizinga 2002, 385. See Desmaze 1866, 81-3, 86-7; Cohen 1990, 288. Raynaud 2002, 308. Mane 1989, 97.

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

well, is linked to the special positive meaning of gloves in the iconographical tradition. White gloves were used as the privileged attributes of high-ranking ecclesiastics.285 They were also a typical attribute of the King of France at important ceremonies.286 The white of ecclesiastical and royal gloves symbolised the purity and the divine origin of the bishop’s and king’s powers and functions. Sometimes gloves appear on knights, or on other high-ranked persons in pictures.287 Occasionally, one can spot gloves on some soldier-executioners serving pagan tyrants. They appear, for example, in pictures depicting the murder of the innocents of Bethlehem.288 Soldier-executioners’ gloves are usually of some bright colour (red, yellow) and thus served as stigmatic accents. The case of the hangman’s gloves is a fine example of the fact that iconographical language had its own conventions that did not always coincide with everyday practices or with other forms of cultural expression. In the late medieval theatre, for example, the hangman’s gloves were shown. In fact they were a favourite subject for jokes and funny episodes. In late medieval mystery plays master hangmen make a commotion about their gloves before performing their office. Le Mistére du Viel Testament provides us with a good example. In one scene the master hangman Gournay is preparing for an execution and uppishly tells to his assistant Micet: ‘Ne oublie point mes gans; / tu sçais bien qu’ilz sont necessaires’. (Take care not to forget my gloves; / you know well that they are necessary.) Micet replies suavely: ‘Mon maistre; il en faut .II. paires. / Et! Ne pendez vous pas deux hommes’. (My master; you need two pairs of them, don’t you! Shan’t you hang two men.) Here, the joke is about the official hangman’s custom of charging for new gloves for each execution, the reasons for which practice will be explained soon. Later, after having performed his duties, Gournay arrogantly commands Micet: ‘Liève mes gans’ (Take off my gloves), as if he were some prince or dignitary talking to his servant. Micet, who secretly craves his master’s office, would like to keep those gloves for himself for the day of his masterpiece and says to himself: ‘quant je feray mon chef d’euvre, / Ilz me viedront tresbien a goust’ (when I perform my chef d’oeuvre, these will serve me very well).289 Scholars have disagreed on the symbolical significance of the hangman’s gloves in late medieval culture. Pieter Spierenburg, who for some reason believes that the use of gloves only became common for executioners in the modern period, 285 Other central symbols of the bishop’s power were the staff (crosse), gloves decorated with carbuncles (escarboucles, i.e. red gemstones or garnets) and clerical gown (chape). Raynaud 1990, 336. 286 For example, in the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V (fourteenth century) one encounters white gloves on popes, cardinals, and bishops (BN ms. fr. 2813, fols 313r, 393r, 397r, 399r bis A.) and on the King of France (Charles V) in the coronation ceremony (fol. 439r A.). See also BN ms. fr. 6465, fols 212v, 301v, 323r, 457r. 287 In some miniatures noble hunters (both men and women) are provided with brown gloves. See for example Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fol. 8v. Musée Condé, Chantilly. François I holds a brown glove (in his bare hand) in a portrait painted by Jean Clouet. Clouet, François I. C. 1525. Musée du Louvre, Paris. See also Mostaert (or the circle of Geertgen tot Sint Jans), The Tree of Jesse. C. 1500. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (On loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.), Rotterdam. The German painter Albrecht Dürer wears a fashionable black and white outfit together with white gloves in a self-portrait: Dürer, Auto-portait. C. 1498. Museo del Prado, Madrid, picture published in Zuffi (ed.) 2000, 236. 288 See, for example, BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 308r. 289 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 79, 91. Cf. La vie d’Esther in Mansel, La Fleur des Histoires. C. 1450. Bibliothèque royale, Bruxelles, Ms. 9231, fol. 90v. Picture published in Prevenier 1998, 101. See also Le Mystère de Saint Martin d’Andrieu de la Vigne, 404; Le mystère de Saint Laurent, 98.

153

CHAPTER 4

thinks that the practice was connected with beliefs about the hangman’s impurity.290 Alfred Franklin has proposed that people in the past understood the executioner’s gloves as a symbol of his innocence. Franklin suggests that an official hangman got a new pair of gloves so that he would seem to perform every execution with ‘clean hands’ (a clear conscience).291 In my view, this custom probably had both a practical and symbolic explanation. On the one hand, gloves were necessary instruments in the hangman’s functions and protected him from wounds, dirt and blood. They also protected his clients from his shameful touch. On the other hand, gloves symbolised the hangman’s instrumental role in the service of criminal justice and indicated that he was an office-holder under the protection of the legitimate authority. They also signalled that his fundamental function was to protect society from the chaos provoked by crime. It must be observed that in history, gloves have often had the same meaning as the hand. However, they also have had quite independent meanings and connotations. Gloves have sometimes pointed to action and signified power and protection. A glove has occasionally indicated a privilege (of coining or minting, for example) received from a ruler. A medieval knight could offer his glove to present a challenge to an adversary. Often, gloves have signalled a high status or rank and have been an accessory associated with solemn rituals.292 In order to understand the practices and attitudes relating to the hangman’s gloves one must also bear in mind the magical beliefs related to the his ambiguous touch. In the mental image of the executioner and its expressions the link with bloodshed, putrefaction and pollution was essential, reflecting and strengthening the magical beliefs and fears related to him. In the period of institutionalisation of the executioner’s office ancient taboos relating to bloodshed and pollution still prevailed in the collective mentality. We have considerable evidence showing that at that time numerous persons, learned or laymen, were persuaded that human blood and body parts had powerful magical qualities and that their contact could be very harmful in some instances. As a corollary, all professionals of blood and death appeared as dubious to the rest of society. Most suspicious of all were professional hangmen, who manipulated the bodies of great sinners, condemned criminals, who had died an unnatural death. This contact invested the professional executioner’s touch with very dangerous powers; it was believed to be not only defamatory but also malefic and polluting.293 Because of these beliefs the contact of the hangman was often avoided as carefully as possible in various situations of everyday life. People avoided touching a professional hangman and all such objects that had been in contact with him, especially money. However, the hangman’s touch could be, in some particular cases, beneficial, somewhat like the famous royal touch (which could cure scrofula 290 Spierenburg 1984, 19. 291 Franklin 1906, 100. On clean hands as a symbol of a clean conscience, see also Mt 27.24. ‘Videns autem Pilatus quia nihil proficeret sed magis tumultus fieret accepta aqua lavit manus coram populo dicens innocens ego sum sanguine iusti huius vos videritis.’ See also Pastoureau 2004, 34. 292 Chevalier & Cheerbrant 1982, 472-3; Biedermann 2003, 175-6. 293 In an execution ceremony a hangman’s touch could be either positive or negative, depending on the convict’s person and attitude. A public executioner’s touch and particularly the pain he caused could have a beneficial, purifying effect if the convict was innocent or if he or she repented and humbly begged for divine forgiveness. In the case of hardened sinners the official hangman’s touch and his violent actions only had a disgraceful and punitive (retaliating) effect; they were perceived as a prelude to or foretaste of those horrid, unparallel torments and punishments that awaited a great sinner in Hell. On the hangman’s touch, see sections 2.2 and 6.3.

154

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

according to a popular belief) studied by Marc Bloch.294 It was thought that the hangman’s touch could cure certain illnesses and therefore poorer people could overcome their fear and contempt and turn to him in various health-related problems. These magical beliefs explain the great interest in the hangman’s gloves in late medieval society and their central role in drama. People of the past could laugh at his gloves but at the same time they experienced mixed feelings of curiosity, wishfulness and fear. Besides gloves, professional badges were an essential missing element in pictorial portrayals of hangmen.295 In everyday life badges were – in addition to brightcoloured (or striped) garments – one important means of imposing a visual warning sign on various disapproved categories in society. At the end of the Middle Ages official hangmen had special badges sewn on their clothing, as did other pariahs of society: prostitutes, heretics, Muslims, etc. For example, Jews had to wear a yellow round sign, rouelle, in many medieval towns.296 Obviously, efforts to identify some categories of society with particular badges – in either a humiliating or respectful intent – is not a special feature of late medieval society but an ancient and universal practice.297 The badge of the executioner could depict a ladder and a gallows.298 The hangman’s ladder was a usual symbol for communal justice in late medieval culture.299 There were also other professional symbols. Jehan de Tourne, the official executioner of Amiens at the beginning of the sixteenth century, had to wear on his sleeve a badge depicting a hand with a sword.300 The sword was an attribute of justice and symbolised the power of execution. It was a common sign for the various métier des armes.301 In some towns the hangman’s badge was sewn on the back of the jacket instead of the sleeve.302 The fact that one does not meet a hangman’s badges in medieval pictorial sources may have quite a practical explanation: depicting this kind of very small detail in a recognisable manner would have been quite difficult for artists. Before turning attention to my next topic, the hangman’s weapons, it may be concluded that certain fashionable and ostentatious accessories were exploited in 294 Bloch (1924) 1961. 295 One possible exception to this rule of absence I have encountered is the little round yellow sign in the hat of the executioner in a miniature by Loyset Liédet in Froissart’s chronicle. However, the detail is so tiny that it is impossible to say if it is a professional badge. BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. 1r. 296 The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 made it compulsory for Jews to wear a yellow identification badge. The French court followed suit in 1269. Yellow badges of infamy were also pressed on many other outsiders. Pleij 2004, 78-9. On the special marks of Jews, prostitutes and heretics, see also Geremek 1974, 369; Geremek 1989, 411; Desmaze 1866, 64; Pastoureau 2004, 205. 297 Mellinkoff I 1993, 43. On wearing of badges see also Koldeweij 1999, 307-28. 298 Leroux de Lincy 1859, 614. 299 A ladder was naturally an essential aid for the executioner in everyday life. It also appears in numerous religious images depicting the Golgata. Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fol. 156v, 157. Musée Condé, Chantilly. For the symbolic meanings related to the ladder of justice, see section 1.1. 300 Delarue 1979, 42. 301 Tervarent 1997, 192-3. On professional signs in medieval urban context, see Camille 2003, 271. Camille observes that signs of métiers could be quasi-religious but most were based upon the similitude of service or goods sold (for example, in shop signs). Ibid., 271. 302 Ziwes 1960, 194.

155

CHAPTER 4

stigmatising purpose in the context of the executioner figures in works of art during the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Mostly, these accessories did not have much to do with the everyday dressing practices of actual hangmen. Artists merely made use of the executioner (and of other negative figures) in their efforts to criticise certain fashionable novelties and excessive luxury in clothing. Same accessories could refer to quite different things in an illuminated secular manuscript, for example, to high status and elegance in pictures representing various festivities and pastimes of nobility. When using images as source material the historian should always bear in mind that their function was less that of depicting an outside reality than that of adapting this reality to their own particular mode.303 Pictures can offer important evidence especially to those scholars who are interested in examining past attitudes and opinions, predominant views. By comparing the hangman’s dress-related attributes to those typical of other categories it is possible to discover what were the ideas this figure represented in particular contexts or in late medieval imagery, in general, or how he was viewed and classified socially or morally. At every stage, the historian must try to take into consideration the iconographical tradition, function of the picture, and the milieu of production, and also the larger cultural background of the phenomenon (sign) under investigation. 4.6 Instruments of Violence Instruments of violence, not only swords but many kinds of weapons, were naturally linked very closely with representations of the hangman’s outward appearance. In everyday reality an official hangman had to be able to use many kinds of instruments in his various duties as an officer of criminal justice. He had to be very skilled with weapons,304 for if he failed somehow in his tasks, the consequences could be very serious for him, even fatal. There is evidence of several cases where a clumsy hangman was lynched after a botched execution. Often the authorities punished their servants with fines or dismissal after an unsuccessful execution. In brief, late medieval people were very intolerant regarding any errors on the part of their professional executioners. A hangman was assumed to be able to decapitate his noble patients with a single blow of his long and heavy two-handed sword, which was a very demanding task.305 Chroniclers often mentioned both the successes and the failures that occurred in punitive ceremonies.306 303 Schmitt 2003, 21. 304 On various techniques relating to decapitations, see Raynaud 2002, 304-5. 305 French executioners were obviously more skilled in these exploits than their English colleagues, who were more likely to use a powerful but clumsy axe in decapitations. Eric W. Ives has suggested that when Henry VIII ordered Anne Boleyn to be beheaded in 1536 as an act of grace (usually female traitors were burned at the stake), it was for this reason that he brought over the executioner of Calais. Ives 1988, 401. One may presume that there were also important symbolic reasons related to the different symbolic values of the sword and the axe, which will be explained later in this section. 306 In the memoirs by Jacques de Clercq, the executioner of Lille (1458) appears as particularly skilful in mastering his heavy sword. According to the writer, he managed to decapitate the standing convict, a certain Baudechon Mallet, with a single murderous bow, a trick that surprised all the spectators. Mémoires de Jacques de Clercq, 621. Chopping off the head with one blow could be interpreted, depending on the circumstances, in various ways: in some cases, it could be seen as a mark of divine mercy for the convict, or, alternatively as a sign of divine

156

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

It was the official hangman’s responsibility to provide the necessary instruments and material for each execution. The authorities later recompensed his expenses. In a payment dated the 28th of February 1420 we can read that Jehan Lrycheley, bailiff of Rouen had paid to Guieffroy Thérage, official hangman of that town the following sums: XX sols pour le décapitement, X sols pour pendre, V sols pour charrette, V sols pour lance, X sols pour trayn, II sols pour claye, XII sols pour gans. XX sous for decapitation, X sous for hanging, V sous for cart, V sous for lance, X sous for dragging, II sous for grid, XII sous for gloves. The document states that master Guieffroy had first dragged the convict, a certain Gardin Hermenoult, from the prison to the old market place of Rouen on a grid behind a cart. There he had decapitated the convict and put his head on a lance, after which he had transported the body in the cart to the gibbet and hanged it.307 In smaller towns the arsenal of the official hangman was seldom complete. Only in such places as Paris could one expect to find a permanent hangman who was a true professional and fully equipped for the various penalties prescribed by the criminal law.308 As explained already, late medieval people were very curious about the hangman’s instruments and therefore it is not surprising that artists portrayed these very carefully, both in secular and in religious art, in miniatures as well as in panel paintings. Whilst in texts weapons and instruments are rarely described in detail,309 pictures often portray them. In religious literature (for example, in drama), on the other hand, it was typical to pay considerable attention to the hangman’s abundant arsenal of weapons. In several mystery plays there is a scene where executioners proudly present and enumerate their diverse instruments.310

307 308 309 310

approval for a just sentence. In popular beliefs, the virtuosity of some hangmen pointed to their supernatural capacities. Popular tradition also knew hangmen that were clumsy and failed their executions because of too heavy drinking. See section 7.2. Desmaze 1866, 82. Raynaud 2002, However, as explained in section 3.3, some chroniclers found exotic or novel kind of instruments of justice worth of describing. On this theme, see section 6.4.

157

CHAPTER 4

Scholars have disagreed on the significance and symbolic meanings of the hangman’s weapons. Whilst Christiane Raynaud has not considered their examination very important and argues that they did not have any special symbolical content: ‘Le langage codé ne les affecte pas’311 (The coded language does not affect them), other scholars have stressed the essential symbolic value of the hangman’s instruments. Mitchell B. Merback writes that ways of interpreting the weapons and other paraphernalia associated with executions were complex, sometimes ambivalent and often highly charged with symbolic meaning. Weapons could refer to negative or positive contexts. Sometimes they were intended to be seen as attributes of the convicts instead of the executioner.312 Merback stresses the great interest in the executioner’s tools in the Middle Ages and suggests that it originated from the Christian meaning given to them – their prototype being the Arma Christi – and from the magical beliefs related to them.313 It is quite evident to me that late medieval artists often used the executioner’s instruments as a stigmatic device, especially in religious art. The hangman’s weapons were not insignificant details but powerful signs, the function of which was to enforce the negative tone of the overall interpretation. Of course, weapons were an essential element in the representations and depictions of all kinds of agents of violence, honourable or dishonourable, good or evil, in addition to executioners, also of knights, soldiers, rebels, and murderers. Demons are also usually represented with weapons and instruments of torture in late medieval iconography. As J.B. Russell has observed, ‘Demons carry tridents, pitchforks, hooks, and other instruments of torture; their fearsome employment in hell as executioners of the damned was one of the commonest scenes in which they appeared.’314 In many pictures the mere choice of an executioner’s instrument was heavily charged with meaning. In images depicting the executions of martyrs as well as in secular pictures representing the bad justice of pagans and infidels one could

311 Raynaud 1990, 113. 312 As Merback has suggested, in some pictures the instruments of violence refer to executioners that have just left the scene. Merback 1999, 76, 97-9. A good example of this technique is provided by a book of hours dedicated to Anne of Brittany, which was illuminated by Jean Bourdichon (c. 1457–1521), an official court painter. In this manuscript one can find only one picture of the executioner (BN ms. lat. 9474, fol. 199v). In other miniatures Bourdichon has preferred to use weapons as substitutes for the hangman. One reason for this could be that this book was intended for the eyes of a very high-ranked woman who perhaps disliked the sight of the vile hangmen so often depicted in the religious iconography of this period. Occasionally, artists employed natural elements as a substitute of an absent hangman, for example, flames. A fine example is provided by a miniature depicting the burning of the Templars in Jean Boccace’s Des cas des nobles homes et femmes. (15th century, BN ms. fr. 127, fol. 302r.) In this picture, the red flames serve as eye-catchers. In the middle one can see three victims dressed in white underpants. Philip the Fair is present together with two cardinals dressed in red robes. Behind them, one can see brown hats (i.e. the spectators, the community). In other words, it was possible to express an unfavourable opinion about some sentence by other means than cumulating negative signs in the figure of the hangman. This sentence was perceived as questionable, excessive; the blame was on the King (his ‘avarice’). In some other miniatures on the same topic the executioners of the Templars are stigmatised through their incomplete outfits and other body-related signs. See for example, The Burning of the Templars. Picture published in Read 2001, p. 14 of the pictorial appendix. 313 Merback 1999, 76, 97-9. On worshipping and the symbolical meanings of the instruments of Passion in the later Middle Ages, see Mâle 1994, 103-5. Sometimes Christ is depicted together with all essential instruments of his passion, see, for example, Van der Weyden, Goossen, Triptych of Antonius Tsgrooten. 1507. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. 314 Russell 1984, 212.

158

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

see various exotic weapons such as swords with curved blades (sabres)315 untypical of Christian knights and soldiers. Medieval spectators would easily have recognised these instruments as negative signs pointing to otherness and evil. An axe was a typical attribute of an executioner and appears, for example, in Henry Bellechose’s316 painting the Retable de Saint Denis (1416).317 Bellechose’s work is based on a legend that was made popular by the Golden Legend. According to this story, Denis (or Dionysios) the Areopagite, who had recently been consecrated bishop of Athens by Saint Paul, arrived in Paris accompanied by his disciples Eleutherius and Rusticus, in order to preach the Gospel to local habitants. A Roman prefect arrested the three men. Denis survived various tortures, unharmed. When he was locked up again in prison, Christ appeared to him and gave him Holy Communion. The next day Denis was decapitated on the hill of Montmartre. After the execution the saint woke up and picked up his head and carried it to his burial site.318 In his painting, Bellechose has signalled the injustice of the sentence and the barbarous ferocity of the hangman’s actions by depicting a big black axe as the instrument of execution. For medieval spectators the negative message was clear: they knew that executioners should use a sword to decapitate a high-ranking person; the axe was used only for decapitating lower-class rebels.319 However, the axe was an ambiguous instrument in late medieval culture. In daily reality, it appeared everywhere and was employed for numerous purposes. It was not only a tool320 but also a common weapon of combat. Whilst the axe was considered, among tools, as the least pernicious, in the hierarchy of weapons it did not occupy the top position. It was less noble than the lance and the sword (the two arms of the knight) but more prestigious than other arms employed by non-noble warriors who fought on foot: the knife, the club, the javelin, etc.321 In iconography, the axe could appear as a negative attribute of hangmen, rebels, infidels and devils. At the same time it was occasionally the emblem of positive Christian figures such as apostle Matthias, Saint Barnabas, Saint Wolfgang or Saint Thomas Becket, or the weapon of some famous hero such as Roland322 or the sign of fertility or of legitimate justice.323 315 See for example an early fourteenth-century manuscript of Titus Livius’ work. BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 256r. 316 Henry Bellechose (d. c. 1440) was a Brabantian and worked for the ducal court of Burgundy 1415–1440. He worked mostly in Dijon. Kluckert 1998, 396. 317 Bellechose, Le Retable de saint Denis, 1416. Musée du Louvre, Paris. See also La vie de Saint Denis (1317) miniatures of which were made in an atelier that was active in Paris c. 1315–1320. BN ms. fr. 2092, fol. 45v. This manuscript belonged to the library of Charles V. 318 Puppi 1991, 72. See also Vie de Saint Denis. BN ms. fr. 2092, fols, 45v, 48v. 319 An extensive and important study on the history and symbolic meaning of the axe in the later Middle Ages is Raynaud 2002. As Christiane Raynaud observes, decapitation by an axe was usually employed in the case of non-noble rebels. When imposed on noble rebels, it was perceived as a particularly humiliating and terrible penalty. The martyrdom of Saint Denis, on the other hand, was perceived as the final horror for the Parisians and inhabitants of the Ile-de-France, see Raynaud 2002, 311, 313-6. On the use of weapons as related to the status of the convict or the nature of the crime in late medieval penal system, see section 2.1. The choice of the weapon and the technique was not simply left to the artists’ imagination but followed literary or legendary accounts or reflected everyday legal practices. 320 There also existed a great variety of axes depending of their use (butcher’s axe, wood cutters axe, carpenter’s axe, etc.) 321 Pastoureau 2004, 89-90. 322 Raynaud 2002, 442. 323 Ibid., 597.

159

CHAPTER 4

In addition to the type of the hangman’s instrument its size and condition were also significant. Sometimes the hangman’s axe or sword is disproportionately large,324 a feature that referred to brutal violence or to bad justice. Some artists wanted to emphasise the unjustness and cruelty of executioner’s actions by depicting his instruments as being broken, as we can observe in the miniature depicting the flagellation of Christ in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry.325 One branch of the whip is split, for one can see pieces of it on the ground. This detail referred to the idea of excessive violence, a feature that was central in the hangman’s representation.326 In everyday reality the whip was an important instrument for a public executioner since flogging was the most common mode of physical penalty. The executioner’s whip was made of branches of willow (ozier)327, or, alternatively (in Northern Europe) of birch.328 Stains of blood on the weapons were also a very stigmatic feature. In Le Retable du Parlement de Paris (c. 1455),329 the chief executioner standing behind Saint Denis carries a long sword that is spattered with blood and points downwards. Charlemagne, who is standing in the foreground (at the right-hand side), also holds a sword in his hand but his weapon is pointing upwards and is, naturally, without any blood flecks: his sword has a positive meaning, it is a symbol of legitimate power and righteous justice.330 A bloody blade (or some other instrument) was a powerful emblem of cruelty and brutal violence. It could also point to deserved punishment and dishonourable death of traitors as in a miniature in the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V (1380) depicting the execution of the rebellious Norman knights ordained by the King of France (the executioner’s axe is flecked with blood).331 In some pictures, stains of blood have been substituted by a red colour, for example, on the handle or in the covering of the sword, an attribute that had the same meaning as blood flecks.332 Whilst the hangman’s sword was usually grey or black,

324 See for example, Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470, illuminated by Master François and commanded by Jacques d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours. BN ms. fr. 9186, 225, 242; Boccace, Des cas des nobles homes et femmes. 15th century. BN ms. fr. 127, fols 43r, 55v, 97r. 325 Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry: Flagellation, ms. 65, fol. 144r. Musée Condé, Chantilly. Elaine Scarry has made intriguing remarks about weapons as objects closely connected with experiences of pain (– as were wounds –) in the ways of thinking of the late medieval mystics. Scarry 1985, 15-17. 326 See section 7.1. 327 Villon, Poésies complètes, 221. 328 In fact, in English the term birch referred at the same time to a tree, to a whip and to an act of flogging. The choice of this material for a whip was based probably not only on physical qualities of this tree (birch was flexible and resistant) but also on its positive symbolical value. Pastoureau 2004, 94-5. Whilst a whip was a typical attribute of the hangman in medieval iconography it was also associated with other figures, for example, schoolmasters. As François Garnier has observed, the fact that one can see in miniatures teachers holding whips and pupils with naked upper bodies does not mean that teachers systematically employed physical penalties. In this context, the instrument, the gesture and the nakedness were signs of repentance and asceticism. They indicated that reading lead towards knowledge of truth and virtue. Garnier 1988, 176-7. I wish also to remind the reader, too, that in ancient Rome, the whip was an official sign of the lictor. 329 Charles Sterling suggests that this painting was made by a painter from Tournai (Louis le Duc?), who would have worked in Paris c. 1454. Sterling 1990. See also Chastel 1994, 87. For an example from Italian pictorial material, see Sesto, Salome. C. 1510–1520. National Gallery, London. 330 Le Retable du Parlement de Paris, c. 1455. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 331 BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 398r. 332 See, for example, Bouts, Judgment of Emperor Otho: Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.

160

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

the archangel Michael is sometimes depicted with a red blade symbolising divine wrath.333 In medieval culture, the sword could be associated alternatively with positive figures (valiant knights, just rulers, Saint Paul, or Lady Justice334) and negative ones: demons, murderers, enemy soldiers, tyrants and Bad Justice. Sometimes an evil personage holds his sword (or other instrument) in his left hand. A good example is provided by the Breviarium Parisiense illuminated by Master Honoré (c. 1296): in numerous miniatures evil pagan authorities are depicted holding the sword in their left hand.335 Left-handed individuals are very rare in medieval pictorial sources. Moreover, all such persons are negative in one way or other. Judas is one of them, especially in Flemish and German pictures. Among left-handed individuals we can meet famous traitors (Cain, Delilah, Saul, Ganelon, Mordret) and representtatives of various suspect professional categories such as butchers, executioners, jesters, and prostitutes. However, this feature is even more common to nonChristians (pagans, Jews, Muslims) and to demonic creatures.336 It must be observed that some artists employed excessively long or dirty nails as an additional motif in depictions of negative individuals.337 In most cultures the left-handed individual has been perceived in an unfavourable light. The Middle Ages had inherited this opinion from biblical, Greco-Roman and German traditions. The Bible clearly stressed the pre-eminence of the right hand. For medieval Christian culture, the left hand was that of the Christ’s enemies. Therefore, it was quite logical that his judges (Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod) or his executioners sometimes employed this hand in iconography.338 The placement of the weapon was significant in other respects, as well. In some pictures a hangman has placed the grip of his knife or hammer between his lips when performing his duties, for example, skinning339 or crucifixion.340 This gesture did not necessarily refer to everyday practices (especially since human blood was considered a very dangerous substance) but was, rather, a sign that could point to the hangman’s bad character, cruelty and bestial thirst of blood.341 333 Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. Miniatures by Master François. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 252r; Boccace, Des cas des nobles homes et femmes. 15th century. BN ms. fr. 127, fol. 4v. 334 See for example Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 304r. See also Biedermann 2003, 2256. 335 Bréviaire de Philippe le Bel. C. 1296. BN ms. lat. 1023, passim. See also the miniature depicting the justice of Bajasid in Jean Froissart’s chronicle. BN ms fr 2646, fol. 255v. 336 Pastoureau 2004, 207-9. 337 Long and dark nails were particularly typical of demons; they pointed to evil, cruelty and bestiality. Sometimes they appear on personifications of the Bad Justice (see for example, Giotto, L’Ingiustizia. 1305. Scrovegni Chapel, Padova. Picture published in Robert 1993, 66.) For the hangman’s dirty nails see, for example, David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. This detail was important since good and honourable persons always had short and clean nails in pictures. Dirty nails carried connotations of impurity, danger and low status. For the ridicule concerning the dirty (coloured) nails of dyers, see Pastoureau 2004, 187. 338 Ibid., 208-9. See also section 5.4. 339 See, for example, David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. See also L’écorchement. Miniature de Loyset Liédet in Antoine de la Sale, la Sale. Pays-Bas du Sud. 1461. Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale. Ms. 9287-88, fol. 132r. Picture published in Prevenier (dir.) 1998, 106. 340 Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry. C. 1380–1412. BN ms. n. a. lat. 3039, p. 216. 341 On links between cruelty and thirst of blood, see section 7.1. However, one can sometimes see pictures where Christ has a long sword between his lips (the blade, not grip). See for example BN ms. lat. 1023, fol. 9r; BN ms. néerlandais 3, fols 2r, 3r. Here the weapon and its placement had a positive meaning: invincible power and divine truth.

161

CHAPTER 4

Regarding late medieval attitudes towards weapons in general, it is essential to remember that different arms were much more familiar objects to people in the past than they are to modern people. Whilst weapons could be linked to positive ideas of security and order in some instances, the connotations of threat and danger, pain and death were always present. Weapons – and especially the sword – were important symbols of power and status. The authorities tried to reserve the privilege of carrying weapons in medieval towns solely for the nobility and bourgeoisie. The official hangman also had this privilege. He had it because of his functions and also because physical assaults on his person were quite common during this period.342 In late medieval towns all kinds of people carried weapons – in spite of repeated prohibitions.343 According to Robert Muchembled, the barrier to actually using them was quite low: people in the past were in a state of constant readiness to engage in violent confrontation. Even clerics were prepared to defend themselves with weapons.344 The commonness of weapons explains the frequency of violent conflicts in late medieval society – and vice versa. The fact that everybody was more familiar with weapons in medieval society does not mean that people were free of all the anxiety and concern related to them. Cutting weapons were especially linked to deep-rooted magical beliefs amongst many social categories. Norbert Elias has examined attitudes towards cutting weapons and particularly the knife. The use of the knife was surrounded by numerous taboos and prohibitions. The knife’s obviously dangerous quality was beset with emotions. This instrument was a symbol of the most diverse feelings, which were connected with its function and shape but were not deduced ‘logically’ from its purpose. ‘The fear it awakens goes beyond what is rational and is greater than the “calculable”, probable danger’, Elias writes. He also suggests that ‘there are indications in the late Middle Ages, even more direct ones than in any later period, that the caution required in using a knife results not only from the rational consideration that one might cut or harm oneself, but above all from the emotion aroused by the sight or the idea of a knife…’ According to Elias, it was particularly the association with death and danger, the symbolic meaning of the instrument that led, with the advancing internal pacification of society, to the preponderance of feelings of displeasure at the sight of a knife, and to the limitation and final exclusion of its use in society.345 Clear evidence of the special importance of weapons – and especially swords – in late medieval culture is also the common habit of giving them names as if they were living creatures.346 According to Johan Huizinga this habit was 342 Delarue 1979, 34. The carrying of weapons was totally prohibited for clerics. Heers 1997, 40. 343 See Desmaze 1866, 37. See also AN Y62, fol. 37r. 344 Muchembled writes, ‘Rares sont ceux, même parmi les hommes d’Eglise, qui se risquent hors de chez eux sans un couteau, un gros bâton noueux, […] voire une épée, […] une hallebarde, une lance, un épieu […] Malgré les interdictions réitérées sans cesse dans les villes, chacun songe à sa défense.’ Muchembled 1987, 42-3. See also Cohen 1996, 61. 345 Elias I 1983, 122-3. 346 In old epics and legends, the swords of heroes had names: Roland’s sword was Durandal, Beowulf’s Hrunting, Charlemagne’s Joyeuse, and Arthur’s Excalibur. In Scandinavian mythology Tor’s famous hammer was called Mjölner. On the history of swords, see Cederlöf 2002, 25-34, and for the development of weapons in general, from antiquity to the nineteenth century, see Ibid., passim.

162

THE HANGMAN’S OUTFIT

connected with the particular way of thinking that saw all qualities as autonomous ideas. This explains why all kinds of creatures and even inanimate objects were given names. Huizinga suggests that this feature is typical of primitive anthropomorphism that was much more evident in medieval culture than in later times. At that time swords had names but so also did large guns (le Chien d’Orléans, la Gringade, la Bourgeoise, de Dulle Griet), famous jewels, houses, church bells, and even dungeons.347 To conclude this section I wish to stress that the hangman’s weapons had quite a particular value for people in the past because of their specific function and magical beliefs relating to various instruments of executions.348 They were based on the long-term mental structures shared by all classes in late medieval society.349 In popular beliefs, the magical power of the executioner’s instruments was manifested, for example, so that when a person was condemned to death, swords started to rattle in the hangman’s house. The hangman’s sword was supposed to long for blood but it could be satisfied with just a drop.350 The executioner’s weapons and instruments were often associated with shameful, punitive pain and a ‘bad death’, which increased the alarming quality of the hangman’s figure. However, the executioner’s instruments were ambiguous. They could be employed and read as stigmatic signs, but at the same time, they could occasionally carry neutral or positive meanings, for example, in illuminated law texts or in images depicting a just sentence passed by the King of France or when depicted in an official hangman’s badge. In art as well as in everyday life the executioner’s weapons could be associated in certain contexts with ideas of legitimate justice and necessary violence that protected society, order and safety, and purifying pain that helped repentant malefactors to purge their sins and avoid punishments in the hereafter.

347 Huizinga 2002, 347. 348 The belief in the magical powers of instruments of execution was quite ancient. Even Pliny the Elder lists in his Historia Naturalis the rope used in crucifixion, spartum e cruce, among different kinds of magical objects. Merback 1999, 97-9. According to a popular belief, a wound could be healed by touching it with the weapon that had caused it. Berthelot 1999, 25. 349 Merback 1999, 97-9. 350 Spierenburg 1984, 30. Similar beliefs related to weapons are not totally unknown in modern times either. The present day Ghurkha soldier’s koukri must taste blood every time it is unsheathed – usually the soldier nicks his palm. On Ghurka arms, see for example Cederlöf 2002, 171-3.

163

CHAPTER 5

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER Le nes begue qui descend iusques a la levere de dessus segnefie malice, decepvance, desloyaulte et luxure Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers

In late medieval culture the hangman was closely associated with the idea of physical deviancy. Whilst there do not exist written descriptions focusing explicitly on executioners’ physical appearance,1 this link is very apparent in the testimony offered by pictorial material. In this chapter I study the major methods of classification and labelling related to the bodily features of the executioner and, in addition, shed light on the many contexts and interpretations of the central signs of the hangman. Before examining the topic of facial features I will cast some light on the general notions and opinions relating to beauty and ugliness in the later Middle Ages.2 In the second part of this chapter I will focus on the hangman’s body and on various ways of interpreting its different aspects such as gestures and postures. 5.1 Facial Features and Expressions In late medieval society and culture a lot of weight was attached to an individual’s appearance. It was commonly thought that physical features could provide important indications of man’s inner qualities, moral character and inclinations. These beliefs were based on the conception that a man’s body and soul formed an entity, an inseparable whole: the body was an expression of a person’s inner being.3 An individual’s facial features, expressions and gestures were all understood as manifestations of a person’s soul and its movements. Medieval Christians, who perceived man as an image of God, interpreted physical beauty as a sign of divine grace, and ugliness as a manifestation of sin, a symbol of evil. As Jacques Le Goff has put it, to medieval people ‘beautiful’ was frequently synonymous with valuable and good. Le Goff observes, ‘the high value 1 2

3

Chronicles, for example, do not contain any descriptions about hangmen’s facial features. However, they offer us some information relating to executioners’ gestures. The study of Ruth Mellinkoff on signs of otherness in the Northern European art of the later Middle Ages (1993) has been a great source of inspiration to me in investigations relating to the facial aspects of the hangman’s depictions. My observations concerning the French and Flemish material do not only complete Mellinkoff’s findings but some times also suggest different interpretations, and thus hopefully serve to increase our understanding of past people’s ways of thinking and reasoning. Christiane Raynaud’s study (1990) has also been most useful to me. I have profited from it more particularly in the examination of the topic of hangman’s body, in sections 5.3-4. Bynum 1989, 162-4, 188-97; Bynum 1995, 225, 278, 319, 341. See also section 5.3.

165

CHAPTER 5

set on physical beauty was such that beauty was an obligatory attribute of sanctity […] Medieval saints did not only possess the seven gifts of the soul (friendliness, wisdom, concord, honour, power, security, and joy) but also the seven gifts of the body – beauty, agility, force, liberty, health, pleasure, and longevity’.4 Logically, angels and all inhabitants of the heavenly court were imagined to be wonderfully beautiful.5 The good God was above all the Beautiful God. Therefore, it is not surprising that Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) wrote in the Cur Deus homo that it makes him angry to see an unskilled painter depict Christ as being ugly.6 However, it must be stressed that the linking of beautiful with good was a sort of general cultural rule. Naturally, not all that was beautiful reflected goodness, or vice versa. Numerous moralists underlined that one should not attach too much value to physical beauty, for this could easily lead to vice and sin.7 Ugliness, for its part, was quite commonly linked with ideas of the ignoble, unholy and evil in medieval culture. Whilst virtuous and saintly figures were conceived as beautiful, great sinners and evil creatures appeared physically repulsive in the imagination of late medieval men. Jean Gerson assures us in Le doctrinal aux simples gens, following the opinion of Saint Augustine, that demons ‘sont si horribles a regarder […] qu’il n’est homme qui mieulx amast que l’on ardist tout vif que ce qu’il veist ung diable en sa laide figure’8 (are so horrible to see […] that there is not a man who would not rather be burned alive than behold the ugly figure of some demon). Most abominable of all demons was their prince, Lucifer, who had been the most beautiful of all creatures at the beginning of time, and was later transformed to the most hideous.9 At this point it is essential to ask, what was ‘ugly’, then? How was ugliness defined in the Middle Ages? As Ruth Mellinkoff has explained, all such features were considered ugly that deviated too much from what was considered ‘normal’. It did not matter whether these were natural, inborn deviations or those caused by some illness or accident.10 Deviant was regularly conceived as synonymous with ugly. The roots of medieval conceptions concerning physical defects and ugliness as a manifestation of inner depravity go back to antiquity. Late medieval people could find grounds for their notions and beliefs in the Bible. In the 21st chapter of 4 5

Le Goff 1988, 339. The anonymous writer of La Court de Paradis from the end of the thirteenth century praised the beauty of the angels, ‘qui a merveille estoient belle’, saints and other blessed. La Court de Paradis, 83-4, 88-9. On heavenly beauty, see also Dante, La Divina Commedia, 908 and passim. 6 Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus homo, 216: ‘… indignari pravis pictoribus, cum ipsum Dominum informi figura pigni video.’ Nevertheless, it is evident that at least the learned knew that the gospels did not give any description of Christ’s physical appearance. Isaiah, on the other hand, had prophesied that the Messiah would not be handsome (non est species ei neque decor et vidimus eum et non erat aspectus et desideravimus eum). Is 53.2. 7 See for example Le livre du chevalier de La Tour Landry, 154-5. 8 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, X, 317-8. 9 An important source of inspiration for late medieval depictions of Lucifer in art and literature was the Visio Tnugdali from the twelfth century. See La vision de Tondale, 37-9. 10 Mellinkoff I 1993, 113-7. Because of the close link to sin, sickness and infirmity could evoke not only compassion, but also feelings of fear and disgust in the Middle Ages. ‘Le devoir de charité à l’égard des malades et des infirmes, bien que toujours présent dans la conscience collective, était parallèle au sentiment de la peur, de la répugnance, voire même du mépris qu’ils inspiraient.’ Geremek 1974, 370; Geremek 1989, 407. See also Joutsivuo 1995b.

166

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

Leviticus they could read that the priesthood is forbidden to individuals who are physically deviant,11 whilst in Deuteronomy they could learn that God punishes sinners with many dreadful diseases such as wasting disease, recurrent fever, and eruptions; ague; Egyptian boils, tumours, scabs and itch; madness, blindness and stupefaction; severe boils for which one will find no cure. (‘Percutiat te Dominus egestate febri et et frigore ardore et aestu’; ‘ulcere Aegypti et parte corporis per quam stercora digeruntur scabie quoque et prurigine ita ut curari nequeas percutiat te Dominus amentia et caecitate ac furore mentis’; ‘percutiat te Dominus ulcere pessimo in genibus et in suris sanarique non possis a planta pedis usque ad verticem tuum’).12 The Bible seemed to say very clearly that physical deviancy results from sin and man’s depravity.13 The very popular science of physiognomy also had an important effect on notions and opinions relating to ugliness.14 Physiognomic treatises were written enthusiastically throughout the late medieval period. These explained how one should interpret various bodily features and how different traits referred to certain intellectual qualities and inclinations. Valuable testimony on this theme is offered by Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers from the end of the fifteenth century, a collection of texts on astrology, medicine and religious morals, a kind of encyclopaedia aimed at simples gens, ‘simple people’, to ordinary and unlearned folk. In the preface of a chapter on physiognomic matter, the anonymous writer warns his readers as follows: … nous advertissons que songneusement on se garde de touttes personnes qui ont de faulte de membre naturel en eulx comme de pie, de main, d’oel ou d’autre membre quel quil soit de boiteux et especialement de home esbarbé cest qui n’a point de barbe, car tels sont enclins a plusieurs vices et maulvaisitiez et s’en doit on garder come de son ennemy mortel.15 … we advise [every one] to carefully watch out for all persons who have some physical defect in some natural member such as foot, hand, eye or other member, or who are lame, and especially men who have no beard, for they are inclined to numerous vices and evil deeds and one should watch them as one’s mortal enemy. The writer stresses that one should beware of all physically deviant persons as potentially bad and dangerous. Later, he observes that the negative innate inclinations

11 ‘Locutusque est Dominus ad Mosen dicens loquere ad Aaron homo de semine tuo per familias qui habuerit maculam non offeret panes Deo suo nec accedet ad ministerium eius si caecus fuerit si claudus si vel parvo vel grandi et torto naso si fracto pede si manu si gibbus si lippus si albuginem habens in oculo si iugem scabiem si inpetiginem in corpore vel hirniosus.’ Lv 21.16-20. 12 Dt 28.22, 27, 35. 13 Claude Lecouteux has observed that physically deviant persons have, in fact, symbolised evil in most monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Lecouteux 2001, 12. 14 Pythagoras (500 B.C.) has been entitled the inventor of physiognomy. The first systematic physiognomic treatise that is preserved is the work of Pseudo-Aristotle from the third century B.C. Evans 1969, 5. 15 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147].

167

CHAPTER 5

that various physical features signal do not force individuals into their respective bad actions because of the free will of man.16 He warns, however, that: … la plus part des hommes et femmes ensuivent leurs inclinacions naturelles a vices ou a vertus parce que la plus part ne sont pas saiges ne prudens comme devroient estre et se ne usent de la vertu de leur entendement mais ensuivent la sensualité et par ainsi l’influence celestielle la quelle est demonstree par signe exteriore.17 … most men and women follow their natural inclinations to vices or to virtues because most are not as wise nor prudent as they should be and so they do not use the virtue of their reason but follow sensuality and thus the celestial influence which is demonstrated by exterior signs. The writer reflects on the popular notions of the importance of celestial influence on men’s life. Many people thought that the origin of individuals’ appearance, beauty or ugliness, was on the one hand divine but at the same time prescribed by their horoscope. A person’s being and its inclinations were under the influence of the heavenly bodies and their movements.18 In this guide readers are warned that only a few persons existed in the world who were truly capable of resisting their bad inclinations and that for this reason one had better consider negative physical signs as serious warnings. Common notions and prejudices related to bodily features or signs, to physical beauty and ugliness, found numerous manifestations in late medieval literature and art. Ugliness was a typical attribute of evil personages in drama, whilst comeliness was identified with piety and virtue.19 The same ideas were reflected in various chronicles, for example, in Philippe de Vigneulles’ work. Vigneulles paid a lot of attention to a person’s outward appearance and expressed his deep astonishment in those cases where an individual’s physical attributes seemed to be in clear contradiction to his or her actions, for example, when a very pleasant-looking person had committed some heinous crime.20 General beliefs and notions concerning bodily signs also found their manifestation in the language of iconography. In pictorial material good and pious persons are marked with graceful and harmonious features, whilst low and evil individuals are identified by their disagreeable and nasty appearance. It was typical of medieval artists to use physical imperfections and caricatural facial features to designate those individuals and categories considered bad and mean, and which evoked feelings of reprehension, fear or hatred.

16 17 18 19 20

168

One important authority that stressed man’s free will in this matter was Albert the Great (1193–1280). Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [145]. See section 7.1. See also Mellinkoff I 1993, 113-7. Duplat 1980, 79; Koopmans 1997, 112. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 34-5, see also III, 91, 305; IV, 48-9, 97, 155-6, 537.

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

Numerous negative attributes were accumulated in the depictions of the hangman’s physical appearance in works of art. Next I will examine in detail the most essential categories of negative labels related to the executioner’s facial features and discuss their possible meanings and connotations in late medieval culture. I will investigate these central categories in the following order: 1) repulsive general features; 2) ugly skin; 3) imperfect eyes; and 4) an unpleasant mouth. Medieval artists frequently portrayed hangmen’s general facial features – shape of face, cheeks, nose, jaw – as too sharp and angular or, on the contrary, very swollen and weak. A fine example is provided by the Horae ad usum romanum, a book of hours dedicated to Louis de Laval, the illuminators of which have systematically marked the executioners of saints with long, hooked noses.21 In the Bréviaire de Charles V, illuminated in 1364–1370 by Jean Le Noir, a fairly short and wide nose repeatedly appears as the attribute of an executioner.22 In the Petites Heures, also made by Le Noir,23 for Duke John of Berry c. 1372–1390 and today in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, we encounter a picture, where both categories of signs appear in one and the same picture. The miniature depicts the flagellation of Christ: the executioner on the left-hand side has a short, wide face and a small, broad nose, whereas the one on the right-hand side has a hooked nose and long sharp jaw.24 Various imperfections of the skin also were a regular means of emphasising the repulsiveness of a hangman’s face. Deep lines and wrinkles on the forehead, round the eyes, and at the corners of the mouth are usual in pictorial material and appear, for example, in Le Parement de Narbonne, an altar-frontal for the Lenten period, originating from the cathedral of Narbonne in Southern France.25 This work depicts the passion and resurrection of Christ.26 Some artists systematically depicted the hangman’s skin as being quite darkish as we can observe in numerous miniatures 21 BN ms. lat. 920, passim. Louis de Laval was seigneur of Châtillon and governor of Dauphiné en 1477, then of Genova and of Champaigne. He was one of the first knights in the order of Saint Michel created by Louis XI. The illumination of this exceptionally fine manuscript began in 1470–1475. The anonymous artist belonged to the circle of Fouquet. Miniatures were completed c. 1485–1489 in the atelier of Jean Colombe in Paris. Avril & Raynaud 1993, 328-32. We can spot executioners with sharp facial features in numerous miniatures in late medieval devotional literature (See, for example, BN ms. lat. 18026, fols 121r, 135r.) as well as in religious art. Executioners have hooked noses in a choir hanging depicting the legend of Saint Stephen, in a scene in the lefthand side where the saint is accompanied to the place of execution. Cercle du peintre Colyn de Coter (patrons), Scènes de la légende de Saint Étienne: 4. Saint Étienne mené au lieu du supplice: son martyre. Choir hanging. Brussels, c. 1500. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 22 Bréviaire de Charles V. BN ms. lat. 1052, fols 285v, 369r B, 484v and passim. See also BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 122r; BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 268r. An altarpiece on Christ’s passion provides a fine example of short and wide noses on executioners in religious art. Scènes de la Passion. Altarpiece, Ile-de-France. C. 1350–1360. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 23 The manuscript was illuminated in several stages by Jean Le Noir and other miniaturists: Jacquemart de Hesdin, Pseudo-Jacquemart, another anonymous artist and the Limbourgs (1 miniature). See Walther & Wolf 2005, 225. 24 BN ms. lat. 18104, fol. 83v. For a long sharp jaw of the executioner, see also Christ with the two thieves. Northern Netherlands, c. 1525. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. For typical grotesque features on Christ’s executioners in sculpture, see for example, Christ carrying the cross. Walnut, painted and gilded. South Netherlandish, v. 1490. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. 25 This altar ornament (black ink on silk) was commanded by Charles V. Emile Mâle has suggested that the work was made by Jean d’Orléans, a royal painter. Mâle 1995, 12. 26 Le Parement de Narbonne. C. 1375. Musée du Louvre, Paris. See also Petites Heures. BN ms. lat. 18014, fol. 82r. On the darkish skin of the executioner in Italian artists’ works, see for example Mantegna, St Sebastian. C. 1480. Musée du Louvre, Paris; Saints Sebastian and Catherine. 1480–1490. Palazzo Barberini, Rome; Cozzarelli, Episodi della vita di S. Barbara. Musei Vaticani, Rome.

169

CHAPTER 5

in La vie de Saint Denis.27 A good example is also provided by Le Retable du Parlement de Paris, ordered in 1452 to be hung in the Grand Chambre of the Paris Parliament. The anonymous painter has depicted the crucified Christ in the company of Saint Louis and John the Baptist (on the left-hand side) and Saint Denis and Charlemagne (on the right-hand side). Above the right shoulder of Saint Denis, we can see his executioner with a group of assistants. The outfit is typical: a red hat, short dark grey jacket, bright red hose open at back, and long-legged dark brown boots. He is holding a blood-stained sword. The master hangman and his aides are also identified by the darkish colour of their skin, together with repulsive facial features.28 Besides wrinkles and darkish skin we often meet various skin diseases on hangmen, such as pimples and boils. In a stained glass window representing the flagellation of Christ, once in the church of Saint-Fargeau in Yonne, the two executioners both have big ugly spots on their faces.29 In the Judgment of Cambyses by Gerard David one can also see ugly spots on hangmen’s faces.30 Of course, this kind of small details could best be exploited in works of a larges scale and not in miniatures. The essential factor that makes the ugliness of numerous hangmen’s face so particularly striking in medieval pictorial material is the arresting beauty of the good and the pious: their facial features are balanced and pleasing, their skin is white and perfect. This opposition of the physical appearance between hangmen and their victims creates a strong impression of contrast. The beauty of one category efficiently underlines the ugliness of the other. However, this strategy was not employed by every artist. Some preferred to express their views, rather, through habit related signs. One may get some enlightenment about representations and depictions of the physical repulsiveness of executioners if one explores the larger context of iconographical language as well as the various meanings given to bodily features in late medieval literature. Particularly useful literary sources are physiognomic treatises, for example, De phizonomie des bergiers (a chapter in Le compost et Kalendrier des bergier). Many of the hangman’s typical facial features will be revealed to a modern reader in quite a novel fashion. The anonymous writer explains that a long hooked nose, for example, which is a typical attribute of hangmen in works of art, ‘segnefie 27 La vie de St Denis. 1317. Miniatures made in an atelier active in Paris c. 1315–1320. BN ms. fr. 2092, passim. The executioners’ darkish skins are in a clear contrast with pale faces and white skins of their saintly victims as well as of the Roman prefect. 28 Le Retable du Parlement de Paris. Paris, C. 1455. Musée du Louvre, Paris. See also Retable de la Passion. Antwerp, beginning of the sixteenth century. Musée de Cluny, Paris. On the darkish skin of executioners in miniature material, see Hesdin, Le Portement de croix. Miniature, probably from the Grandes Heures du duc de Berry (1409). Musée du Louvre, Paris. However, some counter-examples exist, see for example, Mount Calvary. C. 1500. Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. In this painting Christ’s skin is reddish (as a reference to his severe torture), whilst the skin of his executioners is fair (normal). 29 Flagellation. Beginning of the fourteenth century. Stained glass window, Church of Saint-Fargeau, Yonne. Musée d’art et histoire, Geneva. Picture published in Maalaustaiteen historia 1971, 28. Gallego’s painting offers a good example of executioners’ boils in Spanish art. Gallego, Flagellation, c. 1506, Museo Diocesano, Salamanc. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 459. See also Flandes, Christ Carrying the Cross. C. 1510. Cathedral of Palencia. Picture published in Zuffi (ed.) 2000, 211, and Flandes, Decapitation of St John the Baptist. 1496–1499. Picture published in Patoul & Van Schoute (dir.) 1998, 576. In the latter painting the executioner has a very wrinkled face and other skin defects (pimples). Juan de Flandes was of Flemish origin but worked in Castille, Spain. Marolo 1998, 573-83. 30 David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges.

170

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

malice, decepvance, desloyaulté et luxure’,31 or signifies maliciousness, deceit, disloyalty and lust. In addition, after a wide and careful examination of iconographical material, it eventually becomes evident that rugged features – hooked noses and sharp jaws – are shared by several categories of people considered as being evil, aggressive and cruel, not only executioners serving the Bad Justice but also murderers, rebels and bad soldiers, as well as infidels and particularly Jews. Swollen facial features – another attribute typical of the executioner in medieval iconography – also referred to many serious defects, according to the science of physiognomy: ‘Visaige gras et plain de char rude segnefie gloutonnie, poy sogneux, negligent, rudesse de sens et d’engin’.32 (A fat and swollen face signifies gluttony, negligence, and a lack of reason.) The same anonymous writer also says that a wide nose is a sign of a hasty and lecherous person,33 and that thick lips, grosses levres, reveal a serious intellectual deviancy: ‘cest signe de grant rudesse et deffaulte de sens’ (it is a sign of great harshness and defective reason).34 As to the lines and wrinkles that mark the face of executioners in pictorial material, these, too, are signs of bad moral character and sin. Some persons linked these especially to the vice of excessive drinking.35 It is natural that wrinkles were associated with ageing. In the Middle Ages the decrepitude of old age (especially in the case of women) was lamented and mocked, because the process of aging and old age were connected with sin and the Fall. In Eden men had possessed a perfect body, which did not grow old.36 This popular view explains why God, saints, and the king of France are often depicted without any wrinkles in medieval iconography. As Christiane Raynaud has observed, artists preferred to portray the dignity of old age with white hair (and a white beard) instead of wrinkles.37 At the same time wrinkles and deep lines are common, not only to hangmen, but also to demons, infidels, murderers, and rebels.38 It should be noted, too, that wrinkles and lines were linked not only to old age, but also to excessive facial expressions, the theme of which will be discussed later in this section.39 Ruth Mellinkoff has suggested that the darkish skin colour typical of executioners was a feature that referred to a practice in actual reality. She presumes that it was usual to force persons with a darkish skin (or black) to occupy the hangman’s office.40 One should not, however, jump to any hasty conclusions in this 31 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [148]. In medieval popular imagination, an over-sized masculine nose was often associated with lust, virility and potency. Bahtin 2002, 281, 32 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [148]. 33 ‘Le nes camus segnefie hastivete, luxure, hardement et estre entrepreneur.’ Ibid., [148]. 34 Very thin lips were assumed to be characteristic of a lecherous and dishonest person: ‘Les levres tenues segnefient lescherie et mensonges.’ Ibid., [148]. 35 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [29]. 36 On attitudes towards old age in the Middle Ages, see Minois 1989; Shahar 1994. 37 Raynaud 1990, 153. 38 Ibid., 164. One finds infidels with lined foreheads, for example, in the manuscript of Titus Livius from the fifteenth century. BN ms. fr. 20313, fol. 154v. 39 In iconography, hangmen appear often aged not only because of their old (wrinkled) skins but also because of their balding heads. In general, executioners were depicted as adults. However, one exception is provided by David’s painting, where one can find a hangman’s apprentice who is a young boy. David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. In everyday life it was customary that a son to an official executioner learned the profession by assisting his father. 40 Ruth Mellinkoff writes ‘By the twelfth century the black appears cast in the role of executioner in the visual arts […] Here, art indeed reflects life: blacks were sometimes forced to be executioners. Some of the physical

171

CHAPTER 5

matter. It is possible that in Italy and in Southern Europe the authorities sometimes recruited black (or very dark-skinned) people to occupy the hangman’s office,41 but in France and on the northern side of the Alps, this was not a usual habit. At least it is not mentioned in any written sources I have encountered. Furthermore, portrayals of black executioners only appear in religious pictures,42 where skin colour had a special symbolic importance. In my view a dark or black skin was first and foremost an iconographical code that referred to a special blackness of the soul rather than a reflection of everyday reality, especially in the context of French, Flemish or Northern European artists’ works. One may think that dark skin was a feature that suited especially well in depictions of evil individuals, because it was so clearly deviant from ordinary skin colour. It must be noticed that the principal incarnations of evil – demons – are very often depicted with dark skin (or with a body covered with dark hair).43 Alternatively, the fact that a hangman’s skin is sometimes reddish rather than dark, gives us good reason to think that this feature was also meant to be understood as a reference to an evil and vicious life style and particularly to excessive drinking.44 It is a commonly known fact that heavy drinkers often identify themselves through their ruddy faces. As Herman Pleij has observed, in the Middle Ages a white complexion was an important distinguishing feature of the upper classes. A tanned or sunburned face was considered ugly; it was a direct reference to the beastly state of man, his earthbound nature, and his evident inability to free himself from it. A suntanned face was an advertisement of these undesirable ties to nature, the outdoor life, and the necessity of physical labour. A brown face with freckles was considered particularly ugly. Only one type of person was exempt from the aversion to a suntanned face: the valiant war hero.45 Lastly, one should examine the meanings of spots and pimples, which disfigured the hangman’s face or covered his members. Pimples were generally considered very serious defects in late medieval culture. Infected pustules and eruptions pointed to sickness and sin. In literature and in art, spots and boils were connected with evil figures and marginality. The texts of Erasmus (1466–1536), for example, can be very illuminating and helpful in an examination of this particular theme. This

41 42

43 44 45

172

features associated with blacks, such as dark skin, a flat, broad nose, large and widely spaced nostrils, thick lips, and frizzy or tightly curled hair, were adopted and stereotyped for use in the visual arts as depreciation. Sometimes these features were combined, but not always’. Mellinkoff I 1993, 127. On attitudes toward the black in the Middle Ages, see Devisse & Mollat 1979. Samuel Y. Edgerton, too, suggests that in Italy exotic looking individuals representing dark skinned races, such as Neapolitans, Sicilians, and possibly Africans, usually occupied the hangman’s function. Edgerton proposes that this made the hangman’s presence in the scaffold still more devilish. Edgerton 1985, 134. One encounters a black executioner, for example, in a miniature depicting the martyrdom of Saint Mark in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms.65, fol. 19v. Musée Condé, Chantilly. See also Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry. C. 1380–1412. BN ms. n.a. lat., p. 197. A fine example from Italian art is Bazzi, Il martirio di S. Sebastiano. Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris. See for example Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 123r B and passim. This manuscript was made by an anonymous Breton artist on orders of Jehan de Rohan-Montauban and his wife Anne de Kérenrais. Montauban was named admiral of France in 1461 by Louis XI. Avril & Raynaud 1993, 175-7. On this topic, see section 7.2. On the use of make-up, see Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q155-170, 343. Pleij suggests that an augmenting appreciation of nature, connected with a renewed interest in health, caused attitudes to alter in modern times. A suntan began to signal physical well-being and wealth. Today, a sun tan is going out of fashion as a bodily colour. Pleij 2004, 54-5.

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

famous Dutch humanist associated, in his writings, spots and skin diseases with the two marginal categories he loathed especially strongly: mercenaries and beggars. Erasmus, like many of his contemporaries, detested mercenaries and above all the Swiss and German Landsknechte. For him a mercenary was the lowest of human beings, even ‘worse than a hangman’.46 Erasmus never missed an opportunity to satirise mercenaries or to attack their wickedness. His soldiers are debauched, reckless, rapacious adventurers. A prototype is Thrasymachus in the Militaria (1522).47 In Erasmus’ Militis et Cartusiani (1523) the mercenary’s infected skin is a symptom of syphilis, or the ‘Spanish disease’ (scab[p]ies Hispanica),48 a painful malady that spread throughout Europe at the end of the Middle Ages.49 Known variously as the ‘French’, ‘Neapolitan’, or ‘Spanish’ pox, it was the subject of many writings by laymen as well as learned men. Erasmus loathed syphilis and often lamented its ravages. He claimed that no malady is more contagious, more terrible in the sufferings it causes, or more difficult to cure – or more fashionable. He saw very clearly the social dangers linked to this spreading disease.50 Besides syphilis, spots and sores could naturally be connected with other feared maladies in the medieval imagery, and especially with the terrible bubonic plague, the symptoms of which were well known: purulent and festering boils. From the mid-fourteenth century onwards this murderous disease regularly returned to sow death and horror in different corners of Europe. Many thought that bubonic plague was a divine punishment for mankind’s depravity.51 Infected sores became symbols of painful death and punishment in late medieval culture – the very same unpleasant ideas that the executioner represented. In another dialogue of Erasmus, the Beggar Talk (1524), ugly eruptions are connected with beggars and their tricks. A beggar called Irides meets his old comrade Misoponus, who has wonderfully changed in a few weeks time: his clothes are new, his skin is smooth. Iridus observes: ‘Nam apud nos eras totus vlcerosus.’ (In our company you were covered all over with sores). Misoponus explains that all that had been only decoration achieved with paints, blood and other substances but that he does not need those tricks any more, since he has found a more comfortable source of income in the profession of alchemy.52 Erasmus, like other social critics in the later Middle Ages, was very worried about the problem of begging.53 Some beggars belonged to religious orders but the majority were rogues, vagabonds, or homeless and diseased wretches. By the end of the Middle Ages social and economic changes had produced more pauperism than 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53

A Fish Diet in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 534. Erasmus, Colloqvia, 154-8. Ibid., 314-9. Recent archaeological studies have shown that syphilis occurred in Europe as early as in the fourteenth century, for example, in the area of Hull in Great Britain 1340–1360. Researchers have also found evidence of syphilis amongst Greek colonies in Southern Italy around 600 BC. Vainajien salaisuudet. Kupan arvoitus. Uusinta. TV1. 19.7.2003. See Adolescentis et scorti (1523) and Sive Coniugium impar (1529) in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 341, 591-600. See also Huizinga 1953, 139; Craig R. Thompson’s observations in The Colloquies of Erasmus 1965, 401. On bubonic plague, see for example Ziegler 1969. ‘Totum illum ornatum ipse pigmentis affixeram, ture, sulphure, resina, visco, linteis, cruore. Vbi visum est, quod affixeram, detraxi.’ Beggar Talk, (1524) in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 434. Erasmus also comments on it in the Convivium religiosum (1522) and in the Franciscani (1524). Ibid., 221-2, 389402.

173

CHAPTER 5

the old ecclesiastical systems of poor relief could cope with. Thoughtful men recognised the situation as a serious social danger.54 They had not much compassion for beggars and especially not for those who faked being lame or sick to evoke pity and to obtain more money. As the medieval mind commonly connected pimples and pustules with ideas of a dissolute life and depravity, marginality, danger and death,55 it is understandable that they were well suited to the hangman’s visual depiction, too. In addition to executioners, skin diseases have often been depicted on other despised and evil individuals in the art of the late Middle Ages.56 As to scars and fresh wounds that sometimes appear on executioners57, these had similar connotations. More serious bodily wounds such as missing fingers, ears or feet are not typical of executioners. Generally, these were associated with beggars in iconography.58 In everyday life some official hangmen bore physical marks of their criminal past (scars, mutilated ears). But two healthy hands and feet were indispensable for a hangman; otherwise he could not properly carry on his duties.59 The eyes and mouth, central facial elements, had specific weight in signalling negative messages about hangmen in works of art. In the Middle Ages eyes were considered a very significant element in any efforts to figure out and interpret an individual’s inner qualities on the basis of his or her outward appearance. It seems that eyes have been regarded at all times and in all cultures as a particularly telling feature. Medieval people thought that amongst the various facial signs, signes du visaige, the eyes were ‘the most truthful and most revealing’ (les plus vrays et les plus prouvables).60 Consequently, it is not surprising that in the pictorial arts the hangman’s physical appearance is occasionally ruined by defective, misshapen or sick eyes. In the Bréviaire de Belleville, the miniatures of which are sometimes attributed to Jean Pucelle, the executioner of Saint Bartholomew has inflamed eyes,61 whereas in the Heures de Louis de Laval one meets a hangman with a squint.62 Fine examples are also Hieronymus Bosch’s Carrying of the Cross,63 where Christ’s executioner has over54 On begging and poverty in the late Middle Ages, see Geremek 1974; Geremek 1989, Mollat 1986. 55 Municipal authorities also paid attention to skin diseases: in Rennes in 1450 bakers with infected boils on their hands were prohibited from making dough. Leguay 1999, 56. 56 On skin diseases in Northern European art of the late Middle Ages, see Mellinkoff I 1993, 164-5, 166-70. 57 See for example Cranach the Elder, The Martyrdom of St Catherine. C. 1508. Ráday Collection of the Reformed Church, Budapest. Picture published in Hagen & Hagen 2003, p. 112; Provoost, Cruxifixion. Early 16th c. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. 58 See for example Master of Alkmaar, The Seven Works of Mercy. 1504. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (On loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.), Rotterdam. This seven-panelled painting is an illustration of Mt 25.31-46. It has been suggested that the painting was made for the Holy Ghost Hospital in Alkmaar. See Os, Kok, Luijten & Scholten 2000, 82-3. See also Lieferinxe, Pilgrims at the Tomb of Saint Sebastian. C. 1497. Palazzo Barberini, Rome. Josse Lieferinxe was born in Hainaut and was active in Marseilles and Aix-en-Provence 1493– 1508. This painting was commissioned in 1497 for the church of Notre Dame des Accoules in Marseille. 59 Master Collinet, the hangman of Metz (1483) could not continue in his office once his hand was chopped off (He had stabbed a man and could not paid the fine). See Gonthier 1998, 143. 60 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [150]. See also Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [8]. ‘The seat of the soul is in the eyes’ (Animi sede esse in oculis). 61 BN ms. lat. 10484, fol. 301v. 62 BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 333v. 63 Bosch, Carrying of the Cross. C. 1510–1516. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent.

174

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

sized inflamed eyes, and Quentin Metsys’ Ecce Homo, where we meet an executioner with red eyes.64 Ruth Mellinkoff considers defective eyes a very important stigma in the visual interpretations of various marginal groups of late medieval society in Northern European art.65 It should be noted, however, that in miniature material, eyes are such a small detail that they could not and cannot be considered the most important negative sign in the picture. It was evidently impossible for artists to depict defective eyes in a clearly visible manner in small pictures. In paintings, tapestries and other works of a larger size this element might have had much more importance. What was, then, the specific message of defective eyes for late medieval people? In physiognomic treatises, each category of imperfect eyes (deformed, infected, etc.) has a specific warning to tell. The anonymous writer of Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers says that the best eyes are neither too big nor too small, and they are also healthy and bright. He asserts that ‘a person who has very big eyes is very lazy, shameful, disobedient and thinks he knows more than he really does.’ (Personne qui a les yeulx fort grans est bien paresceux, poy honteux, inobediant et cuide plus scavoir quil ne scet). In addition, readers are informed that when a bigeyed person has heavy eyelids, this is a sign of ‘madness, stupidity, and bad character’ (folie, dur engin et maulvaise nature).66 It is interesting to observe that in the Middle Ages big round eyes, which a person living in our modern world would find very attractive, were not valued at all. In medieval art big round eyes were reserved for beasts, stupid or evil persons, monsters and demons.67 Perhaps this dislike and close link with the idea of a lack of wit had something to do with the fact that big eyes are, of course, a feature characteristic of young children. Accordingly, people in the past would have reasoned that an adult with big eyes must have a defective intelligence.68 Besides large eyes, blood-shot, infected or red-rimmed eyes were also considered a serious fault in late medieval culture. In the science of physiognomy, red eyes were connected with cruelty, treachery, and evil.69 Thus, it is understandable that besides executioners, one meets red-eyed demons and monsters in pictorial material.70 As to the squint-eyed, it is not surprising that this feature was considered 64 Metsys, Ecce Homo. 1526. Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Picture published in Zuffi (ed.) 2000, 302. On the bulging eyes of the executioner, see Metsys, Mocking of Christ. C. 1510. Prado, Madrid. Picture published in Ragghianti (ed.) 1969, 128. 65 Mellinkoff I 1993, 123-4. 66 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147]. 67 On the big round eyes of demons, see BN ms. fr. 6448, fols IX xx VIIIv, XIIxx VIv, XIIIIxx XIr. This feature was typical for demons already in thirteenth-century art, see for example Psautier de Saint Louis. BN Arsénal ms. 1186, fols 9v, 20r B, 168r, 171v. 68 Large eyes had been considered ugly even in antiquity. According to Polemon Laodicensis (d. c. 144 A.D.), big bulging eyes referred to insanity, greed, lechery, and excessive drinking. Mellinkoff I 1993, 123. 69 Writer of Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers links sick eyes with evil, vindictiveness and treachery: ‘Personne qui a les yeulx escailles, gastes et estanduz segnefie malice, vengence ou traison.’ Red eyes were also a very negative attribute: ‘Ceulx qui ont yeulx petis, rousseles et agus segnefient personne melencolieuse, hardie, mesdisant et cruelle’. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147, 148]. 70 See for example Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fols 105r marg., 202r. In Dante’s Hell Cerberus has red eyes. Dante, La Divina Commedia, 47. Besides red eyes, round yellow eyes are very typical of demons and monsters (dragons, etc.) in late medieval pictorial material. See for example BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 123r B; BN ms. lat 920, fols 196r A, 245v, 264r. In physiognomy dots around the iris were said to be indicative of

175

CHAPTER 5

very stigmatic. This particular deviation was commonly associated with meanness or moral corruption.71 Erasmus had perhaps more understanding for defective eyes than many of his contemporaries, for he stressed that one should not mock people with one eye or with squinting eyes (or with any other natural physical defect): this is not only cruel but also stupid.72 Erasmus had, however, no compassion for such defects of the eyes connected with excessive drinking.73 One can notice that Erasmus considered particularly the expression of the eyes as being very important. He has discussed this topic in detail at the beginning of his De civilitate morum puerilium (1530), a book on the education of young boys dedicated to Henry of Burgundy. The best look is gentle and tranquil, not restless, nor fixing, Erasmus explains. One should not open the eyes too much, for this is typical of stupid persons.74 Half-open eyes referred to modesty in old paintings, Erasmus observes, and adds that this gesture still points to friendliness in some places, for example, in Spain.75 In his text Erasmus also draws attention to the eyebrows and writes that one should not wrinkle or lower them, for wrinkling signifies cruelty and lowering indicates bad intentions.76 We are dealing here with expressions that were common indicators of cruelty and aggressiveness in late medieval iconography, too. In pictorial material we meet these attributes in hangmen as well as in murderers, bad soldiers and demons. In the Bréviaire de Charles V and in the Bréviaire de Belleville we constantly encounter wrinkled eyebrows in the depictions of executioners of Christian martyrs.77 It should be noted, however, that lowered eyebrows could also sometimes appear on positive figures and point to worry or concern, instead of malevolence and offensiveness. Naturally, in such cases this ambiguous expression is surrounded by several non-disparaging, elucidative extra-motifs. 78 The mouth – its form – was also considered a telling facial element in medieval culture. As already mentioned, it was commonly thought that the best mouth was middle-sized: the lips should not be too thin, but particularly not too thick, for a too full mouth, which often appears in pictures of the hangman, was found to be a very grave flaw.

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

176

wickedness. If such eyes were also brown with the irises ringed with yellow, the person in question was certainly a murderer. Blue eyes were not particularly valued in the Middle Ages. Herman Pleij suggests that this aversion probably harked back to classical antiquity, when blue eyes were a reminder of the barbarians from the north. This explains why some persons considered blue-eyed men effeminate or even insane, and women with blue eyes wanton. Green eyes, on the other hand, were often thought to be wicked, in particular when combined with yellow hair. Pleij 2004, 50, 79-80. In ancient Roman comedies squint eyes were a typical feature of slaves. Mellinkoff I 1993, 124. Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [98]. Ibid., [63]. ‘Non immodice diducti, quod est stolidorum’. Ibid., [7-8]. ‘Picture quidem veteres nobis loqvuntur, olim modestie suisse, semiclusis oculis obtueri quemadmodum apud Hispanos quosdam semipetis intueri bsandum haberi videtur & amicum.’ Ibid., [8-9]. On various looks or expressions of eyes, see also Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147-8]. ‘… non adducta, quod est torvitatis… non in oculos dprella [sic], quod est male cognitatium.’ Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [13-14]. BN ms. lat. 1052, fols 495v, 374r, 369r B, 386r B, 428r, 458r; BN ms. lat. 10484, fols 242r A, 282r, 364r. See also BN ms. fr. 20352, fol. 274v; and BN ms. lat. 18104, fol. 211r. On wrinkled eyebrows in other pictorial sources, see for example Le Parement de Narbonne. C. 1375. Musée du Louvre, Paris. On the diverse meanings of lowered eyebrows, see Raynaud 1990, 164.

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

A mouth’s various expressions were understood as significant signs. Open, distorted and smiling mouths are typical attributes of the executioner in visual material.79 In the Heures de Louis de Laval one finds a squint-eyed executioner with a gaping mouth pushing his victim into an oven.80 Whilst miniatures in the books of hours were aimed at noble and wealthy persons, ordinary people could contemplate the meaning of a hangman’s open mouth in the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Troyes. In a stained-glass window representing Christ carrying the cross (1500) churchgoers could see an executioner with an open, twisted mouth. The corners of his lips are turned down and his teeth are clearly visible.81 In the Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist painted by Quentin Metsys, one meets an executioner who makes a wide grimace and puts his tongue out at the same time.82 It was characteristic of this Flemish painter to use distorted facial expressions as an attribute of evil individuals.83 When studying medieval conduct books, one discovers that all the expressions of mouth mentioned above were traditionally found quite unsuitable for any decent person.84 At the beginning of the sixteenth century Erasmus explained in De civilitate morum puerilium that in old paintings tightly closed lips were a sign of decency.85 As Norbert Elias has observed, Erasmus’ work is a starting point for a new era in the history of manners; in his thinking and writing, good behaviour and the right kind of gestures and expressions are defined as ‘civilised’, rather than ‘courteous’ or ‘virtuous’, i.e. particularly suitable for people at court or in a monastery. Erasmus does not see his precepts as intended for a particular class of society.86 What is essential here is that most of Erasmus’ advice and arguments are very traditional.87 He carefully explains how one should arrange his or her mouth and lips: lips should not be pressed tightly but kept together gently. A mouth that hangs open is typical of fools, he writes.88 Erasmus also comments on smiling and says that one should express joy without spoiling the decent and virtuous form or expression of the mouth.89 This means that if one should smile, one should smile 79 In the Bréviaire de Charles V one of the executioners of Saints Cyriacus, Largus and Smaragdus smiles cruelly, with wrinkled eyebrows. BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 447r B. 80 BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 333v. For distorted mouths, see also BN ms. lat. 1052, fols 454v, 285v. 81 Portement de croix. Stained glass window, Church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Troyes. 1500. Picture published in Pastoureau 1995, 23. See also Retable de la Passion. Antwerp, beginning of the sixteenth century. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 82 Metsys, Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. 1508–1511. Right wing of the Altarpiece of the Ebenist’s Guild. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. See also Metsys, Moneylenders. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. 83 See, for example, Metsys, Mocking of Christ. C. 1510. Prado, Madrid. Picture published in Ragghianti (ed.) 1969, 128; Metsys, Ecce Homo. 1526. Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Picture published in Zuffi (ed.) 2000, 302. 84 Schmitt 1990, 182, 185. 85 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [9]. ‘Itidem ex picturis discimus olim contractis strictisque labijs esse, probitatis suisse argumentum.’ 86 Elias I 1983, 53-4. The work of Erasmus comes at the time of social regrouping, Elias writes. ‘It is the expression of the fruitful transitional period after the loosening of medieval social hierarchy and before the stablizing of the modern one. It belongs to the phase in which the old, feudal knight’s nobility was still in decline, while the new aristocracy of the absolutist courts was still on the process of formation’. Elias I 1983, 73. 87 Ibid., 70. 88 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [22]. ‘Os nec prematur, quod est metuentis alterius halitum haurire: nec hiet, quoe est morionum: sed leviter osculantibus se mutuolabris, conjuctum sit.’ 89 Ibid., [24-5]. ‘Sic autem vultus hilarirate exprimat, ut nec oris habitum de honestet, nec animum dissolutum arguat.’

177

CHAPTER 5

very mildly. As for laughing, Erasmus advises one to avoid it, for laughing often and laughing too much indicates madness and stupidity.90 He adds that laughter makes a person ugly and bestial – similar to dogs, which often show their teeth.91 We also encounter similar advice and opinions relating to the mouth in other conduct books as well as in diverse literary sources.92 In pictorial sources we can find the visual expression of these notions and ideals. An open and twisted mouth, for example, was a frequently used reference to social inferiority and psychic deviation, to evil, anger and desperation, in late medieval art: in addition to the hangman it is characteristic of madmen, suicides, fools, beggars, murderers, monsters and demons.93 A wide smile and laughter is also an ordinary feature of hangmen in visual material, especially in religious art – it was a sign of mental disorders and lack of virtue typical of various despised and negative figures. The good and the pious usually look calm or serious and if they smile, they do it very succinctly, lips together. These serious faces do not always appear attractive to modern people. In our contemporary culture, a wide smile with exposed teeth is generally interpreted as a very positive sign and associated with such ideas as vitality, success, good health, joy and happiness. The difference is important compared with medieval culture where a wide smile, which referred to laughter, could be connected with many negative and unpleasant ideas. Jean Verdon, who has examined medieval laughter, notes that it is quite difficult to discuss the categories of smile and laughter separately, for their boundary was not clear-cut in the Middle Ages. One manifestation of this closeness is found in language: in Old French, the words rire (laughter) and sourire (smile) were synonymous. As Verdon explains, smile / laughter was a very ambivalent sign: on the one hand, there was bad laughter and, on the other, good laughter. People in the past could find definitions for these categories, for example, in the Bible: there one could read about evil laughter evoked by the sufferings of the righteous but also of the laughter of the blessed in Paradise. Medieval people found laughing a negative and bestial feature, because it made a person utter meaningless sounds. According to common belief, Christ, the model for all Christians, had never laughed. Many saintly persons also carefully controlled their laughter.94 It has been suggested that in the early medieval period 90 Ibid., [24]. ‘Omnibus dictis aut factis arridere, stultorum est: nullis arridere, stupidorum.’ 91 Ibid., [24]. ‘Indecorus & ille, qui oris rictum late diducit, corrugatis buccis, ac nudatis dentibus; qui caninus est & sardonius dicitur.’ 92 Jean de Meun’s (1240–1305) wrote that a woman should always smile or laugh with closed lips: ‘Ja ses levres par ris ne s’euvrent, / Mais repoignent les denz e cueuvrent. / Fame deit rire a bouche close, / Car ce n’est mie bele chose / Quant el rit a gueule estendue: / Trop semble estre large e fendue. / E s’el n’a denz bien ordenees, / Mais laides e senz ordre nees, / S’el les montrait par sa risee / Meins en pourrait estre prisee’. Lorris & Meun, La Roman de la Rose, IV, 17. 93 In the Heures de Louis de Laval an open mouth is depicted as an attribute of a suicide, too. BN ms. lat. 920, fol.174r. On distorted mouths and grimaces of grotesque marginal figures and fools, see Grandes Heures du duc de Berry. BN ms. lat. 919, fols 114r marg., 38r marg.; on demons see Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fols 9r marg., 126r B, 202r. Sometimes an open mouth is, nonetheless, an attribute of a saintly figure and refers to suffering. See, for example, Heures de Louis de Laval. BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 280v; Van der Weyden, The lamentation of Christ. C. 1450. Mauritshuis, the Haag. See also Garnier 1982, 135-6; Raynaud 1990, 164. 94 Saint Sulpicius assured that Saint Martin had never laughed during his life. Guillaume de Saint-Pathus wrote of Saint Louis that he tried to avoid laughing, especially on Fridays. ‘Le saint roi s’abstenait de rire autant qu’il le

178

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

many ecclesiastics were especially hostile towards laughter. At the end of the Middle Ages more positive attitudes gained ground.95 In his study Jean Verdon does not discuss the language of medieval iconography relating to laughter but focuses on the literary evidence. It is evident, however, that in pictorial arts a mild smile was a reference to ‘good smile or laughter’ in connection with pious figures, and that all other smiles and wide laughing mouths pointed to ‘bad smile or laughter’. These signs were quite systematically connected with such ideas as stupidity, madness, cruelty and sadistic satisfaction. When a person speaks or laughs or opens his or her mouth for any reason, the teeth are easily exposed if one is not careful. In the Middle Ages numerous persons thought that this sight was unpleasant. It was perceived as remarkably unattractive if the person’s teeth were imperfect or spoiled (too big, malformed, rotten, missing, etc.) – which they often were at a time when dental care was not yet as advanced as in our modern times.96 Even if it was commonly thought that one should not expose his or her teeth to another person’s view, people in the past fully appreciated beautiful teeth, i.e. teeth that were white, medium-sized, regular and tight. As Christiane Raynaud has observed, the exposure of teeth was a privilege of negative individuals in medieval art:97 besides numerous hangmen, it was habitual of Jews, murderers, traitors, and demons.98 This feature is also very typical of beasts: one frequently encounters, for example, dogs and horses with gaping mouths and uncovered teeth.99 The exposure of teeth was quite well suited to negative individuals, for it strongly bestialised them.100 Esther Cohen has studied meanings of pain and ways to depict this experience, and writes that facial contortions relating to the sensation of pain were reserved, in art, rather to negative figures (such as the damned in Hell) than to those deserving admiration and sympathy. Cohen also observes that in visual depictions of pain gestures, there was no difference between men and women. A rare exception is the bared teeth; this feature belonged mostly to men.101

95 96 97 98

99 100 101

pouvait le vendredi et si quelquefois il se mettait à rire sans y avoir pris garde, il s’arrêtait aussitôt.’ Verdon 2001, 10, 15-29, 60, 73. Ibid., 10, 15-29, 60, 73. On medieval laughter, see also Adolf 1947. For the various maladies of the teeth and their causes (for example, corruption of bodily fluids), see Le livre des propriétés des choses, 130. Raynaud 1990, 59. On the exposure of teeth of negative figures, see the depiction of infidels in BN ms. fr. 20313, fol. 154v, and the deceitful judge who is skinned in Gerard David’s painting. David, Judgment of Cambyses. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. See for example BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 254v; BN ms. fr. 6448, fols IX xx VIIIv, XIIxx VIv, XIIIIxx XIr; BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 105r marg; BN ms. lat. 18026, fols 9r marg., 123r B, 126r B, 202r. In the right hand panel of The Seven Works of Mercy painted by Master of Alkmaar both the flogged malefactor and his executioner have exposed their teeth. Master of Alkmaar, The Seven Works of Mercy. C. 1504. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (On loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.), Rotterdam. For the exposed teeth of pagan sacrificers, see Master of the Legend of St Barbara, Sacrifice to a heathen god. C. 1448. Mauritshuis, the Haag. See horses in Grandes Chroniques de France. BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 399r; hunting dogs in Histoires de Titus Livius BN ms. fr. 20313, fols 195r marg., 217r; and a dragon in Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 225r A. As already mentioned, Erasmus, for example, connected the exposure of teeth with bestiality (dogs) in his conduct book. Cohen 2000 54-5.

179

CHAPTER 5

In religious art, hangmen’s teeth are not only exposed, sometimes they are also ugly – too big or too sharp, sparse, rotten or missing,102 a feature also common to despised individuals, monsters and devils.103 Defective teeth were considered to be very unpleasant and stigmatic in the Middle Ages: this trait was connected with vices and sin, especially with gluttony. Erasmus associated spoiled teeth, dentes rubiginosi, with excessive drinking.104 According to the writer of Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, over-sized (long and big) teeth pointed to a hasty and aggressive character.105 To sum up, various distorted facial expressions and grimaces in the visual depictions of the hangman were meant and understood as serious stigmas. Exaggerated or grotesque expressions were perhaps more typical of in the field of religious art where it imported to stress the idea of the sin (the hangman serving as a metaphor for the man’s depravity). In the later Middle Ages it was commonly thought that wise and virtuous persons always controlled their face. The serenity of the face was understood as a reflection of inner harmony and wisdom. Writers of conduct books, for example, often stressed the importance of controlling the face. One should not make faces when speaking or listening to others but watch without staring, listen without opening the mouth, speak without gesticulating, etc.106 In art and literature, strong facial expressions were connected with various despised individuals. There also existed a category of extremely insulting or vulgar expressions and gestures, which will be examined in detail later in this chapter. Before concluding this section I wish to observe that besides the method of deforming the face (in order to make it ugly) late medieval artists also employed another face-related technique to signal the negative quality of the hangman: hiding the face, either partially or fully. In pictorial sources one encounters hangmen, whose faces cannot be seen because of the dorsal or profile portrayal, as I will explain in section 5.3. In many cases, an uplifted arm covers the executioner’s face. A fine example is the Bréviaire de Charles V, where Jean Le Noir has frequently depicted the hangman’s face partially hidden by a shoulder, arm, or weapon. The executioner of Saint Blasius, for example, has lifted his arm, with a sword in his hand, in front of his face so that one can only see his eyes.107 In a fifteenth-century manuscript of Le Rommans de Titus Livius the executioner of Metteus has hidden his face with his shoulder so that one can only see his left cheek and eye;108 whilst the executioner of Marcus Manlius has lifted his sword up with his two hands so that one cannot see his face at all.109 This motif 102 See Bosch, Crowning with Thorns. Picture published in Linfert s.a., 65; Bosch, Christ Carrying the Cross. C. 1510– 1516. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. On executioners’ missing teeth in Italian artists’ works, see for example Mantegna, Ecce homo. Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris; Solario, Cristo portacroce. C. 1524. Galleria Borgese, Rome. 103 On the sparse teeth of dragons and demons, see for example BN ms. fr. 18026, passim. 104 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [63]. 105 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [148]. 106 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [93-4]. Erasmus also stresses the importance of controlling the face in Monita peadagogica (1522). Erasmus, Colloqvia, 161. One can meet the same instructions in high medieval writings on virtuous gestures. Schmitt 1990, 182, 185. 107 BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 340v. See also fols 374r, 385v, 405v. 108 BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 20r. 109 Ibid., fol. 125v. A good example of the discernment of good and evil figures by using this simple method is provided by the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V: In a battle scene the illuminator has depicted the kings of France and England in full armour face to face: the king of England, who is on the right-hand side (the ‘bad’

180

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

of the hidden face was a traditional means used to indicate negative individuals in iconography. It was already employed in the thirteenth century and became more popular during the following centuries.110 This feature was an efficient technique to increase the alarming quality of a hangman as well as other evil figures. It pointed to deceit, treachery and evil intentions. It served, at the same time, as a warning sign and protection, for it prevented the possible bad influences of evil figures and also feelings of admiration which some misled soul might feel for them.111 Above, I have argued that the repulsiveness of the hangman’s face in late medieval pictorial art was meant and understood as a very serious warning sign and stigma. The emphasis of the message was upon ideas of aggressiveness, defective reason and bad moral character. The hangman’s appearance was the manifestation of the serious deformity of the soul. In the pages of illuminated manuscripts as well as in paintings in churches and courthouses, the executioner’s face signalled to medieval spectators the same warning of wickedness and sin. Artists’ selections differed: some favoured sharp edged features while others considered skin defects as a particularly suitable attribute for a hangman. Certainly, the hangman was not always ugly.112 But this feature is sufficiently typical to be considered as one of his major characteristics. Hangmen shared their ugly facial features in art and literature with numerous other low and evil figures. Physical imperfection was a common method to label inferior, disliked and unpopular categories: marginal people in general, criminals (murderers, traitors) and infidels.113 Most hideous of all were the demons of Hell, those peculiar hybrid creatures with both human and bestial features mixed in a way that revolted the late medieval eye.114 Obviously, it is rather difficult to investigate to what extent the physical imperfection of infamous and inferior categories might have reflected everyday realities, for example, malformations caused by malnutrition, diseases, or by the punishments of mutilation.115 There are no reliable

110 111 112

113 114

115

side), has covered the lower part of his face in a malevolent way, whilst Jean of France’s face is fully visible. BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 399r. Mellinkoff I 1993, 212. The covering of the eyes was often used in depictions of Jews. This feature symbolised their spiritual blindness: they refused to see the light Christ had brought to the world. Ibid., 213. On the powers of images on men in the Middle Ages, see for example Martin 1996, 99. In some panel paintings and illuminated manuscripts the executioner’s facial features are not particularly striking. Sometimes several persons share unpleasant features with him in the one and same picture. Occasionally, the executioner’s features look just as ‘normal’ as everybody else’s (the convict’s, authorities’, spectators’) and negative signs appear elsewhere (in his habit, postures and gestures). See for example, Bouts, Judgment of Emperor Otho: Wrongful Execution of the Count. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels; Boccace, Des cas des nobles homes et femmes. 15th century. BN ms. fr. 127, passim. Jacques Le Goff has also noticed that essential social divisions were often manifested through physical appearance in late medieval culture: noble men and women were beautiful and well built, whilst common people were ugly and malformed. Le Goff 1988a, 355; Le Goff 1988b. Essential and typical traits of medieval demons can be observed, for example, in Bouts, Hell. 1470. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Some scholars consider that Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516), the ‘master of the monstrous’, most effectively succeeded in depicting the horrors of Hell in his works. Delumeau 1978, 234; Binski 1996, 166-75. In addition, Bosch’s hangmen are very strongly stigmatised, for example, in the Christ Carrying the Cross (Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent), an exceptionally dramatic painting with closely packed heads. As Robert Hooze has observed, here the antithesis between good and evil, which was so crucial to Christian belief in the later Middle Ages, is raised to a climax. Hooze 2002, 19. Not much is known about Bosch’s life or his artistic background. His later works show many connections with Barbant and the south, but his earliest paintings show more affinities with Dutch art, particularly with manuscript illuminations. Bosing 2000, 17. See Zaremska 1996, 194-8.

181

CHAPTER 5

portraits of actual professional hangmen. Hinrik Funhof’s picture about Johannes den Täufer, the hangman of Hamburg (1483),116 may offer us a rare exception. However, since artists did not try to photograph reality, it is possible that Funhof has modified or exaggerated his model’s features. Artists could give any features they liked to the executioners in their works, they could borrow features form various models or even depict their own features on the hangman.117 It is evident that the linking of physical ugliness very closely with the hangman’s figure both expressed and moulded attitudes related to executioners but also, to a certain extent, towards all kinds of individuals with deviant looks, the ugly – those unfortunate individuals who had some innate physical defect or who had been victims of some accident or serious disease.118 Undoubtedly, the executioner’s representations and visual depictions strengthened the old notions and prejudices concerning physical imperfection. To be ugly was to be ‘as vile as a hangman’. Late medieval people did not always have much compassion or understanding for physically deviant individuals because they often linked ugliness with sin and saw it as divine punishment. At the same time, people in the past were more enchanted and enraptured by bodily beauty (the ideal of it) than a modern person could perhaps imagine.119 In our contemporary world bodily beauty is also much appreciated. As physical deviancy is no longer associated with sin, our ideals of beauty are perhaps a bit more varied, and untypical features can more often also be interpreted in a positive way, as highly ‘personal’ features, i.e. something that makes an individual special and valuable as such. Nevertheless, it must be underlined, once again, that there occurred several deviations from these general ‘rules’ of beauty and ugliness in the Middle Ages: comeliness did not always reflect goodness and physical deformity was not linked to sin in every instance.120 A hangman’s physical repugnance referred, for example, to ideas of ‘bad death’, pain and perdition and the fate of damned souls in Hell. As Piero Camporesi has reminded us, a good death signified that in heaven the individual would have a new, better body that was beautiful, healthy, agile and slim. The damned, for their part, were given bodies that were ugly, malformed, slow, sick, rotting and evil 116 Funhof, Ein Henker. C. 1483. Picture published in Boockmann 1987, 159. 117 It has been suggested that Lucas Cranach the Elder gave his own facial features to the executioner in The Martyrdom of St Catherine. C. 1508. Ráday Collection of the Reformed Church, Budapest. Picture published in Hagen & Hagen 2003, p. 112. 118 An oft-quoted example of harsh attitudes towards physical infirmity in the late Middle Ages is the one provided by the Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris. The anonymous writer reports about an entertainment offered to Parisians in the residence of Armagnac in 1425: ‘on mit quatre aveugles tous armés en un [parc], chacun un bâton en sa main, et en ce lieu [y] avait un fort pourcel, lequel ils devaient avoir s’ils le pouvaient tuer. Ainsi fut fait, et firent cette bataille si étrange, car ils se donnèrent tant de grands coups de ces bâtons, que de pis de leur en fut, car quand [le mieux] cuidaient frapper le pourcel, ils frappaient l’un sur l’autre, car s’ils eussent été armes pour vrai, ils s’eussent tués l’un l’autre’. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 221. According to this report, the spectators found it very funny to see blind men hitting each other instead of hitting the pig. A modern reader might be amazed by the lack of compassion for these disabled men as well as for the poor animal. At the same time one must not overestimate the cruelty of people in the past: there were those individuals, too, who could feel pity towards the infirm as well as towards animals. 119 Caroline Walker Bynum has written that popular stories about the bodies of saints that stayed intact and beautiful after death reflect the fear of death and decomposition in the Middle Ages (Bynum 1995, 220.). I wish to observe that they also display a pronounced appreciation of bodily perfection. 120 Physical infirmity or illness could appear as a special mark of divine favour, for example, in the case of some very pious person. Joutsivuo 1995b, 66.

182

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

smelling.121 The stigmatic depiction of the hangman could also serve, on a deeper level, as a message to God, as an expression of the community’s moral and ethical values. Religious images functioned as manifestations of rejection and condemnation, they told of how repulsive and disgusting man’s depravity (that the hangman epitomised) appeared or should appear to all good and pious Christians. This message should have pleased the Almighty. One may think that the portrayals of the hangman’s physical being, with many connotations of danger, also referred to the popular notions and magical beliefs relating to actual hangmen’s bodies and their precarious and polluting aspects already discussed in sections 2.2 and 4.6. In the medieval mind, it was ranked in the same harmful cast, for example, with the touch of lepers.122 The examination of the topic of hangmen’s physical appearance throws light on the late medieval conceptions of bodily beauty and ugliness: it helps to identify those features that were considered repulsive and deviant and to note those which were appreciated and admired. This topic also sheds light on past attitudes towards the body in general and reveals the great importance given to it as an inseparable part of a person, an individual’s soul. 5.2 Hair and Beard Hairiness of the human body is a feature the control of which has been a central concern in all societies at all times. Great attention has been paid to its manipulation: growing, cutting, shaping, removing, etc. Particular importance has been attached to hair. Hair has, in every age, communicated society’s values and had essential social, religious and symbolical significance. The connotations of power and status associated with hair could have persisted through several changes of fashion. Ideas about hair have often changed but, on the other hand, several controversial attitudes could have coexisted side by side.123 My intention is next to investigate the signs related to the hangman’s hair and beard and to study their meanings in the iconographical language as well as larger cultural contexts. The categories discussed are: 1) lack of hair; 2) hair model; 3) hairstyle and quality; 4) hair colour and, particularly, a red colour; 5) beards. These 121 Camporesi 1990, 14-18, 98. See also Mormando 1999, 124. At the beginning of the fifteenth century Jean Gerson assured his readers and audience that at the resurrection the saved will have a new, perfect body: ‘toutes manières des gens entiers sans faillir ung seul cheveul de la teste, resussiciterons tous vifz en corps et en ame, et seront en tel aage comme Nostre Seigneur Jhésus Christ estoit quant il fu crucifié pour nous, c’est en l’aage de trente trois ans et trois mois.’ Gerson, Œuvres complètes, X, 319. For conceptions of bodily resurrection in the late Middle Ages, see also Choron 1963, 84-7; Gurevich 1992, 85-6; and on its artistic depiction, see Binski 1996, 199-203. 122 As Anne Berthelot has suggested, in the late medieval imagination blood and leprosy belonged to the same semantic field. Berthelot 1999, 26. This closeness explains the ways of perceiving both the hangman and the leper in the later Middle Ages. According to Schmitt, the leper was associated with the sin of lust (‘les lépreux passaient pour expier la luxure de leurs parents’) and death (‘le corps du lépreux endure la corruption qui caractérise les cadavres, et l’exclusion sociale dans les léproseries s’apparente, jusque dans le rituel d’admission, à une mort rituelle’). On the other hand, Schmitt observes, ‘Mais parce que la lèpre exprimait le comble de l’abjection physique, elle suscitait aussi le geste le plus spectaculaire de l’héroïsme chrétien le baiser au lépreux, dont Saint Louis donna l’exemple.’ Schmitt 2001, 325. 123 Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 234-7; Mellinkoff I 1993, 181.

183

CHAPTER 5

features were central in efforts to communicate and mould the executioner’s representations. The hangman had no fixed hairstyle in iconography, as was also the case in actual life. However, when one becomes familiar with late medieval pictorial material, one discovers that numerous artists particularly favoured baldness over other kinds of hair types as an attribute of the executioner. The hangman’s head is frequently characterised by a receding hair line, or the top of head is completely bald and some hair is visible only at the neck. Sometimes one encounters hangmen that have no hair at all. Jean Le Noir, the illuminator of the Bréviaire de Charles V from the late fourteenth century has systematically used a balding forehead as a hangman’s attribute.124 In secular miniatures, too, a lack of hair is a usual attribute for the executioner, for example, in the miniatures of Le Rommans de Titus Livius from the fourteenth century, which depict various notorious judgments in antiquity.125 It is no coincidence that the hangman of Robert Trésilian has a balding forehead in a miniature of Jean Froissart’s chronicle126 – as explained earlier, he represents the arbitrary justice of the notorious royal uncles who wanted to get rid of the favourite of King of England. As for religious panel paintings, one can meet a balding executioner, for example, in Rogier van der Weyden’s Martyrdom of St John (c. 1454) and in Dirk Bouts’ Martyrdom of St Erasmus (c. 1458).127 The popularity of the balding head as an attribute of a hangman was based, obviously, on the fact that baldness – especially natural baldness – was a much deprecated feature in older times. In medieval culture baldness in general (natural or ritual) could refer to several negative ideas such as a lack of reason, servility, marginality, infamy, and punishment.128 However, natural baldness could also be used as a positive sign of old age in depictions of biblical figures and God.129 In medieval physiognomic treatises, natural baldness was regularly linked with mental deficiency and madness.130 In everyday life, a balding individual usually tried to hide this default – even if wigs (chief de Paris) were considered ugly and ridiculed, too.131 Besides natural baldness, the category of ritual baldness also existed. This type of hairlessness, too, was a fairly ambiguous sign. On the one hand, ritual bald-

124 BN ms. lat. 1052, passim. See also the executioner of John the Baptist, who is totally bald from the top of the head in the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry. BN ms. lat. 18104, fol. 214r. 125 Le Rommans de Titus Livius. BN ms. fr. 30, fols 55r, 256r. Paris, first quarter of the 14th c. Miniatures by Master d’Egerton. 126 BN ms. fr. 2645, fol. IIc XXX VIIIv. 127 Van der Weyden, Martyrdom of St John. C. 1454. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. Staatliche MuseenPreussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 414; Bouts, Martyrdom of St Erasme. C. 1458. St Peter, Louvain. See also the totally bald executioner with a huge hooked nose in Master of Haarlem (?), Christ before Pilate. Second half of the fifteenth century. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; The flagellation. Last quarter of the 15th c. Sculpture no. 46. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. 128 On the various meanings of baldness in the Middle Ages, see Gross & Shaefer 1995, 247-54. See also Garnier 1982, 137; Raynaud 1990, 153, 154, 272; Mellinkoff I 1993, 186-187. For baldness as an attribute of beggars, see for example Colonna, Mare historiarum. C. BN ms. lat. 4915, 282r. 129 Mellinkoff I 1993, 183. 130 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147]. Baldness was already deprecated in antiquity. Suetonius says that Jules Caesar was ashamed of his balding head. Suetonius, De vita caesarum, 31. 131 See, for example, La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 271.

184

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

ness could be associated with professional executioners132 and with various low or despised individuals such as fools, madmen and condemned criminals. Shaving off the hair was sometimes part of a punishment in daily reality. It symbolised a loss of status and marginalisation.133 On the other hand, ritual baldness could be interpreted as a positive sign of the clerical estate. The tonsured head symbolised humility, chastity and dedication to the service of the Church.134 The tonsure had become obligatory for all clerics in the middle of the eleventh century.135 The Church had, however, been very slow to accept tonsure. This resistance was partly connected with biblical prohibitions related to the shaving of heads. One could read in Leviticus that sacrificers (priests) ‘are not to make bald patches on their heads, or cut their beards, or slash their bodies’ (non radent caput nec barbam neque in carnibus suis facient incisuras).136 Resistance to the tonsure was also based on the association of ritual baldness with pagan cults: pagans and their priests had shaved their heads to worship their deities, for example, in ancient Rome.137 It has sometimes been suggested that in the pictorial arts the hangman’s hairless head was not only intended as a defamatory motif but that it was a reference to everyday practice, to a hairstyle adapted by some professional executioners.138 I do not find this proposition very likely. It is certain that one could see hairless heads on those executioners who were former convicts recently recruited to the office. However, no evidence exists that hangmen were obliged to adopt this hairstyle permanently. In the final analysis, it seems that both forms of baldness, natural as well as ritual, were merely stigmas that served to link the hangman to ideas of depravity and mental deviancy in works of art. One may presume that baldness was a popular iconographical sign partly because it was an efficient means to create contrasts and catch the spectator’s attention. If only one person in the picture has an uncovered hairless head and others have hats or thick hair, the spectator’s attention is automatically drawn to the bald person. In each case, several connected attributes or clues (clothing, accessories, facial traits, gestures, etc.) helped the medieval spectator to fathom the identity of the depicted individual and to decipher the message of a hairless head; whether it denoted negative or positive concepts and ideas. 132 On evil executioners with completely shaved heads, see for example Provoost, Crucifixion. Early 16th century. Groeninge Museum, Bruges; Mazerolles, Heures de Sforza, c. 1467. Picture published in Erlande-Brandenburg 1989, 456; Metsys, Ecce homo. 1526. Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Picture published in Zuffi (ed.) 2000, 302. A fine example of a completely shaved executioner in German art is provided by the fifteenth-century Schwabian woodcuts depicting the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, today in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Scenes from the Saint Erasmus’ legend. Twelve-chequered Schwabian woodcut. 1455–1465. Picture published in Tuhkanen 1996, 4. 133 A sentence of the Parliament of Paris dated 15.11.1388 condemns Jean Leconte, porteur de fausses bulles, to be flogged at the crossroads, to be put in a pillory and to be permanently banished after his head and beard had been shaved off. AN Y62, fol. 142r. 134 ‘Il indique le renoncement aux amours sensuels, l’abandon des désirs et des biens temporels, un sacrifice pénitentiel de soi-même, et surtout une ouverture aux influences célestes. La rasure en forme de couronne rappelle aussi la couronne d’épines du Messie crucifié.’ Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 955. 135 Gross & Shaefer 1995, 245-6. 136 Lv 21.5. See also Dt 14.1. ‘Filii estote Dominii Dei vestri non vos incidetis nec facetis calvitium super mortuo’. Here the shaving of hair is forbidden as a sign of mourning. 137 Mellinkoff I 1993, 182. The practice was to shave not only the hair but also the beard, eyebrows and every hair of the body to be deemed worthy to sacrifice to the gods. 138 Ibid., 185-6, 189.

185

CHAPTER 5

As to the style of hair, one often meets executioners with hair cut very short, such as can be seen in the left-hand scene of a choir hanging depicting the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, commanded by the bishop Jean III Baillet (1477–1513) for the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne in Auxerre and today exhibited at the Musée de Cluny.139 In the Middle Ages, extremely short hair was often considered ugly, a sign of a low social origin, whilst longer hair was understood as a mark of a higher social status.140 Naturally, hair fashions changed many times during the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, noblemen favoured a very short cut (area near the neck and above the ears was shaved) such as one can observe, for example, in miniatures depicting courtiers of Duke John of Berry in the Très Riches Heures.141 I have never seen this specific hair cut depicted on the hangman in pictorial material, only on some soldier-executioners.142 It must be observed that from the twelfth century onwards, moralists often condemned men with too long hair as effeminate and vain, a lengthy hairstyle was declared unfit for Christian knights. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Erasmus defined, in De civilitate morum puerilium (1530), a decent masculine haircut: the hair must not cover the forehead or hang on the shoulders.143 On the other hand, Erasmus did not appreciate too short hair either: in the Militis et Cartvsiani (1523) he mocked the very short hair of mercenaries.144 It is quite common that in those cases where an artist has decided to depict a hangman’s hair a little bit longer, the cut is clumsy or the hair is disorderly or very curly. In a miniature of Jean Froissart’s chronicle, the executioner of Robert Trésilian who has a receding hairline has also ruffled dark hair.145 This was an important additional motif: disordered hair traditionally symbolised a lack of rationality or morals in medieval iconography. Therefore, especially hangmen representing bad justice often shared this attribute with several low, suspicious, or malevolent figures, such as wildmen, possessed persons, madmen, and demons.146 As Angelika Gross and Jacqueline Schaefer have observed, in the Middle Ages neglected and unkempt hair was a powerful stigmatic label that could refer to several negative ideas such as alienation of reason, servile status, marginalisation and punishment.147 Erasmus, for his part, did not approve of unruly hair and associated it with peasants in his conduct book.148

139 Cercle du peintre Colyn de Coter (patrons), Scènes de la légende de Saint Étienne: 4. Saint Étienne mené au lieu du supplice: son martyre. Choir hanging. Brussels, c. 1500. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 140 ‘La chevelure intacte est le signe de l’intégralité de la personne.’ Gross & Schaefer 1995, 247-8. See also Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 234-5. 141 January in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fol. 1v. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 142 See, for example, Van der Weyden, Judgment of Trajan. Copy of original (1439), tapestry from the mid fifteenthcentury. Musée historique de Berne. Picture published in Jacob 1994, 69. 143 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [32]. 144 Militis et Cartvsiani (1523) in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 315. 145 BN ms. fr. 2645, fol. IIc XXX VIIIv. 146 On ruffled or flame-shaped hair of grotesque marginal figures, see the Grandes Heures du duc de Berry. BN ms. lat. 919, fols 13v marg., 14v marg., 15r marg, 20v marg., 25v marg. Illuminations in this manuscript have sometimes been attributed to Jacquemart de Hesdin, but Chastel hesitates in this matter. Chastel 1993, 325. See also Garnier 1982, 137. For the Devil’s hair in late medieval art, see Russell 1984, 211. 147 Gross & Schaefer 1995, 248. 148 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [32].

186

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

Frizzy (or very curly) hair, such as that of Saint Denis’ executioner in Henry Bellechose’s painting,149 is also a fairly typical feature of all kinds of evil persons (especially infidels and pagans) in pictorial material.150 Frizzy hair was generally considered to be ugly in medieval culture, especially if very dark. In physiognomic treatises this feature was linked with many negative characteristics: ‘Les cheveux noirs et crespes segnefient homme melencolieux, luxurieux, mal pensant et fort large’.151 (Black and curly hair signifies a person who is melancholic, lewd, wicked and wasteful.) Hangmen do not have any fixed hair colour in medieval pictorial material. However, some artists favoured a reddish colour over other colours as a feature of the executioner. One of them was Gerard David who chose – or was asked to choose – red hair as an attribute of the chief hangman both in the Crucifixion (c. 1480)152 and in the Judgment of Cambyses (1498).153 In both paintings this figure also has a red beard.154 Whilst it is not surprising that David has given this particular colour to one of Christ’s executioners, it is noteworthy that red hair also appear on a hangman in the latter profane painting the function of which was to signal the values and opinions of Bruges authorities in their court room. Through his hair colour, the master hangman representing a legitimate authority was classified as a morally suspect individual. Red hair was a trait that was perceived as being especially stigmatic in the Middle Ages. From the thirteenth century on, red hair was the most important iconographical sign pointing to evil, rejection or infamy. Hence, it was reserved for numerous negative or alarming figures such as Judas, traitors, rebels, prostitutes, usurers, jesters, and certain suspect professional categories: smiths, millers, butchers.155 This red had not much to do with yellow or orange but was rather brownish, roux, a shade connected with various unpleasant ideas, for example, hypocrisy, lies, and betrayal, and sometimes perceived as the most ugly of all hues.156 In physiognomic treatises, one notices that red hair is associated with wrath, madness and treachery: ‘Ceulx qui ont cheveulx roux sont volentiers ireux et ont faulte de sens et si sont de petite loyaulté’.157 (Those who have red hair are often angry and have defective reason and are also disloyal.) Red hair was a stigmatic feature also in literature, in didactical works, and in proverbs.158 Ruth Mellinkoff has examined the reasons for the age-old and prolonged antipathy towards red hair. She notes that one meets red-haired individuals in all 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

Bellechose, Le Retable de saint Denis. 1416. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Mellinkoff I 1993. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147]. David, Crucifixion. C. 1480. National Gallery, London. David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. For another example of an executioner with red hair and red beard, see Master of St John altar, Elizabeth fleeing with her son. C. 1500. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. On Judas’ hair and red hair in general, see Pastoureau 2004, 197-209. See also Raynaud 1990, 154; Mellinkoff I 1993, 150; Pleij 2004, 81, 83. There already exist examples of Judas with red hair in pictorial art from the twelfth century, but the belief that Judas was red-haired is probably older. Pastoureau 2004, 197, 203. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147]. Pastoureau 2004, 201.

187

CHAPTER 5

ethnic and national groups, and to some extent even amongst non-white racial groups. Scholars have presented several theories to explain this attitude. Some have proposed that it was originally the colour of Tor’s beard and that this sign was transmitted as a negative attribute to Christian art, etc. I fully agree with Mellinkoff’s suggestion that the fact that red hair has always been a minority trait is sufficient to explain the suspicion and antipathy towards it and as well as its persistence. As Mellinkoff explains, it is not only about red colour per se. Any colour that deviates from the norm would have aroused the same kind of response.159 Michel Pastoureau has also discussed the meanings of red hair. He stresses the triple heritage (biblical, Greco-Roman, and German) and observes that in the Bible, numerous negative personages have red hair. The only exception is David who, according to Pastoureau, represents, in the scale of values, a transgression typical of all symbolic systems. An exception (‘une soupape’) is necessary for the efficacious functioning of the system. David is this exception, thereby announcing the coming of the Christ.160 In our modern world, the colour red is not considered ugly, but it is not the most popular colour either. In a general way, it seems that the most admired and sought-after colour for female hair is blond,161 and for male hair, dark brown or black. In the later Middle Ages the best colour or tone for hair was light brown, like the Virgin Mary’s162 or ‘ripe hazelnut’ – the colour of Christ’s hair.163 As to the quality of the hair, most people thought that the best hair was not only well ordered, but also strong and smooth. Strong hair was a sign of a peaceful and intelligent person.164 Smooth hair, on the other hand, revealed a compassionate and generous character.165 The essential function of the hair was to protect and embellish the head. According to medieval medical theories, strong and dense hair pointed to the warmth and humidity of complexion. In the mid-thirteenth century, Bartholomew Anglicus wrote, ‘When they have disappeared, the head is ugly, as can be observed in the case of the bald and the tonsured’ (Quand ils ont disparu, la tête est laide, comme on le constate chex les chauves et tondus).166 However, excessively strong or thick hair, and especially the kind of hair that grows very low on the forehead, was not appreciated in the Middle Ages. In physiognomy, this feature was associated with rudeness, vulgarity and stupidity. In pictorial sources a very low forehead is typical of torturers, murderers, rebels, bad soldiers, infidels and other negative individuals.167

159 Mellinkoff I 1993, 149, 159. 160 Pastoureau 2004, 200. 161 Clear preference for blond feminine hair belongs, in fact, to every era. However, blue eyes were not part of the medieval ideal; blondes were expected to have brown eyes and dark eyebrows. In addition, the medieval model of feminine beauty demanded a red-and-white colour scheme for the face. Pleij 2004, 49-52. 162 See Memling, Madonna on the Throne with Child and Four Saints. 1474–1479. Central panel of the Triptych of St John. Memling Museum, Bruges. 163 Baxandal 1972, 57. 164 ‘Les fors cheveux segnefient que la personne ayme paix et concorde et si est de bon engin et subtil’. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147]. 165 ‘Les cheveulx plains et souefs segnefient personne piteuse et debonnaire’. Ibid., [147]. 166 Le livre des propriétés des choses, 124. 167 Raynaud 1990, 164; Mellinkoff I 1993, 190.

188

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

Medieval artists could also make use of beards in signalling negative opinions about executioners and other marginal and evil figures. Beards do no systematically appear on hangmen. But when they do, they often contrast him with other (shaved) persons and are striking or extravagant: very curly and thick, or very sharply pointed or forked. In the Petites Heures (c. 1372–1390) one of the flagellators of Christ has a forked beard,168 whilst in the Heures d’Étienne Chevalier (1452–1460) illuminated by Jean Fouquet, two of the executioners of Saint Apollonia have long black and curly beards and two others have short grey frizzy beards.169 In a manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicle Bajasid and his cruel executioners have, in addition to many other negative signs, long brown beards in a miniature that depicts the massacre of crusaders in Nicopolis.170 In the later Middle Ages the beard was often considered unfashionable and ugly, boorish and ridiculous. In actual life, the wearing of beards was, moreover, totally prohibited for the clergy. Accordingly, those clerics who had roles in mystery plays had to ask for special permission for their use. Raymond Lèbeque has observed that a beard was necessary, because otherwise spectators could not recognise God, Christ and the apostles.171 One should add here, or laugh at executioners. Fouquet’s miniature representing the martyrdom of Saint Apollonia is the most famous picture of the Heures d’Etienne Chevalier especially for the reason that it depicts a mystery play scene, a topic of which not much visual evidence remains. Thus, the figures one can see in Fouquet’s picture are actors – perhaps clerics – disguised as hideous and ridiculous executioners by means of black and grey false beards. In pictorial art, the beard had already been used as a method of stigmatisation in the high Middle Ages.172 In iconographical language, the beard was typical of the low and the evil, of infidels, wildmen and madmen.173 The Devil and demons frequently have beards.174 A beard referred to bestiality, evil and chaos in medieval imagery. However, as in the theatre, in iconography, too, the beard was an equivocal element, for it had a favourable meaning in connection with positive biblical figures such as God and the apostles. The type or style of beard was significant: the evil persons’ beard was often red175 or, as I have already mentioned, black and very curly, or pointed, or forked, whilst the beards of good and the saintly figures were ordinarily white or light grey, billowing and soft-shaped. Reasons for the disapproval of beards were partly hygienic and partly aesthetical or ideological in the Middle Ages. It is evident that parasites and lice were 168 BN ms. lat.18104, fol. 83v. See also Bréviaire de Charles V. BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 421r. However, some artists depicted forked beards on non-evil figures, e.g. noble hunters, see The Hunting Book of Gaston Phébus. BN ms. fr. 616, fols 13r, 67r, 75v, 99v, 122r. Reduced facsimile published by Harvey Miller: London 1998. 169 Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Martyre de Ste Apolline. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 170 BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 255v. 171 Lebègue 1929, 87. 172 See the Grande Châsse de Sainte Fauste. Beginning of the thirteenth century. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 173 The thick black beard appears as an attribute of gravediggers in the Heures à l’usage de Reims. BN Arsénal ms. 1189, fol. 65r. 174 See, for example, the picture of the Devil lying on a fiery grill in Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Ms. 65, fol. 108r. Musée Condé, Chantilly. In Dante’s Hell, Cerberos has a black and greasy beard. Dante, La Divina Commedia, 47. 175 The colour red was very stigmatic, not only as a colour for hair but also as a colour for a beard. In the late medieval theatre robbers sometimes had red beards. Duplat 1980, 85

189

CHAPTER 5

fond of beards.176 In addition, a beard bestialised the human face and destroyed its beauty and balance. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the beard came fashionable.177 However, Erasmus mocked both the beard and moustache in the Militis et Cartvsiani (1523): the mercenary is compared to a cat because of these attributes,178 which was a rather serious insult in late medieval culture.179 It must be stressed that deprecation of beards was not a totally universal trend in the Middle Ages. The male inhabitants of Montaillou, for example, had beards at the beginning of the fourteenth century.180 Even at the highest social levels a long beard had – still – a special meaning in saintly vows as a sign of grief, revenge, etc.181 Benedict XIII (1328–1423) made an oath not to cut his beard until he was freed from the besieged Avignon.182 Jean de Roye describes in his chronicle the wake of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who was killed in 1477 in a battle against the Duke of Lorraine. Roye writes that the Duke of Lorraine arrived at this ceremony dressed in a mourning habit and a long golden beard ‘en signification des anciens preux et de la victoire qu’il avoit sur lui eue’183 (as a reference to ancient heroes and to the victory he had achieved over him). This sumptuous fake beard, which may seem peculiar to modern readers in this particular context, was a reference to the cult of neuf preux (nine worthies) that flourished in the later Middle Ages. The group of neuf preux included three pagans, three Jews, and three Christians: these were Hector, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great; Joshua, David and Judas Maccabee; and King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godefroi de Bouillon (c. 1061–1100),184 who was Duke of Basse-Lorraine and one of the leaders of the first crusade, founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem. These illustrious men were models and heroes also admired by the Duke of Lorraine, who identified himself with them after having defeated his mighty enemy, the Duke of Burgundy. It should be noticed that even if the beard was not much appreciated in late medieval culture and society, at the same time a total absence of beard was generally considered a stigmatic feature or serious warning sign. Writers of physiognomic treatises advise their readers to avoid ‘especialement de home esbarbé cest qui n’a point de barbe’185 (especially a beardless man who has no beard at all) for this pointed to great wickedness. In the mid-thirteenth century, Bartholomew Anglicus provided a medical explanation for the lack of a beard, in his De proprietatibus rerum: it pointed to a cold and moist natural complexion (this is why eunuchs were beardless) or to corruption of bodily fluids. A thick beard was a sign of a bodily warmth and 176 Municipal authorities paid attention to the unhygienic aspect of a long beard. In 1450, the bakers of Rennes were ordered to cut their beards and hair regularly, at least every third week. Leguay 1999, 56. 177 It appears together with a moustache on portraits of high-ranked persons such as King François I, see Clouet, François I. C. 1525. 178 Erasmus, Colloqvia, 314. 179 On animal comparisons as insults, see section 7.3. 180 Le Roy Ladurie 1982, 203. 181 This was an ancient habit and one meets references to it, for example, in the work of Suetonius. Suetonius, De vita caesarum, 46. According to Chevalier and Gheerbrant, the habit of suspending the cutting of one’s hair and beard during a war, a journey, and a time of mourning or because of a vow has been a usual practice in many different cultures. Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 235. 182 Huizinga 2002, 143. 183 Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 42. 184 See, for example, Schroeder 1971. 185 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [147].

190

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

vigorousness. It was also a clear material proof of the difference between the sexes. A beard changed when a man aged: it became white, because of the lack of warmth and excess of coldness.186 To conclude, I would like to suggest that negative notions and opinions about executioners were reflected in the visual depictions of their hair and beard in late medieval art. Artists mixed various signs in their works so that one cannot name one specific typical hairstyle or model of beard as peculiar to the hangman. An executioner could have a balding head or thick frizzy hair, red or black hair, a shaved chin or a forked beard. The keyword and common denominator in these depictions was ‘ugly’. Once again it must be emphasised that different attributes received their full negative power when appearing repeatedly in specific contexts on marginalised or evil figures and in addition, simultaneously with several other stigmatic labels. The hangman’s hair and beard were often, if not systematically, ugly and striking. The portrayals related to the hangman’s hair and beard also provide important evidence concerning the negative attitudes towards physical deviance manifested in the hair or beard, or concerning fashion trends and preferences, as well as the great symbolical value of the hair and beard in the past world. In late medieval society and culture an important function of hair was to signal the differences between social classes and estates. The hair and beard could also express emotional states, vows, feasts and great occasions. Hair also signalled differences between the sexes. In secular society women never had short hair.187 Men could have short or relatively long hair but masculine hair was never arranged in complex hairstyles, plaited or decorated with ribbons, jewels, etc.188 A man’s simple, smooth hair symbolised the superiority of his reason and morals compared to women, who were generally perceived as more sinful, vain and irrational creatures.189 As regards the bodily hair in general, it must be observed that Christ’s and saintly male figures’ bodies are often hairless, smooth and white. Their torturers’ arms and legs are sometimes hairy, as one can observe, for example, in Quentin Metsys’ painting.190 In iconography, hairless skin was a usual sign of sanctity (for men and women), whilst hairiness pointed to bestiality and evil and was characteristic of devils, wildmen and monstrous races.191 In the Grandes Heures de Rohan (1430–1435) in a miniature representing the justice of Moses, we encounter an interesting hangman figure. The picture is entitled Lors vint Moyse sy les fist tous pendre par le commandement de Dieu (Then came Moses and 186 Le livre des propriétés des choses, 127-8. 187 Those women who entered a monastery had their hair cut off as a sign of penitence. 188 Jews have sometimes plaited hair and beard in late medieval iconography, see for example a miniature depicting Christ teaching in a temple in the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry. C. 1380–1412. BN ms. n. a. lat. 3039, p. 62; see also the executioner’s hair in Schumgauer, Carrying of the Cross. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 189 In the feminine world the hiding or binding of the hair also had an important symbolic value: married and unmarried women expressed their status through their hairstyle and hair-dress. For the symbolic value of feminine hair in the Middle Ages, see Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 236. 190 Metsys, Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. 1508-1511. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. 191 However, exceptions of this general rule are hairy holy women such as Saint Mary of Egypt (see for example, Master of the Legend of St Madeleine, St Mary of Egypt. End of the 15th century. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels). See also Friesen 1999, 239-56. I thank Professor Edelgard E. DuBruck for having pointed me out this article by Friesen.

191

CHAPTER 5

had all of them hanged at the command of God).192 This portrayal of the hangman is quite unusual in many respects. The anonymous artist has dressed the hangman in a loose long robe of blue. In addition, he has regular facial features and blond, softly waving hair. He is standing on the ladder of a gallows as if waiting for more orders after having hanged three men. The anonymous artist has wanted to depict the justice of Moses, which coincided perfectly with God’s will, and explains the lack of familiar negative attributes. We can actually see God’s right hand pointing down from the clouds towards the hanged men and Moses giving orders to the executioner (Moses points up with his finger), who looks towards him. The hangman is, of course, much smaller in size than Moses, a difference that refers to the hierarchical relations between these two figures. The executioner’s complex posture (the head is turned backwards) is one detail that can be considered as an unfavourable sign (for good figures were never depicted in such a posture in iconography, as I will explain later in this chapter). Nevertheless, in other respects, the portrayal is exceptionally favourable for the hangman. This atypical portrayal invited late medieval spectators to contemplate on the message of the picture. The executioner’s unconventional appearance underlined the stigmatic depiction of the wrongdoers. (These have very short hair and they wear only underpants.) The miniature signalled that this hangman functioned as a necessary instrument of good and righteous justice. It would also have caught the medieval spectator’s eye for the simple reason that other executioners appearing in the same manuscript were provided with many negative attributes such as long black beards, hooked noses, down-turned corners of mouth, incomplete outfits, naked legs and feet, etc.193 5.3 Postures and Gestures In late medieval culture, the human body was an important means of communication. It was understood as being an expression of ‘self’ or soul in learned thinking, both in theological and natural science.194 The face was truly considered as the mirror of soul at that time. The face transmitted lots of information about an individual’s inner qualities and inclinations, about the movements of one’s soul but so did the rest of the body, especially by means of its movements, postures and gestures.195 Consequently, the body had an important communicative function in the visual arts, as it had on the level of everyday life, in many rituals and social practices. Regarding the signification of physical punishment spectacles, for example, it is crucial to remember this aspect.196 192 BN ms. lat. 9471. fol. 236r B. According to André Chastel, the anonymous illuminator of this manuscript worked in a Parisian atelier. ‘C’est le maître le plus tourmenté du siècle’, Chastel writes. It is difficult to agree with this opinion. Chastel 1993, 332-3; Chastel 1994, 77. 193 BN ms. lat. 9471, fol. 236 r B, cf. fols 64v, 165v, 214r B, 219r C, 221r A, 234r. 194 Caroline Walker Bynum has discussed the new, positive meaning the human body received in religious thinking between 1200 and 1500. Bynum stresses that even if the body was often perceived as a hindrance to salvation, a locus of pain and decomposition, it could be seen, alternatively, as an expression of the self, an instrument or gate to heaven, and essential for the fulfilment of heavenly bliss. Bynum 1989, 162-4, 188-97; Bynum 1995, 225, 278, 319, 341. 195 Michael Baxandal, who has studied late medieval Italian iconography, writes that gestures were even more important references to an individual’s inner qualities than physical features. Baxandal 1972, 60. 196 See Cohen 1993 and section 2.2.

192

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

Artists exploited several body-related signs and techniques to signal their (or their clients’) opinions about the hangman and the ideas he represented in different contexts (arbitrary justice, evil, depravity, and sin, etc.), especially such categories as postures and gestures as well as size, stance and position.197 In the following pages I shall try to elucidate meanings and functions of these signs by setting them in a wider cultural context, particularly against the notions and concepts related to the human body and gestures.198 In late medieval pictorial material the hangman is most often depicted at work, i.e. in executing a corporal or capital punishment. The executioner is usually the most active and dynamic actor in pictures; the spectators are more passive (standing still or gesticulating with their hands). The authority who has given the order, either stands among the spectators or sits (on a seat or a horse). These contrasts signalled hierarchical differences and power relations between the individuals depicted.199 A typical feature of the executioner’s postures and gestures is exaggerated expansiveness and complexity. The keyword here is ‘excess’. Often a hangman’s legs are spread very wide and his arms are stretched well away from the body, as one can observe in a miniature in the Grandes Chroniques de France from the fifteenth century, depicting the burning of heretics at the stake.200 The illuminator has used many typical habit-related attributes to indicate hangmen executing the orders of the King of France as being socially low and morally suspect. The grand gestures and postures of the three executioners served to strengthen the negative message. Evidently, the artist’s aim was not to question the legitimacy of the sentence but rather to stress its harshness or to express a negative opinion about the professionals who performed these necessary but dishonourable functions under criminal justice. Numerous medieval artists have depicted the hangman’s body forcefully turned backwards or to the side. This method was typical of Jean Le Noir and his collaborators. In the Petites Heures the flagellator on the right-hand side hits Christ with such a fierce intensity that his body forms a large arch. His arms are lifted over the head, the back is forcefully curved backwards and his posterior is pushed outwards.201 In the Bréviaire de Charles V Le Noir has also favoured very complicated postures as an attribute of the executioner. Usually the hangman’s body is forcefully 197 I have concentrated on the most essential categories in my source material and left, for example, the hangman’s ‘direction’ (I mean, vertically or horizontally, in relation to the overall composition of pictures) outside my discussion. This category, too, could have an essential symbolical value in iconographical language. See Schmitt 2003, 28-9. 198 In my exploration of the topic of the hangman’s gestures I have greatly benefited from the study by JeanClaude Schmitt on gestures in medieval culture. Schmitt 1990. Peter Burke has also written a most illuminating article on changes in the system of gestures in Italy 1500–1800. Burke 1997. To fully understand the depictions of the hangman’s body in pictorial material, the important categories to be considered are also size, stance and position. The late medieval artist made use of these features in signalling and strengthening the negative message about the hangman or about the sentence. When examining these particular aspects in my source material I have found Christiane Raynaud’s study on violence and its agents in late medieval illuminated historical texts to be very useful. Raynaud 1990. 199 See for example Bréviaire de Philippe de Bel. BN ms. lat. 1023, fols 267r, 280r, 343r, 363r A, 407v, 439v, 465v. 200 BN ms. fr. 20352, fol. 274v. See also BN ms. fr. 6448, passim. See also L’exécution d’Hugonet, le chancelier de Marie de Bourgogne à Gand en 1477. Miniature attribuée au Maître de Marie de Bourgogne. Wells-next-the-Sea, Holkham Estate Trustees. Ms. 659, fol. 78v. Picture published in Prevenier (dir.) 1998, 99. 201 BN ms. lat. 18104, fol. 83v. See also BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 373v.

193

CHAPTER 5

twisted, as one can see in a miniature depicting the execution of Saint Valentine. The hangman is taking his sword out of a yellow sheath but his gesture seems exaggeratedly tortuous, unnatural.202 In Le Noir’s art, a typical feature of the hangman’s body is also imbalance. Sometimes the weight of the body rests totally on one leg, as in the miniature depicting the martyrdom of Saints Tiburtius, Valerius and Maximus in the Bréviaire de Charles V. The executioner has lifted his sword over his head and has bent his left leg up, the weight of the body being on the right foot.203 Occasionally the hangman has placed his foot or knee on his victim as if to keep the victim still before delivering his blow.204 Sometimes we come across hangmen in crouching postures: the legs are bent and the body is folded forwards, as one can see in the miniature depicting the martyrdom of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.205 As Christiane Raynaud has observed, the depictions of the positions of the hangman’s arms and hands vary in late medieval pictorial material. The gesture of hitting is, nonetheless, the prevailing one – it is the gesture of violence par excellence. Ritual gestures, on the other hand, are very rare. In Raynaud’s source material, the miniatures of historical texts, the gesture of hitting (an uplifted arm) is the most common and appears in 30 per cent of the pictures. Other kinds of technical gestures cover 75 per cent of Raynaud’s material.206 As mentioned in section 4.6, some hangmen were depicted left-handed in late medieval art. This stigmatic extra motif occurred relatively often and was a powerful stigma, since left-handed persons were extremely rare in medieval pictorial material. Another usual gesture for the hangman is the hand lifted in front of the face in pictures representing the penalty of the stake. This gesture may have been a neutral reference to everyday reality (protection from fire) but it seems to frequently appear in the context of sentences considered harsh or excessive if not illegitimate (burning of a saint, burning of the Templars).207 It is obvious that all such depictions of the hangman’s bodily gestures and postures contributed in a significant way to the negative image of the executioner in the later Middle Ages. In visual sources one rarely meets a hangman whose posture and gestures would be completely neutral or without any negative symbolic value. As the hangman is most usually depicted at work, it is fairly logical that different 202 BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 345r. In the uncompleted manuscript illumination of Jean Mansel’s La Fleur des histoires one can find a hangman (preparing to kill his victim) who has a strongly twisted, very complex posture. BN ms. fr. 53, fol. 27r. See also BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 256r; BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 60r, BL Add. Ms. 18850, fol. 144 r. On the excessively twisted legs of the hangman, see Mazerolles, The Flagellation. The Sforza Book of Hours. 1467. Workshop of the Master Anthony of Burgundy. Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. Fol. 60v. Picture published in Erlande-Brandenburg 1989, 465. I would also like to draw attention to Dirk Bouts’ painting on the martyrdom of St Hippolytus and the curious twist of the hangman’s upper body (the executioner riding a brown horse in the upper left corner of the central panel). Bouts, Martyrdom of St Hippolytus. C. 1470–1474. St Saviour’s Cathedral, Bruges. 203 BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 359r, see also fols 252v marg., 388v, 390v, 458r, 498r. 204 Ibid., fols 359r, 516r. 205 Ibid., fol. 405v. See also fols 391r A, 393v, 421r, 428r; BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 398r; BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 412r. 206 Raynaud 1990, 163. 207 See for example Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live. C. 1470. BN ms. fr. 9186, fol. 205v; The burning of the Templars (14th c.) in the Chronicle of France or of St Denis. British Library, picture published in Read 2001, p. 14 of pictorial appendix. As Malcolm Barber observes, the execution of the Templars evoked controversial thoughts and feelings in contemporaries. Some persons claimed that they had been innocent victims of Philip the Fair’s avarice. Barber 2003, 315.

194

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

technical gestures and postures are very typical. These attributes referred to the reality and physical demands of the hangman’s occupation but simultaneously they carried very unfavourable messages. Exaggeratedly expansive and complex gestures and postures served to link the hangman with ideas of restrained aggressiveness, bestiality, mental disorders, etc. To obtain a deeper grasp about the ways medieval people saw and understood the hangman’s body and gestures it is necessary to discuss the wider context of the gestural system in the Middle Ages, which differed quite a lot from that of today. Gestural communication had such an important place in medieval society and culture that Jacques Le Goff has named late medieval civilisation as the ‘civilisation of gesture’.208 According to Jean-Claude Schmitt, the importance of gestures was partly linked to the low level of literacy in the Middle Ages.209 Different contracts were often confirmed orally and through gestures. In the liturgy, gestures were fundamentally essential. Gestures reinforced social bonds, helped the transmission of political or religious power and bestowed the actions with power.210 Medieval people firmly trusted in the symbolical power of ritual, magical and sacramental gestures. It was widely believed that gestures could change material objects or living creatures through their inner power, which provoked the action of invisible forces.211 Many roles of gestures arose from the central position that the body occupied in the Christianity of the Middle Ages. Man was understood as a combination of body and soul, and the essential matter was the dialectic between the inner and outer dimensions, just as in the worldview of that time, between the microcosm and the macrocosm.212 As Jean-Claude Schmitt observes, medieval people differentiated between positive and negative gestures, that is, those in conformity with God’s will and those that were achievements of the Devil, such as the gestures of the possessed. Prejudices concerning mobility that were characteristic of medieval ideology reinforced the unfavourable evaluations of gestures. In a general way, medieval man was much more appreciative of those aspects in gestures that referred to stability instead of mobility and movement, for example, in prayer or in different rituals. This attitude was reflected in the iconography of the time, which, for its part, strengthened the priority of stability on an ideological level.213 In the clerical literature it was stressed that the ideal gestures were modest, temperate, humble and decent. Excess in gestures was linked with vice and sin, with heretics, pagans and demons. The monastic rules paid great attention to controlling the body and defined the kind of behaviour appropriate to a monk. The clerical ideals of modestia and temperantia in gestures had their roots in antiquity. Additionally, 208 Le Goff 1988a, 357. 209 Writing started to rival gesture when the Church lost its monopoly of writing in the thirteenth century. Accordingly, the affirmation of symbolical powers through gestures became more important to the Church. Schmitt 1990, 358-9. 210 Schmitt 1990, 14-16, ‘c’est le geste qui donne sa force a l’acte, qui noue les volontés, qui associe les corps.’ See also Le Goff 1988a, 357. 211 Schmitt 1990, 27, 321. 212 Ibid., 18. 213 Ibid., 29, 31. See also Garnier 1982, 120.

195

CHAPTER 5

in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament one could find numerous mentions of gestures. Christ’s gestures provided, to a Christian, a model and example to follow in all situations of everyday life.214 Concepts of the kind of behaviour appropriate to the nobility, of gestures that were chevaleresque et courtois, knightly and courteous, found their expression in vernacular didactic and moralistic literature as well as in fiction, poetry and novels.215 In the common view, the king of France was a figure who served as a model and incarnation of ideal behaviour and gestures to all other people.216 This ideal was described and defined in Miroir des princes written from the Carolingian period onwards.217 Medieval writers described very carefully the most trivial gestures of the king: how he ate, spoke, laughed, walked, etc.218 Norbert Elias has stressed that the writings of Erasmus, such as the Monita paedagogica (1522) and De civilitate morum puerilium (1530), which deal with good manners and have already been cited in previous chapters, were not aimed towards any special social class, for here good behaviour is defined as ‘civilised’, rather than ‘courteous’ or ‘virtuous’, notions which referred to gestures that were particularly apt for people at court or in a monastery.219 It should be noted, however, that the De civilitate morum puerilium was dedicated to a young prince, Henry of Burgundy and that most of Erasmus’ advice and arguments are conventional and belong to the medieval tradition.220 We can also find definitions of positive and negative gestures in physiognomic treatises, for example, in De phizonomie des bergiers (1493) aimed at ‘simple people’. Here readers are told to pay attention to gestures, in addition to facial features and expressions. Some gestural features point to the individual’s inner depravation, whilst others reveal a virtuous and intelligent person. The anonymous writer discusses, for example, the meanings of different expressions of the eyes and walking styles. 221 In their thoughts relating to gestural expression, the leading classes linked wrong or bad gestures with ‘others’, with those social categories and ideas they despised or suspected most. Clerics, in their writings associated bad gestures especially with ideas of sin and danger and with such groups as play-actors (histrions) and heretics, who were anti-models to all good Christians and were often accused of gesticulating. Excessive gesticulating was also linked to the possessed and to 214 215 216 217 218

219 220 221

196

Schmitt 1990, 38, 60-2, 70-3, 93, 152-4, 192, 204-5, 229-31. Ibid., 224-5. The king was associated with reason, which controlled bodily gestures. Two treatises had a great influence: Thomas Aquinas’ De regno and Gilles de Rome’s De regimine principum. Schmitt 1990, 70-1, 93, 192, 229-31. Honoré Bovet included in his Arbre des batailles a chapter on the ideal ruler and his qualities. According to Bovet, a good ruler is pious, righteous and moderate in all things and deeds. Bovet stresses that a good ruler controls his body well, for if he cannot control his own body, he cannot control his subjects either. L’arbre des batailles, 250-6. Elias I 1983, 53-4, 73. For the traditional and untraditional features of Erasmus’ conduct book, see also Revel 1989, 170-2. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [149-50]. ‘Personne qui va a grant pas est grosse de cueur et despiteuse. Personne qui va a grant pas et lentement segnefie bien prosperer en toutes choses. Personne qui va a petis pas et tost est suspectionneuse, plaine d’envie et maulvaise voulente. Personne qui a petit pie et plat et les gecte comme ung enfant segnefie hardement et sens, mais celle personne a moult de diverses pensees’.

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

demons, who had an incomparable talent for imitation222 and whose gestures were the most proud, indecent and revolting. As Jacques Le Goff has put it, clerics saw the possessed as Satan’s victims and mimics as his instruments. Christ’s militia was discreet and sober in its gestures, whilst the Devil’s army gesticulated visibly.223 As to the secular upper class, these more associated bad gestures with rusticity and low social status than with sin and lack of virtue. As Jean-Claude Schmitt has explained, the term courtoisie gave expression to the self-image of the secular upper class and defined their conception of their special quality. The notion referred to a particular place in the society and to a particular ideal of social behaviour. More than to the disorder of vice it was the opposite of the savagery, rusticity and boorishness (la sauvagerie, la rusticité, la vilénie) of the workers’ world.224 It seems evident to me that one should include the hangman, too, amongst the major categories of anti-models of gestural expression in late medieval (high) culture. Like jesters, play-actors, demons and villains, the executioner was also repeatedly employed as an example of bad gestural expression, especially in the field of the visual arts and most probably also in drama.225 The figure of the executioner could be used to define both sinfulness as well as boorishness in gestures, which made it a very efficient ideological or propaganda tool in different contexts and forums, both religious and secular. The dichotomous way of perceiving gesture in medieval culture – the opposition between good and moderate, bad and vicious, gestures – explains ways of depicting and presenting the hangman’s body as well as that of other evil individuals. It clarifies why the contrast is so striking when compared with the bodies of the good and the pious. These appear to be very controlled and balanced in pictorial sources: their arms are kept close to the body (only the lower parts of their arms are lifted), their legs are not bent and in addition, they are usually parallel to each other and to the body. This depiction generates an impression of order, harmony and moderation. As I have already explained, the hangman’s body was frequently represented in quite the opposite way: his arms are lifted up and stretched far from the body, his legs are widely spread or strongly bent, his body is twisted or curved, etc. All these signs were clearly meant and understood as references to the hangman’s

222 This concept explains the link between the demon and the jester and connecting the demon and the monkey in medieval imagery, as already mentioned above. Erasmus has mocked preaching mendicant monks for their exaggerated gesticulating in the Moriæ encomium (1509). Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 168. See also Baxandal 1972, 64; Burke 1997, 68-9. 223 Le Goff 1988b, 85-7. See also Schmitt 1990, 140-1. Alexandre de Halès (c. 1185–1245) discerned in his Summa three categories of sins: sins of the heart, sins of the mouth, and sins of deeds (peccati cordis, peccati oris, peccati operis). The last category consisted of sins relating to clothing and ornaments (ornatus) and of those relating to bodily gestures and signs, quae pertinent ad gestum vel nutum corporis. Among these one should distinguish those that harmed other people, from those that were sins as such, in se: 1) laughter (risus) and joculatio, i.e. movement of the whole body (for example, dance or spectacles of jongleurs or jugglers, joculatio histrionica.) Ibid., 271-2. On jongleurs and their gestures, see also Verdon 2001, 83-96. On bodily contortions relating to the damned in Hell see, Cohen 2000, 54-5. 224 Schmitt 1990, 224-5. 225 It is obviously quite difficult to examine gestural expression in late medieval theatre, but lots of indications exist about the similar use of gestures in drama. See Davidson 2001, 96-102.

197

CHAPTER 5

low origin, bad moral character, aggressiveness, cruelty or defective rational thinking.226 Sometimes it has been suggested that a hangman’s gestures and postures had no symbolical value or negative meaning but that they were only neutral depictions concerning the reality of the hangman’s work and its techniques. In my opinion there is usually so much exaggeration in these depictions that there is no reason to doubt their crucial negative symbolical function. It is obvious that some aspect of reality is there, in some form,227 but there are also such nuances and features that point in another direction and suggest that they served as important tools in negative framing. Christiane Raynaud has written on the depiction of the hangman’s feet, that their position was not usually a significant feature.228 If one examines a wider source material than Raynaud has studied (I mean here not only illuminated historical texts and chronicles but also religious picture materials), one notices that the positions of the feet and legs are very varied. It can also be seen that a typical feature is complexity and exaggeration, as mentioned above. If one considers, for example, those pictures where the hangman has placed his foot or knee on the victim he is about to decapitate,229 it is quite clear that this gesture is not a reference to everyday practices but rather a motif that served to underline the unbalanced power relations between the hangman and his victim and referred to the idea of brutality. It seems quite evident to me that the very complex postures of the legs typical of hangmen had an important stigmatic value for people in the past. François Garnier has also stressed the general negative significance of disordered or excessive movements of the feet and legs in visual material and the late medieval imagery.230 It must be borne in mind that in conduct books, for example, it was also usual to pay attention to legs and feet, to their right and wrong kind of movements. Writers stressed, among others, that a honourable and virtuous person should never cross his legs when standing. One should stand so that the legs are close each other and so that the balance is on

226 The gestural expression typical of the hangman also reminds one about numerous war scenes depicted in art. But one must bear in mind that in these contexts a clear distinction was made between different agents of violence, chivalry, foot-soldiers, mercenaries, etc. Violent gestures could point to severity and reason or, alternatively, in quite the opposite direction, cruelty and sin. Several habit and body-related signs helped the medieval spectator to identify the different categories of fighters, the virtuous and the lowly. See also sections 2.2 and 7.1. 227 Lionello Puppi has stressed the important impact of public executions on the visual arts. Puppi 1991, 8, 59. It is plain that the late medieval iconography of the hangman owes a lot to the public punitive spectacles of everyday life and to the observations that artists had made of them concerning the hangman’s working and gestures. Artists could not seek inspiration only from their own imagination (or other’s works) but they also employed elements that were familiar from the punitive spectacles of everyday life to make their pictures more persuasive. 228 Raynaud 1990, 163. Elsewhere, Raynaud writes, ‘Les gestes du bourreau, comme le materiel, peuvent faire l’object dans les images de descriptions précises, sinon fidèles et exactes.’ Raynaud 2002, 307. The problem is to know, which part in these images reflected the reality and which did not. 229 See Bréviaire de Charles V. BN ms. lat. 1052, fols 359r, 516r. 230 Garnier 1982, 230. ‘En dehors le danse, dont les formes sont d’ailleurs réglées, les mouvements qui s’écartent, même légèrement, du comportement utilitaire apparaissent comme excentriques, drôles ou choquants. Dans l’imaginaire médiéval, les anomalies et les excès correspondent à un désordre signifiant, ils traduisent un mal, physique et moral.’

198

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

both legs.231 The hangman, however, was depicted in miniatures and paintings with crossed legs or standing so that the weight of his body rests on the one foot.232 Naturally, a powerfully labouring and moving human body was a common topic in late medieval iconography.233 Even if the physical labour was now viewed more positively than during the first part of the Middle Ages234, this theme could still have pejorative or negative connotations: it was associated with a low or subordinate status (peasants, manual workers, jesters)235 or with violent confrontation (soldiers, hunters,236 murderers). It could have a neutral or positive meaning in some contexts, such as depictions of working monks, as a sign of humility, chastity and charity.237 It must be repeated and underlined that the hangman’s gestural depiction is often in sharp contrast with that of the other individuals in the same picture. In religious art, a saintly victim’s gestures are usually controlled. Sometimes malevolent spectators make offensive or vulgar gestures. Especially in secular art, the authorities and the spectators of a punitive ceremony are depicted as very rigid and static compared to the hangman who is active, expansive and dynamic. This method is actually very similar to the ‘stripe principle’, for example, which was discussed in section 4.1. The purpose and message is the same: On the one side there is harmony, oneness and stability and, on the other, there is chaos, diversity and mobility. Hangmen’s postures did not only contrast strongly with those typical of pious and honourable persons but at the same time they identified executioners with other low, marginal, despised or evil figures.238 It is important to remember that medieval spectators, at least the learned ones, were well aware of what moralists taught about these matters: the writers of 231 See, for example, Monita paedagogica (1522) in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 161; Erasmus, De Civilitate morum puerilium, [3841]. Peter Burke writes that, at the beginning of the early modern period, crossed legs had many meanings. In some contexts they were understood as a reference to power but in many other connections as a mark of lack of dignity. Burke reminds us that gestures were understood as gender-specific. The range of gestures suitable for women was far more restricted that that of men, for example, in renaissance portraits. Burke 1997, 65, 69, 71. 232 See the examples at the beginning of the section. 233 Jean-Claude Schmitt has said that ‘le Moyen Age est le berceau de notre conception technique des gestes du travail’. In the thirteenth century religious iconography succeeded in depicting work in an exact and objective way: working techniques, instruments, and bodily movements. Schmitt 1990, 27, 251. 234 See Le Goff 2003a, 195-6; Le Goff 2003b, 69-74. 235 See BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 1r; BN ms. fr. 6448, fol. LX IIIv; BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 4r A; BN ms. lat. 920, fol. 298r B. 236 I refer, here, especially to ordinary, professional hunters and not the aristocratic ones. The hunter belonged to the forest, which appeared, at the same time, as fascinating (mysterious) and dangerous realm to medieval people. Pastoureau 2004, 88-9. In the meat-devouring late Middle Ages, some clerics and moralists were quite concerned with cruel aspects of the hunt. In particular, they attacked the highly ritualised ceremonies of nobles, the hunt of red deer being their favourite sport. See for example Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 78-80. Thomas More (1478–1535), friend of Erasmus, also condemned the hunting and slaughtering of game animals in his Utopia published in 1516. More, Utopia, 95. 237 Bernard Chevalier has observed that a deep ambiguity was typical of medieval Christian culture ‘qui fait du travail manuel une tâche ’servile’ interdite le dimanche et une œuvre pie imposée aux moines: elle tient aussi à d’obscurs tabous qui pèsent sur tout qui touche aux mystères de la vie et de la mort. De ce fait, le bourreau est infâme, la prostitue aussi, mais infâme également plus ou moins le boucher et à coups sûr l’écorcheur qui versent le sang et travaillent dans la sanie.’ Chevalier 1982, 85-6. In late medieval towns such categories who did not work with their hands (for example, merchants) constantly tried to distinguish themselves from those who did: vilains, besoigneors et gens meschaniques. Pastoureau 2004, 187. 238 On the wide and threatening postures of devils, see for example Voragine, Legende Dorée. BN ms. fr. 6448, fols LIIIv, LX IIIv; Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 123r B.

199

CHAPTER 5

conduct books repeated over and over again that the gestures and postures of honourable and virtuous persons were always modest, balanced and controlled. The anonymous writer of Le Menagier de Paris from the end of the fourteenth century, for example, associates the unpleasant manner of walking and ugly bodily postures with drinkers, madmen and dishonourable persons.239 To sum up the first part of this section, it must be re-stressed that the depictions of the hangman’s gestures were not intended to be realistic and neutral descriptions of actual life and the demands of his occupation. One can perhaps perceive some glimpses of reality, but more importantly, what one sees is past notions and opinions related to ‘bad gestures’, examples of the wrong kind of gestural expression, namely excessive and unrestrained. The motif of exaggeration, typical of depictions of the hangman’s gestures served as an anti-model and as references to ideas of low status and bad morals, aggressiveness and cruelty, bestiality and mental disorders. As Hervé Martin has noted, the historian can try to apply a realistic reading to the examination of the details of late medieval pictures, such as gestures. At the same time one should never ignore the fact that medieval images are always full of symbolical meanings.240 The hangman’s body is most often depicted working. In those cases where he is motionless, there are often one or several other deprecatory body-related signs: if he stands, the position is unbalanced, if he sits (very seldom) there is usually some other negative additional motif or supplementary attribute.241 Of course, there exist some counter-examples about hangmen who carry out their duties quite calmly. From the field of secular art, a good example is offered by Gerard David’s diptych the Judgment of Cambyses.242 The master hangman and his assistants appear as quite composed. One could argue that these men perform the skinning operation (– not a common form of penalty in the late medieval period) with the neutral attitude expected of skilled professionals. However, on closer examination one can notice several body-related signs with unfavourable connotations such as the thin red hair and beard (‘evil’) of the master hangman, the reddish face of his chief assistant (‘vice’), a knife in the mouth of a lesser assistant (‘cruelty’), pimples on these men’s faces (‘depravity’), the dirty nails of one assistant (‘boorishness’), etc. Also, their patient, Sisamnes, the deceitful judge, bears telling signs in his appearance (missing teeth, open twisted mouth, pimple on his face, etc.). David chose to depict the hangmen as physically composed but provided them with several other details that

239 Le Menagier de Paris, 9. 240 Martin 1996, 79-80. Peter Burke has also noted that we can use art as a source in the examination of gestures but that it is very difficult to estimate the distance between depicted gestures and their counterparts in everyday reality. Burke 1997, 63. For the documentary relevance of pictorial materials, see also Schmitt 2003, 21. 241 In Pedro Perrugete’s painting we can spot a hangman sitting on steps of a scaffold. He is leaning his head on his hands. Perrugete, Autodafé. C. 1495. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Picture published in Zuffi (ed.) 2000, 205. As Michael Baxandal has observed, this posture referred to melancholy in the language of late medieval iconography. Baxandal 1972, 61. 242 David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. The same theme also appears in some illuminated historical texts, see for example Colonna, Mare historiarum. C. 1455. Miniatures by Colin d’Amiens. BN ms. lat. 4915, fol. 62r. In these pictures the executioner’s gestures and postures are, however, less composed and controlled.

200

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

transmitted the message about the hangman’s place in the hierarchy of agents of law and his imperfect moral character.243 I have considered it necessary to dedicate a special part of this section to those gestures typical of the hangman’s visual depiction that can be classified as vulgar or obscene and that have nothing to do with the essential techniques of the executioner’s work. Examples of this category of gestures are more and more numerous in the pictorial material, especially in religious images, produced towards the end of the Middle Ages. They are quite common in depictions of Christ’s Passion. A good example is provided by a miniature in the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry. One of the ugly executioners of Christ touches his posterior (dressed in parti-trousers).244 A typical vulgar gesture is also sticking out one’s tongue or spitting.245 In medieval culture the gesture of touching one’s posterior (or turning one’s back and showing off an uncovered posterior) was understood to be a very serious insult. It manifested scorn, rejection and disrespect. This view explains why formal etiquette demanded that in the presence of highly ranked persons, inferior individuals should never turn their back to them and if necessary, they should move backwards, to avoid insulting their superiors.246 Showing, or touching the posterior also referred to the act of breaking wind, which was, for its part, the height of disrespect and indecency in medieval thinking. In the language of iconography this gesture was a reference to a bad moral character, mental disorder and evil.247 Artists often depicted several vulgar and insulting gestures in one and the same work. Sticking out one’s tongue was also one of these. It was considered an extremely grotesque and bawdy gesture.248 Erasmus wrote in his conduct book that mocking others with a stuck-out tongue is the habit of fools.249 According to some scholars, the sexual connotation of this gesture is evident: the protruding tongue imitated the phallus.250 It is possible that this gesture also referred to spitting, which was a common gesture in fifteenth-century religious drama, especially in the scenes of Christ’s mocking and torturing. In numerous mystery plays, the executioners spit on their victim between insults and blows.251 One encounters spitting scenes not only in French pieces but also in English mystery plays.252 It was at the same period that this feature became common in the iconography of the Passion in Northern European art.253 The gesture of spitting or sticking out one’s tongue identified exe243 See also sections 2.3 and 4.4. 244 BN ms. lat. 18104, fol. 82r. 245 A hangman shows the point of his tongue in Quentin Metsys’ work but does not show it to the victim. Metsys, Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. 1508–1511. Left-hand panel of the Triptych of the Ebenists’ Guild. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. See also Scenes from the Passion of Christ. C. 1470, Haarlem (?). Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. Picture published in Koers 2000, 25. 246 Mellinkoff I 1993, 199, 205. 247 On a demon breaking wind, see for example Bosch, The Last Judgment. Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Picture published in Linfert s.a., 44. 248 Garnier 1982, 136-7; Raynaud 1990, 59. 249 Erasmus, De Civilitate morum puerilium, [26]. ‘Porrecta lingua deridere quenquam, scurrile est.’ 250 Mellinkoff I 1993, 198-9. 251 La passion d’Auvergne, 212-3; Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 272, 300; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 325; See also Le livre de la passion, 36 252 See for example The N-Town Play. Cotton MS Vespasian D.8., I, 302-3. See also Davidson 2001, 96-7. 253 Mellinkoff I 1993, 198-9. Examples of this gesture already exist from the high Middle Ages.

201

CHAPTER 5

cutioners with other negative individuals such as fools, Jews254 and demons of whom this attribute is particularly typical in pictorial material.255 It is obvious that various vulgar gestures had sexual or obscene significance and that they were understood as being serious insults, which explains why they were so popular in depictions of the hangman’s gestural expression, particularly in late medieval religious art and drama. Painters, illuminators and playwrights used them to signal the depravity of executioners of martyrs and of other low or evil figures, and in the deeper (allegorical) level of signification, of all humankind. Besides these categories, typical vulgar gestures included crossed fingers, the thumb put into the mouth, and the so-called figue, or showing the point of the thumb between the index and middle finger and the palm turned downwards.256 The figue or mano fica had already been a common insult in antiquity.257 Scholars have disagreed on the significance of this gesture: some think that it refers to coitus, whilst others are convinced that it points to a feminine erection.258 Inserting the thumb into the mouth, stretching the mouth wide open with two hands and sticking out the tongue had a sexual connotation, too,259 whilst the down-turned palm was a strong sign of contempt.260 As Jean-Claude Schmitt has noted, ordinary people could very easily recognise these vulgar signs in the pictures they saw in church, because these gestures referred not only to the iconographical conventions of the time but also to popular practices of mocking.261 These kinds of bawdy and indecent gestures belonged closely to the carnival traditions of medieval popular culture. As stated by Jacques Heers, it was a usual feature of carnival processions that the participants made vulgar gestures and shouted obscenities in order to make spectators laugh.262 It has been suggested that vulgar gestures had a double function in the culture of the Middle Ages: they were understood as insults but at the same time they could be used as protection, too, for example, when depicted in the statuary of churches. The protective power of vulgar gestures would have arisen from their ancient origins: they were remainders of pagan fertility cults that had succeeded in taking root in Christian society because of their important symbolical power.263 I would like to observe, however, that it is quite evident that in everyday life people commonly used these gestures to defy others, that is, as insults, instead of protecting themselves. In addition, usual reactions to different insulting gestures seem to have been very strong: they often provoked violent conflicts between men.264 254 See for example BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 9r marg. 255 Grandes Heures de Rohan. BN ms. lat. 9471, fols 47v, 124r, 125r, 151v. See also Mellinkoff I 1993, 202. On spitting and mocking gargoyles, see Rebold Benton 1992, 54. 256 Schmitt 1990, 260. In Dante’s Hell a thief named Vanni Fucci makes the gesture of figue with his two hands towards heaven. Dante, La Divina Commedia, 205. See also Van Heemskerk, Jesus Crowned with Thorns. C. 1550. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. 257 Schmitt 1990, 260. 258 Mellinkoff I 1993, 199. 259 Ibid., 199. The slapping of fist or palm with other hand had a licentious meaning, for example, in Montaillou. Le Roy Ladurie 1982, 207. 260 Schmitt 1990, 260. 261 Ibid., 260. 262 Heers 1997, 184, 187. 263 Mellinkoff I 1993, 197-8. 264 See for example Gauvard 1993, 1116.

202

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

In sum, various vulgar gestures had an important place and function in late medieval religious art. They are more common in French, Flemish, and German art than in Italian art, even if in Italy, too, vulgar gestures were, of course, usual in day-to-day life. In the depiction of gestures, just as in the systems of gestures, there were geographical differences in the later Middle Ages. As Peter Burke has shown, systems varied between countries and regions. France, for example, was divided into a northern and southern style of gestural expression.265 Vulgar and obscene gestures had already been depicted in negative contexts in the visual arts in the thirteenth century.266 Their multiplication towards the end of the Middle Ages was probably, in some way, connected with their appearance in drama: sticking out one’s tongue, spitting, touching the posterior and breaking wind were usual features in fifteenth-century mystery plays. In La passion d’Auvergne Alexander commands the executioners to spit on the face of Christ and show him their genitals. Then the executioners bleat mockingly at their victim, show him their posteriors and break wind on him.267 It must be noticed that the Bible briefly mentions spitting on Christ, but not these other vulgar gestures.268 Later times have had difficulties in understanding why, in the first place, the people of the past wanted to depict vulgar gestures in their religious art and literature. Important points, which have often been omitted in the discussion of this topic, are the different standard of shame in late medieval culture and the stigmatising function of these gestures. Medieval people – the low as well as the learned – could speak much more openly about various bodily functions than modern people can. As Norbert Elias has remarked, such topics as spitting and breaking wind were discussed fairly openly, for example, in conduct books.269 Besides the fact that these topics could be treated more openly, people did not try to hide them as carefully in their everyday life from other people’s eyes as it is common in our modern world.270 Accordingly, the presence of these elements in art and in literature did not appear to be quite so outrageous and shocking to late medieval people as they may perhaps do to some of us today. The different standard of shame in medieval culture does not mean, however, that people were immune to certain vulgar gestures when these were used as insults in everyday relations. On the contrary, people often reacted strongly. In religious art and drama the important function of vulgar and obscene gestures was 265 Burke 1997, 67-8, 75. 266 Mellinkoff I 1993, 197-8, 200-1. On obscene figures and scenes in margins of late medieval manuscripts, see Wirth 2003, 277-300. Wirth observes that such images appeared in illuminated manuscripts in the first part of the thirteenth century and were most usual in psalters and books of hours. He thinks that their essential function was to provoke laughter. See also Schmitt 2002, 229-361. 267 La passion d’Auvergne, 212-3. On spitting executioners, see also Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 272, 300; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 325; Le livre de la passion, 36. On the level of gestural expression it was particularly this excessive immoderation that associated hangmen with demons in the late medieval theatre. Charles Mazouer has written that the gestural expression of demons (jeu physique des diables) was in late medieval religious drama ‘marqué par une sorte de violence et de frénésie gestuelles et verbales.’ See Mazouer 1998, 187-8. See also section 6.3. 268 Mt 27.30; Mc 15.19. 269 See Erasmus, De Civilitate morum puerilium. 270 Elias I 1983, 58, 130-5, 153-7, 188.

203

CHAPTER 5

to stigmatise evil persons and bad behaviour in general. The repeated and multiple depiction of vulgar gestures and postures in religious art and literature expressed the growing demand for their wider condemnation and avoidance. The message was directed to large audiences as well as to the divine. During this time, the thorough religious frame of mind was very attentive to all sinful acts that could offend the Almighty. Not only many moralists and preachers but also numerous quite ordinary persons had the impression that all kinds of depravity were gaining more ground in their world. So there was an augmented need to react against this alarming development. 5.4 Size, View and Location The dimensional aspects of executioners’ bodies were also meaningful for medieval artists and their audiences. Small size was a traditional means to signal inferior status and negative qualities in iconography. Therefore, it is not surprising that we encounter small executioners in pictorial sources. A fine example is provided by a miniature (in the lower margin) depicting the executing of Good Justice in the Bréviaire de Charles V. Jean Le Noir has portrayed a hangman adjusting the ladder of the gallows. Sergeants accompany the convict. The hangman is much smaller than the other figures. One can observe several signs in his figure that served to signal his low status as well as imperfect moral character (balding head, beard, short dress, profile view, etc.) In the right corner we can see the Lady Justice holding a balance in her right hand.271 In an illuminated fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicle the executioner of Robert Trésilian is depicted as being somewhat smaller than the persons on the right-hand side, probably the notorious uncles.272 Needless to say, the artists did not mean to depict the hangman as a child273 or to refer to innate dwarfism. At the same time the executioner is, nonetheless, disproportionately small when compared with other personages in the same picture, which strikes the modern spectator’s eye. For a medieval nobleman or woman who leafed through his or her book of hours or a chronicle manuscript, this feature did not appear as either disturbing or peculiar. Any lesser person would also have grasped its message instantly. Small size was a usual technique for signalling inferiority and reprehension in iconography.274 This method had been already employed in the art of the high

271 BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 252v marg. 272 BN ms. fr. 2645, fol. IIc XXX VIIIv. For the small size of the hangman see also Colonna, Mare historiarum. C. 1455. BN ms. lat. 4915, fol. 54v. 273 In Gerard David’s painting, one can see four adult hangmen and an apprentice who is only a boy. David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. Left hand panel of the justice diptych for the Council Chamber of Bruges Town Hall. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. 274 Besides the different size, artists could manifest the hangman’s relation to authority, who had the real responsibility and initiative, by means of gestures and composition. A good example is a miniature in the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V depicting the execution of King Peter the Cruel in 1396: the sergeant’s staff touches the hand of a royal authority and the axe of executioner at the same time. BN ms. fr. 2813, fol. 447r.

204

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

Middle Ages.275 It seems evident, as Christine Raynaud has observed, that even if the signalling of an individual’s place in social hierarchy was an important function of size, this attribute could also be used to define the moral character of persons.276 Medieval artists often marked the hangman as hierarchically inferior and morally suspect or depraved by depicting him as being much smaller than other individuals in the same picture. Important and highly ranked persons were depicted as larger in size than other figures. Raynaud has suggested that the hangman’s small size, compared to that of the convict, expressed the artist’s negative opinion about the executioner and sometimes also about the sentence, emphasising its injustice.277 Christiane Raynaud has examined the change in the hangman’s size in illuminated historical texts: a clear change is visible from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. The executioner is usually larger than his victim in the thirteenth century,278 whilst in the fourteenth and particularly in the fifteenth century, the hangman is often smaller than the convict.279 According to Raynaud, the hangman is depicted as larger than the convict in those cases where the illuminator considered the sentence as legitimate, and smaller than the convict in cases where the convict is noble, or when the artist has thought that there had been a judicial mistake or that the execution (sentence) was arbitrary. However, in cases where the hangman is smaller than the convict, the authority is always larger than the convict.280 Christiane Raynaud puts the turning point in the size of the hangman in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. For some reason she does not discuss the reasons behind this interesting change but only refers briefly and imprecisely to the ‘tragic events’ of the period.281 One may suppose that she alludes to wars, riots and other plagues. In my view, it is possible that this change pointed both to the increasing sensitivity towards the penalty of death and punishments of mutilation and to augmented repulsion towards professional hangmen. It has been suggested that during this period, growing numbers, and especially the bourgeois of the towns, considered legal violence, or the administration of justice in general, as arbitrary, harsh, unjust and inefficient. Chroniclers often condemned abuses. However, at the same time they complained about the inefficiency of the authorities and too mild sentences. Robert Muchembled has observed that the general discontent became particularly strong during the second half of the fifteenth century.282 This general 275 The psalter of Saint Louis (c. 1230) provides a fine example: in one miniature we can see a hangman nailing the feet of Christ. The hangman is much smaller than other personages in the same picture. The Crucifixion and Decent from the Cross between Ecclesia and Synagoque. BN Arsénal ms. 1186, fol. 24r. 276 In Raynaud’s material the hangman in the thirteenth century is larger than the convict in cases where this is a woman or a traitor but smaller when the victim is a king, queen or saint. In fourteenth-century material the situation is quite similar. When the hangman is depicted as being smaller than his victim, in 54 per cent of the cases this is a noble person and in 46 per cent of the cases a saint. Raynaud 1990, 157. Thus, large size signalled high status or high moral character. 277 Ibid., 157. 278 In Christiane Raynaud’s source material the executioner is in 60 per cent of the cases larger than the patient, and in 40 per cent of the cases smaller in the thirteenth century. Ibid., 156. 279 In the fourteenth century the hangman is in 53 per cent of the cases smaller, in 30 per cent of the cases larger, and in 16 per cent of the cases, of the same size as the convict. In the fifteenth century the hangman is in 60 per cent of cases smaller than the convict, in 27 per cent of the cases larger and in 13 per cent of the cases of the same size as the patient. Ibid., 156. 280 Ibid., 157. 281 Ibid., 156. ‘L’explication tient sans doute aux événements tragiques qui secouent l’Europe.’ 282 Muchembled 1992, 65. See also section 2.2.

205

CHAPTER 5

climate may have reflected upon attitudes toward agents of criminal justice, professional hangmen. I have used a wider selection of pictorial material in the present study than Christiane Raynaud has in hers: besides miniatures in illuminated historical texts I include also other products of the visual arts, both religious and secular. My general impression is that in the fifteenth century, artists no longer used small size as a hangman’s attribute in a systematic way but favoured other means of stigmatisation, particularly in panel paintings. The reason for this change was linked to major developments and trends in the field of pictorial expression, i.e. the growing emphasis upon perspective and ‘right’ dimensions. Artists tried to depict space in a new, more realistic way and thus all individuals and objects had to be portrayed in accordance with the general spatial rules of the picture. As Erwin Panofsky has put it, the art historical mission of the early and high Middle Ages had been to create a true spatial unity by way of smashing the existing one, that is, by consolidating and isolating objects which where once bound by corporeal and gestural as well as spatial and perspectival ties. Between 1350 and 1500 the central perspective, with its infinitely extended space centred in an arbitrarily assumed vanishing point, superseded the traditional medieval view of space. This evolution was connected with advances in natural philosophy and abandonment of the Aristotelian worldview.283 It should be noted, nonetheless, that even if realistic aspirations became more prominent during the period of the later Middle Ages on some levels of artistic expression, such as spatial ties, the symbolical level was still very essential, for example, in such elements as colour or fabric. As to the one central aspect of an individual’s size, namely the weight, it seems that this feature was not particularly important to late medieval artists. We do not often meet extremely obese hangmen in French or Flemish pictorial material.284 The same is true of devils and numerous other mean or evil individuals. One evident explanation for this is that in the Middle Ages obesity was not such a crucial problem as it is in many parts of our modern ‘developed’ world. Extreme thinness, on the other hand, was an ambiguous feature. It could point to penury, sin and death. But sometimes the thinness of bodily members could appear as an attribute of a severely tortured saint or Christ. Whilst most executioners are depicted as normal or fit, some appear relatively slim in visual sources. But generally, they do not differ with respect of their bodily weight from other persons in the same picture. In late medieval pictorial art, the angle of depiction (profile, three-quarter, dorsal, or frontal view) was one important element that could signal to spectators in what light they were supposed to regard various individuals in pictures. The hangman is often depicted from a ‘bad’, unfavourable angle. The profile view is typical of the exe283 Panofsky 1997, 47-8, 65. Martens suggests that Petrus Christus may have learned about the Italian arttheoretical principle of linear perspective via contacts with a group of pre-humanists in fifteenth-century Bruges. Martens 1999, 387. 284 In Jan Provoost’s painting one can see an executioner who is dressed in a hose with cutting ornaments. (Provoost, Execution of St Catherine. Right-hand panel of a triptych. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Provoost was born in Bergen in 1465. He worked in Bruges from 1494 on, and died there in 1529.) The hangman is relatively well-built but not truly obese like the executioner dressed in bright yellow hose in the Crowning with Thorns by an anonymous artist of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s school. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille.

206

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

cutioner. Jean Le Noir often favoured this view, for example, in the abundantly illuminated Bréviare de Charles V.285 In the Petites Heures Le Noir depicts the two flagellators of Christ in profile.286 The hangman on the right-hand side is depicted in the profile position from top to toe. His head is partly hidden by his uplifted arms but one can see his long hooked nose and sharp chin. As this example demonstrates, the profile view favoured, in a particular way, the depiction of sharp and angular facial features. Christiane Raynaud has also observed that in the illuminated manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth-century historical texts, the profile view is a very typical trait of the hangman.287 I agree with Raynaud that profile portrayal frequently had a very negative meaning. In late medieval pictorial material, various evil individuals such as murderers and infidels are often depicted in a profile position, whilst the good and the pious are not portrayed from this angle. Naturally, this was only a kind of general rule and painters and illuminators did not follow it slavishly. Besides the profile position, artists depicted the hangman from the dorsal view. In a fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s chronicle one repeatedly encounters the hangman depicted from the back (¾ dorsal). Good examples are the executioner of Olivier de Clisson,288 the executioner of Jean Bétisac, treasurer of the Duke of Berry,289 the executioner of Alain and Pierre Roux,290 and the executioner of Aimerigot Marcel.291 As to the first example, related to a chapter entitled Comment le roy de France fist decapiter le sire de Clisson & plusieurs aultres chevaliers de Bretaigne & de Normandie, the hangman’s outfit does not differ significantly from that of other figures in the same picture but he is the only person depicted from the back. The text itself does not give us any details or opinion about this execution. However, we know that Jean Froissart disapproved of this sentence and was convinced that the Queen Joan of Burgundy (‘trop crueuse femme’) was behind these condemnations. In fact, several other contemporaries agreed with Froissart’s views.292 In regard with the second example (D’une accusation faite au roy sur un nomme Betisac, tresorier au duc de Berry), the picture reflects the more or less negative evaluation by the chronicler: 285 BN ms. lat. 1052, passim. 286 BN ms. lat. 18104, fol. 83v. 287 Raynaud 1990, 326. In Raynaud’s source material 36 per cent of the executioners are depicted from a profile view. Raynaud notes that the profile position is, in a general way, less common for the authorities. Sometimes it stresses the mediocrity of the social position of an individual. In Raynaud’s material the most common view after the profile is the ¾ profile. Raynaud suggests that this position had a relatively neutral significance; the illuminator does not condemn the executioner. In some cases the ¾ profile would stress the responsibility of the authority (transferring the responsibility) when the execution was judged legitimate. In these cases the convict’s guilt and sinfulness was so great in the eyes of the artist that it surpasses the sinfulness of the hangman, who was only doing his job. Raynaud 1990, 161. On the profile view as a sign of inferiority in late medieval pictorial material, see also Garnier 1982, 77, 125. 288 BN ms. fr. 2643, fol. VI xx VIr. 289 BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 26v. 290 Ibid., 40v. 291 Ibid., fol. 74r. About Aimerigot Marcel Froissart says that ‘il fut iugiez a morir honteusement comme traitre a la couronne de France’ and then describes the ceremony with humiliating details such as pilorisation and cutting off his four members. The text does not mention the instrument employed by the executioner but the miniature shows an axe, an instrument reserved for non-noble rebels and traitors. See also BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 374r. 292 Jean le Bel did not believe that de Clisson was a traitor and writes, ‘Ce fut grant dommaige et pitie, s’il en estoit sans coulpe’. Viard and Déprez observe in a footnote that de Clisson had, in fact, moved from the Blois’ side to the Montfort’s camp. Chronique de Jean le Bel, II, 21-2.

207

CHAPTER 5

Froissart describes Bétisac’s end as pitiable, the King issued a hard sentence to satisfy the demands of the revengeful common people.293 The latter two depicting the executions of traitors are examples of the severe (even if righteous) justice of the King of France. The text hints that Froissart considered these sentences just.294 But the artists who painted these pictures may have tried to express their or their client’s less favourable opinion, which would explain the choice of angle.295 Many fine examples of the dorsal method can be found in religious paintings that could be contemplated by quite ordinary people in churches. I can mention here Hans Memling’s work on the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, painted between 1474–1479 for the Hospital of Saint John in Bruges. A hangman dressed in a white short jacket, black hose and yellow shoes lifts his victim’s head on to a plate. He has turned his back to us so that we can only see his right cheek.296 Turning the back adds a threatening impression to this personage. Another fine example is Rogier van der Weyden’s painting, also depicting the decapitation of John the Baptist. The hangman is portrayed in the dorsal position and the artist has marked him with an important number of negative body-related signs: a bolding head, rolled sleeves, undressed jacket hanging from the waist, yellow and red hose that is rolled down, exposed upper legs, etc.297 The evident explanation for this strong need for stigmatisation is that in the Middle Ages, John the Baptist was considered the most important martyr after Christ. The back-view position was an attribute that particularly powerfully alluded to inferiority, darkness of the soul and evil actions in medieval iconography. Artists never used the dorsal (full or ¾) angle as a positive sign in their works. Christiane Raynaud has observed that dorsal portrayal became more common in secular manuscript illustrations in the fifteenth century.298 Raynaud proposes that this phenomenon was linked to a weakening of the stigmatising effect of the profileview, which had become too common. For this reason artists would have started to favour complicated dorsal (or even frontal) depictions.299 It should be noted, however, that the hangman is also depicted from the back in religious paintings and not only in miniature material. The central factors that explain the use of the dorsal view and its growing importance in the depiction of the hangman, as well as other low and evil figures, 293 Froissart describes the convicts despair, ‘Il crioit & disoit duc de Berri, duc de Berri, on me fait tort.’ And continues, ‘D’ainsy fut Betisach pendus et ars & le povoit le roy de France veyoir de la chambre se il voyloyt. A celle povre fin vint Betisach ainsy fut vengiez le peuple de lui. Car au voir dire il leur avoit fait moult d’extorcyons & grans dommaiges depuis qu’il eut en gouvernement les marches de la Languedoch.’ BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 30r. 294 Froissart shortly describes the punishment ritual and ends his report by saying: ‘Ainsi finirent Alain Roux & Pierre Roux et perdirent les vie honteusement & le fort chastel Mont Ventadour’. BN ms. fr. 2646, fol. 42r. 295 The patron of this manuscript was Louis de Gruuthuse, miniatures were made by Loyset Liédet (mss fr. 26434) and his collaborators (ms. fr. 2645 by an anonymous master, and ms. fr. 2646 by Anthony of Burgundy). 296 Memling, Martyrdom of John the Baptist. 1474–1479. Left wing of the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. Memling Museum, Bruges. 297 Van der Weyden, Martyrdom of St John. C. 1454. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. Staatliche MuseenPreussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Picture published in Toman (ed.) 1999, 414. 298 In Raynaud’s material in 9 per cent of the cases the artist has used the dorsal stance as the hangman’s attribute. Raynaud writes that in the fifteenth century this feature replaced some other negative signs and emphasised the artist’s negative opinion about the hangman and the sentence in question. Raynaud 1990, 162. 299 Ibid., 162.

208

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

are the larger context of gestural expression and the significance of the gesture of turning one’s back on someone and the ‘magical’ features or powers of pictures in medieval culture. A hangman who had turned his back on the spectators ‘insulted’ them at the same time. As explained above, turning one’s back on someone was considered to be a very insulting gesture in medieval culture. It was not only an insult but also a warning sign that every spectator could instantly recognise and interpret as a reference to a depraved, dangerous and evil person. Ruth Mellinkoff, among others, has underlined that the portrayal of an individual from the back served to influence in a negative way contact with the spectators. It reduced or hindered the possibility that any feelings of admiration, interest or adoration could be attached to the individual depicted.300 So, the important function of the ‘dorsal method’ was, in some cases, to protect spectators. As stressed earlier, in the Middle Ages, pictures, and especially those depicting sacred themes and saintly figures, were thought to have supernatural powers. It was believed that statues and icons could behave like living creatures, to bleed, to punish insults, etc. The borderline between a visual depiction and of its prototype, between a picture of a saint and the saint himself, was fairly blurred.301 This explains why it was so important to depict saintly figures totally and frontally: this angle served to make communication with other world, between secular and sacred realities, easier. Powerful evil figures had to be portrayed partly and dorsally, in order to hinder communication and possible malefic influences.302 Even if a hangman was a much less dangerous and less powerful figure than the Devil, for example, it was reasonable – safer – to depict him in profile or from the back. These angles protected spectators not only from the hangman’s bad example but also from his possible evil influence, no matter how small. It is quite understandable that frontal portrayal is therefore clearly more unusual to the hangman in late medieval visual material than the profile or dorsal view.303 The frontal position was a special privilege for figures at the very top of the hierarchy, such as God and his saints, the king of France, and the prince of Darkness, Lucifer. One sometimes finds, nonetheless, frontal views of the hangman in pictorial material. In a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Rommans de Titus Livius the illuminator most often depicted the hangman from the frontal view. It is important to note, however, that the hangman’s posture is always unbalanced in this manuscript. So, there is always a negative body-related extra motif added to ensure 300 Mellinkoff I 1993, 211-2. 301 In the examination of the visual portrayal of the hangman one should take into consideration that in a general way pictures did not have the same kind of object quality as in our modern culture, as already explained in section 2.3. Religious pictures especially served as ritual instruments, which made communication with the other world possible. See for example Davidson 1986, 3; Martin 1996, 101; Sot, Guerreau-Jalabert & Boudet 1997, 173; Davidson 2002, 255. 302 Dorsal depiction is a feature unknown, for example, in Byzantine art in the classical period. Here, profile depiction was exclusively reserved for evil figures such as Satan and Judas. As stated by Ruth Mellinkoff, one reason for this was that profile portrayal was believed to prevent the bad influences of evil figures on spectators. In addition, it was also believed that a saintly figure could not receive any expressions of respect unless depicted frontally or ¾ frontally. In the late medieval art of Western Europe, non-frontal stances often had similar connotations. Dorsal and profile stances were usually reserved for negative figures. Mellinkoff I 1993, 211-2. On differences between Byzantine and West European art of the Middle Ages, see also Schmitt 2003, 42-4. 303 In Christiane Raynaud’s material it appears only in 3 per cent of the cases. Raynaud 1990, 162.

209

CHAPTER 5

that spectators grasp the message correctly and identify the portrayed figure as low and depraved. A good example is a miniature depicting the execution of Turnus by drowning. One of the two executioners is depicted from the front but at the same time bending forwards so that his body seems shapeless and his head seems to be situated in the middle of his body.304 In a miniature depicting the story of Virginia and judge Appius, the executioner is also represented from the front, but his head is bent to the left.305 The executioner of Marcus Manlius has been portrayed frontally but his posture is complex and unbalanced: the weight of the body rests on the left foot and his right shoulder hides the lower part of his face.306 In a miniature depicting the execution of Themistus and Andranorus and their families and allies, the hangman is portrayed in the frontal position but the upper part of his body is twisted to the left and he stands on his right foot.307 All these miniatures depicted notorious judgments in the distant past, sentences considered either arbitrary or cruel, which unavoidably reflected on the hangman’s portrayal. The method of ‘frontal + unbalanced’ was also used in secular painting. A fine example is Dirk Bouts’ Judgment of Emperor Otho on the miscarriage of justice. The hangman’s body is depicted frontally but the weight of the body is on the right leg and the upper part of the body is slightly bent to the left.308 When late medieval painters and illuminators decided (or were told) to depict the hangman from a frontal view, they added one or several negative body-related additional motifs, such as the complexity of posture and imbalance, to stress their negative message. Bouts has also employed in his painting the motif of the turned head: the hangman shows the right profile of his face to the spectators. According to Christiane Raynaud, the illuminators of secular manuscripts used a profile depiction of the hangman’s head to strengthen the unfavourable message. This feature was important because of the essential symbolical value of the head as a part of the human body. A profile depiction of the head referred to inferior status and bad character.309 Of course, in all these examples from diverse sources several other habitual techniques were employed to reinforce and support the stigmatic overall interpretation (I mean the various methods discussed in previous chapters: fabrics, colours, facial features, etc.). Besides such elements as size and view, the individual’s location in a picture or painting was also a feature permeated with meaning. In the iconographical tradition of the Middle Ages an individual’s location in a picture could be used as a means to allude to inferior status and sometimes imperfect moral character. Especially a location on the left side of authority and a location behind the convict were habitual for the hangman. A typical example is found in a miniature depicting burning the 304 305 306 307 308

BN ms. fr. 30, fol. 28r. Miniatures were made by Master d’Egerton. Ibid., fol. 71r. Ibid., fol. 125v. Ibid., fol. 256r. Bouts, Judgment of Emperor Otho. Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. I wish to thank Professor Hannu Salmi (University of Turku) for having reminded me that in the tradition of antiquity this posture (or contrapposto) had no similar negative meaning. In a fifteenth-century manuscript of Jean Mansel’s work we find a miniature depicting the same episode. Here, the hangman’s is not depicted frontally but his legs are crossed. BN ms. fr. 299, fol. 114r. I thank Dr Hanno Wijsman (University of Leiden) for having pointed me out this illustration. 309 Raynaud 1990, 163. See also Garnier 1982, 142.

210

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

heretics (partisans of Aumary de Chartres, in 1210) in the Chroniques de Saint-Denis.310 We can see King Philip August sitting on a horse on the left of the picture. On the right of the picture – the left side when looked at from the king – we can observe two hangmen at work, dressed in red and roux habits. Above the hangmen and burning stake, Fouquet has depicted the gibbet of Montfaucon, with its sixteen pillars, which gives this picture particular value: portrayals of this famous gibbet originating from this period are rare.311 This is the only execution scene it this manuscript. The hangmen serve the justice of the French monarch. Their placement provides essential information about the hierarchic relations between the various actors in this picture. Other features signal the artist’s and his client’s opinion about the executioners and the sentence.312 The left side was understood as an unfavourable side in the Middle Ages and this notion was reflected in the visual arts, as well as in the theatre. In artistic depictions of the Last Judgement the damned and the demons were traditionally placed on the left side of Christ, i.e. the right-hand side of the painting or sculpture.313 In dramatic presentations, Hell’s mouth was staged on the left (of God) and Paradise on the right, as we can observe in Jean Fouquet’s miniature of a mystery play scene in the Heures d’Étienne Chevalier.314 The left side had already been defined as an unfavourable side in antiquity. In the Bible late medieval people could learn that ‘to look at the right side’ (considerabam ad dexteram)315 was to look at the Saviour; this was his place, as it would be the place of the saved on the day of the Last Judgement, when the damned would go to the left, that is, in the direction of Hell. It was also thought that the left side was the feminine side, whilst the right side was masculine. Being feminine, the left side was nocturnal and demonic, according to ancient prejudice, whilst the right side was diurnal and divine.316 The location of the hangman to the right side of the picture was usual but not systematic in medieval art. The method of ‘located behind’ was perhaps even more popular. In many pictures the hangman has been situated behind some other person, usually his victim. A fine example of the employment of this method is provided by Le Rommans de Titus Livius from the early fourteenth century.317 The location behind another person, so that the hangman’s body was partially hidden from view, may have had practical reasons in some instances. But as Raynaud observes, often, it was intended as a reference to the hangman’s inferior status and low func310 This manuscript is known also by the name of Les Grandes Chroniques de France. The first version of this ‘Bible of France’ was ordered by Louis XI from Primat, a monk of Saint-Denis, and was achieved in 1274. Later, the chronicle was completed by other historians and copied in many sumptuous manuscripts. The one I have used (BN ms. fr. 6465) is one of the most beautiful. It was ordered (very likely) by Charles VII and was illuminated c. 1459 by Jean Fouquet. See comments on this manuscript in Avril, Gousset & Guenée 1987. 311 BN ms. fr. 6465, fol. 236r. It must be observed that Fouquet has also depicted the silhouette of Montfaucon in Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Martyre de sainte Catherine. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 312 See section 4.4. 313 See, for example, Tympan du Jugement Dernier. Central doorway of the West portal. After 1200. Cathédrale de Notre-Dame, Paris. 314 Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Martyre de sainte Apolline. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. 315 Ps 141.5. 316 Notions related to the negative or positive value of the right and left are not universal. In the Far East the left side is the favourable one. On the significance and symbolism relating to the left and right in different cultures, see Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 370-2. 317 BN ms. fr. 30.

211

CHAPTER 5

tion.318 Obviously, important figures such as the king, Christ or the saints should be depicted in such a way that they were fully and perfectly visible to spectators, for whom they also should provide an example and / or protection. To sum up observations and arguments presented in this chapter, it must be stressed that evidently, in the tens of thousands of pictures that have survived to us from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the hangman’s facial or bodily appearance is not always strikingly unpleasant. Nonetheless, physical imperfection, deviancy and excess constitute one of executioners’ most remarkable iconographical characteristics. Artists often mixed various elements in their works so that one cannot assign a singular specific hairstyle or typical face or posture to hangmen. The hangman could have a balding head or thick frizzy hair, he could have sharp or swollen features, he could be depicted in many different postures, and so on. Painters and illuminators could combine these various attributes in numerous ways. Naturally, it was easier to depict smaller details such as pimples, or hair on the arms and legs, in works of a larger scale (for example, panel paintings). Diverse marks received their full stigmatic significance when appearing in specific contexts and precisely because they repeatedly appeared in one and the same artist’s work in connection with various low, wicked or devilish figures, and, at the same time, in regular thematic groups, as components of whole chains or sets with negative labels. Some artists did not portray the executioner with an unpleasant face but rather put emphasis on other bodily signs (gestures, postures, view, etc.) or some habit-related attributes.319 The hangman was a fate-mate to numerous low, marginal or evil figures. Just as in the case of depictions of Judas, examined by Michel Pastoureau, the essential goal was to help spectators in process of identification. This was made by multiplying stigmatic attributes and labels. The art of the end of the Middle Ages obeyed a rigorous control, especially with regard to the illumination of religious manuscripts. Pastoureau suggests that when this task passed, in part, to the laity, the risk of unbridled encoding and, accordingly, the danger of over or misinterpretation increased. This explains the augmented control of the choice and elaboration of depicted scenes, as well as the redundancy of attributes in portrayals of Judas, the hangman, and several other disreputable personages. A traitor or negative person had to be read as one.320 318 Raynaud 1990, 160. 319 Whilst facial ugliness was important to the Rohan master (see BN ms. lat. 9471) and to Jean Pucelle (see Bréviaire de Belleville. BN ms. lat. 10484), in an abundantly illuminated fifteenth-century manuscript of Voragine’s Golden Legend (BN ms. fr. 6448) the hangman is not differentiated through his facial features but rather by means of his gestures as well as his clothing. On the other hand, the illuminator of the Bréviaire de Charles V, Jean le Noir, has emphasised both the deviant facial and bodily features of the hangman as well as his habitrelated signs. These appear not only on many executioners killing martyrs but also on a hangman representing Good Justice in a marginal picture. Here, we can see Lady Justice with her balance. On her left two sergeants are accompanying a malefactor to the gibbet. The hangman is provided with several pejorative or unfavourable attributes such as a balding head, long beard, small size, complex posture, profile view. Obviously, the artist signalled his unfavourable opinion about the professional hangman, not about the sentence of Good Justice. BN ms. lat. 1052, fol. 252v marg. 320 Pastoureau 2004, 207. According to Pastoureau, typical characteristics of Judas were such as small size, red hair, bestial or grimacing face, dark skin, hooked nose, thick lips (sometimes black because of the traitorous kiss), yellow dress, disorderly gestures. Just like Christ, Judas had to be identified. Every epoch provided him with an

212

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE EXECUTIONER

It is not particularly surprising that in religious pictures, the hangman was portrayed in an unfavourable light. Through his facial and bodily appearance, an executioner of a Christian saint was usually sharply contrasted with his victim. His one function was to serve as an epitome of sin and warn spectators not to imitate him. Sometimes he shared many unpleasant features with pagan tyrants and malevolent spectators. The common notions concerning physical beauty and imperfection were reflected in many ways in the portrayals of hangmen which, for their part, served to strengthen prevailing ways of seeing, perceiving and thinking in contemporary culture. In art, one major function of the executioner (of Judas and infidels, etc.) was to define and praise the established ideals of bodily perfection by serving as their diametrical opposite. Evidently, the negative depictions of hangmen so abundant in religious art can also tell us something about late medieval ‘representers’’ ideals and prejudices concerning the executioner. One evident explanation for the fact that a hangman depicted in an illuminated chronicle manuscript looks physically very similar to one portrayed in some book of hours or religious painting is that the same artists ordinarily made both kinds of pictures and worked for secular clients as well as for ecclesiastical patrons.321 Other essential reason is that artists mostly depicted notorious judgments in the distant past or else exploited the hangman’s figure in their efforts to condemn some sentence as excessively harsh. Late medieval men were more sensitive about capital executions and various punishments of mutilation than later times have often realised. This attitude is reflected in the portrayals of professionals of death and agents of violence. Their equivocal attitude toward violence and physical suffering explains why, even in those works where the hangman represented the justice of the King of France, he often resembled more criminals and low or suspect marginal figures (mercenaries, grave diggers, etc.) than other servants of justice.322 Even if he shared some features with sergeants (for example, striped clothing) he was still labelled and classified as being less worthy. Naturally, he was clearly differentiated from the authorities. This was a universal tendency in European iconography and can also be observed in illuminated legal texts.323 Ambiguity was the fundamental feature of the hangman in the late medieval imagery. Accordingly, pictures signalled that even if the hangman was necessary; he did not enjoy the same prestige as other agents of law, he was a ‘man of blood’, less honourable than other office holders under criminal justice. In secular art, the hangman could have a more secular meaning and serve to delineate and demarcate the boundaries of such categories as ‘decency’ or ‘courtesy’, for example, in hair styles or in gestural expressions but he also expressed Christian moral values. It would be wrong to claim that the hangman had a fully secular meaning in secular escort of attributes whilst each artist was free to select those that suited best his specific iconographic preoccupations, artistic ambitions or symbolic intentions. Ibid., 198. 321 Michael Baxandal has also observed that, in a general way, the differences between the languages of secular and religious iconography were insignificant in the later Middle Ages. Baxandal 1972, 70. 322 See for example BN ms. fr. 6465, fol. 236; BN ms. fr. 20352, fol. 274v and passim; BN ms. fr. 230353, passim; BN mss fr. 2643-6, passim. 323 A fine example from the Northern tradition is provided by an illuminated fifteenth-century compilation of Finnish customary laws, the Codex Åboensis in the collection of the Helsinki University Library. Another exemplar of the same text (c. 1430) can be found in the collections of the Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm.

213

CHAPTER 5

contexts, thereby separating the realms of the sacred and secular that constantly overlapped in medieval culture and society. Even in secular pictures, the religious dimension was always present in some form. Artists and their clients were imbued with Christian values and saw the hangman through Christian eyes. The general system of values condemned the persons who carried out this task as vile and infamous. Everybody knew what the Bible said about shedding of blood and what old warrior rules said about killing of defenceless persons. It was commonly thought and reasoned that many hangmen were also imperfect morally, less worthy, more ignoble than ordinary town-dwellers or other officers of law. Accordingly, the executioner was also provided with stigmatic attributes in those pictures where he represented good justice: not only with labels that helped to identify him as socially lower, but also with such marks that pointed to his moral flaws. Several examples from Italian, Spanish, German, and Swedish pictorial material indicate that visual portrayals of the executioner did not differ greatly from one country and region to another in the later Middle Ages.324 Only small variations can be discerned, whilst the basic elements are the same, as regards the hangman’s habit or his physical appearance – pattern and shape of clothing, facial features, bodily expression, etc. Obviously, the system of values and attitudes and opinions relating to violence, cruelty and evil, as well as to other aspects of the executioner’s figure did not totally vary in the different corners of Christian Europe. At that time the language of iconography was truly an international idiom. One could understand the message and meaning of pictures wherever one chose to travel. Even in remote Finland, the hangman would have looked ‘just like a hangman’ to a foreign visitor.325

324 In addition to some Italian examples given in previous sections, see also Giotto, Il redentore in cattedrale e il mart: dei Ss. Pietro e Paolo (‘Stefaneschi Triptych’). C. 1315; Daddi, Storio di S. Stefano. C. 1345; Andrea, Crocefissione e storie della Passione. C. 1345; Cione, Storie di S. Pietro. 1370–1371; Nardo, S. Nicola salva tre uomini innocenti. C. 1380; Maestro dell’Osservanza, La Flagellazione di Cristo. 1435–1440; Giovanni d’Ambrogio, Il martiro di S. Vittoriono. First half of the 15th century. Musei Vaticani, Rome; Cozzarelli, The Martyrdom of St Simon the Zealot and St Jude Thaddeus. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Pollaiuolo, Antonio & Piero. The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. 1475. National Gallery, London. For the Spanish art see also Martorell, The flagellation of St George. C. 1435 and Huguet, The Flagellation of Christ. 1450–1460. Musée du Louvre, Paris. (Huguet was a painter of Flemish origin.) For the hangman in German pictorial materials, see for example, Scenes of Passion. Germany. End of the 15th century. Musée de Cluny, Paris; Flagellation of Christ. Wing of an altarpiece. Thuringe, beginning of the 15th century, and Master L. Cz, Flagellation. 1490–1500. Musée de Louvre, Paris; Dürer, The Large Passion: The Flagellation. C. 1496–1497. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. See also Pictures from the Crime Museum. Volume VIII of the publications of the Medieval Crime Museum, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1985. On executioners in Swedish religious art of the late Middle Ages, see Liepe 2003; see also Altarpiece with scenes cut of St Birgitta’s life. Swedish work, second half of the 15th century. Törnevalla Church, Östergotland. Historical Museum, Stockholm. In Ruth Mellinkoff’s study one can find an abundance of examples from Dutch, German and English religious art. Mellinkoff II 1993. 325 A fine example is provided by a mural painting in the church of Kalanti by Petrus Henriksson, an artist from Uppland (Sweden). In this picture one can see the executioners of Saint Erasmus with many familiar elements such as a balding head, short two-coloured jacket, etc. Henriksson, Martyrdom of St Erasmus. 1470–1471. St Olof’s Church, Kalanti. Other nice examples are furnished by the Martyrdom of St Erasmus painted in the Church of Siuntio and the Martyrdom of St Lawrence in the Church of Taivassalo. I am grateful to Tuija Tuhkanen (Åbo Akademi) for information concerning these two last paintings. See also Tuhkanen’s article on Petrus Henrikson’s painting in the Church of Kalanti. Tuhkanen 1996.

214

CHAPTER 6

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE Cotidiana fornax nostra est humana lingua Augustinus, Confessiones

As already emphasised, language is an indispensable tool to the historian, when it comes to exploring the mental equipment of people in the past and the ways they perceived the world. In the present chapter, the verbal expression of medieval people again plays a central role: the choice of words and the different associations and connotations that these carried, as well as background factors explaining the logic of their selection. In a previous chapter (3), I examined the terminology referring to the hangman’s figure in official language and in popular parlance. Now I will take the hangman’s own language as my starting point, that is, the representations and interpretations of it. My focus will be especially on the language – those categories of linguistic expression – that late medieval writers chose to put in the mouth of the executioner in religious drama, as a manifestation of their concepts and opinions about torturers of Christian martyrs or executioners in general. Accordingly, I deal here with heavily charged messages in the form of verbal codes aimed at a large audience. Through their terminology dramatists could express, modify and strengthen prevailing opinions and representations about various types of hangmen. My emphasis is especially on the testimony offered by mystery plays because other traditions of popular theatre (moralities, farces, etc.) or other textual sources did not focus as much on hangmen or give him a voice. In the following, I will examine the meanings of the most central characteristics and elements of the hangman’s language. In decoding these verbal signs or essential attributes, it is important to pay attention not only to the terminological, lexical and literary conventions of late medieval writers but also to take into consideration the wider cultural context, the background of different categories of verbal expression. In the first three sections my focus is on those categories related to the hangman’s vocabulary.1 In the last section, 6.4, I study 1

I have greatly profited in my approach from the classification presented by Robert Garapon in La fantaisie verbale et le comique dans le théâtre français du Moyen Age à la fin du XVIIe siècle published in 1957 and followed later by several scholars, for example, by Jean Verdon in Rire au Moyen Age (2001). Even if Garapon’s interpretations are partially outmoded, his classification offers a fruitful basis for examination of verbal expression in late medieval theatre. Unlike Garapon, I have examined the category of insulting and cursing separately (and not as a subcategory of accumulations), because it is particularly central to the hangman’s language. The famous classic by Mihail Bahtin on Rabelais and medieval and Renaissance laughter can also be helpful for anyone who is interested in this topic, although I cannot agree with all his views. Bahtin (1965) 2002. I should also like to mention, here, Jean-Pierre Bordier’s study Le Jeu de la Passion (1998) on the Christian message of late medieval passion plays and Peter Burke’s many works on languages in early modern Europe, for example, Burke & Porter (eds.) 1991; Burke & Porter (eds.) 1995; Burke 2004.

215

CHAPTER 6

another important aspect of the executioner’s language: the auditory one, i.e. what the hangman sounded like. I will note elements such as rhythm, voice and sound, which were also important tools for dramatists, directors of plays and their patrons in communicating their opinions and views about hangmen and other characters. In the late Middle Ages, just as at many different cultures at different times, the form of verbal expression was an element that helped to define an individual’s social place and origins. The way a person talked helped to place him or her in the social hierarchy, whilst at the same time it also gave important information about the individual’s moral character. ‘Beautiful’ language and a controlled manner of speaking indicated a high social status. It was also considered a usual attribute of a wise and pious person.2 Crude language and unchecked speech were thought to be low and sinful, and were associated with a defective intellect, especially in the thinking of leading groups. Therefore, it is not surprising that language played an important role in interpretations concerning the hangman in late medieval literature and especially in religious drama. Next, I will take a closer look at ways in which theatrical expressions were exploited as a tool of social and moral distinction. 6.1 Swearwords and Slights As I have already mentioned, the hangman’s role is often quite insignificant in older mystery plays, pieces written before the fifteenth century. In many works, executioners do not talk much. Often, they do not even have a speaking role.3 In fifteenth-century plays the situation is changed: extended torture scenes are the central feature here and accordingly executioners – gangs of tyrans, master hangmen with their varlets – play a major role.4 They are also very talkative and prolix in many plays.5 Playwrights used various linguistic attributes to communicate and express their opinions about executioners. A typical feature of the hangman’s language was coarseness, the abundant use of swearwords and curses. It is not surprising that such words as sang (blood) and sanglant (bloody) are quite usual in the vocabulary of hangmen. These expressions occur, for example, in lines spoken by the executioners Menjumantin and Masquebignet in an anonymous play on the history of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.6 In Arnoul Gréban’s work Le Mystère de la Passion, the most famous and most imitated mystery play of the fifteenth century, hangmen swear by the sanglant gibet, bloody gallows.7 2 3 4 5 6

7

216

However, in some cases eloquence could be considered a negative verbal pigment, an attempt to hide and distort the true meaning of the speaker. Some people thought that any intentional colouring of words was pure devilry. See Pleij 2004, 1-2. See, for example, La passion provencale du manuscrit Didot or Le Mystère de la Passion Nostre Seigneur from the fourteenth century. As Gustave Cohen has put it, ‘La vie au moyen âge ne se conçoit guère sans le tortionnaire et le bourreau: il en est de même dans le mystère’. Cohen 1951, 267. In the Actes des Apôtres, for example, the executioner Daru has an impressive 1 311 lines. Lebègue 1982, 207. In addition, the executioner Menjumantin abuses Peter as sanglant viellart, a bloody old man, while fetching him from prison. Later, the executioner Masquebignet rages at an anonymous woman who offers her scarf to Saint Paul as a blindfold (for decapitation): ‘Sanglante passion te fière! Meschante fame!’ Le martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul, 79, 84. Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 202.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

In the characteristic vocabulary of the hangman we also meet other ‘bodily’ curses: in an anonymous play dedicated to Saint Sebastian, the executioners (in addition to using the word sanglant8) use such curses as ‘God’s blood’, ‘God’s flesh’ and ‘God’s stomach’ (‘par le sanc tieu’, ‘par la cher tieu’, ‘par le ventre tieu’).9 In Jehan du Prier’s work Le mystère du roy Advenir (c. 1455) we encounter, in addition to the word ‘bloody’,10 such curses as fievre quartaine, or quartain fever (i.e. fever which returns every fourth day).11 Hangmen also use the word merde, shit,12 in their speech. In late medieval culture the expression ‘blood(y)’ was considered extremely stigmatic. According to Jean-Pierre Perrot, it was the verbal emblem of cruelty and closely linked to the idea of death.13 Generally, any swearwords that referred to the human body and its fluids were classified as most offensive. This does not mean, however, that these expressions or curses were not in common use in literary production or in everyday life – on the contrary.14 In religious drama the function of this kind of vocabulary was to evoke feelings of disgust and fear, to refer to the hangman’s professional occupation and to link the executioner with ideas of raw violence, bloodshed and mutilated flesh, of impurity, filth, and a bad death. Presumably, the expression fievre quartaine associated the hangman’s figure with the idea of chronic plague in the late medieval thinking whilst the word merde very emphatically referred to the idea of impurity. As to swearing by the ‘blood of God’ (etc.) this expression was, on the one hand, understood as a violation of the biblical command ‘non adsumes nomen Domini Dei tui in vanum.’15 (You must not take name of Lord your God in vain). On the other hand, it was especially the bodily context of this category of expressions or curses that made the offence very serious to the ears of medieval audiences. Preachers and other ecclesiastics made it very clear in their sermons and texts that no one should utter such terribly insulting words. Jean Gerson, who emphasises in Le doctrinal aux simples gens, the sinfulness of all swearing and links it to the deadly sin of wrath (Ire, Ira), particularly underlines that ‘jurer par le sanc de Dieu ou par la teste ou par le ventre Dieu ou par ultre semblable serment, c’est grant péché’ 16 (to swear by the blood of God or by the head or stomach of God or any by other similar expression is a great sin). Gerson’s and other preachers’ repeated warnings did not have, however, any significant effect: people continued to swear and to use blasphemous oaths. In mystery plays executioners often utter swearwords related to the Devil and to pagan idols and gods. The expression par le dyable, by the devil, occurs very commonly in the speech of executioners in Le mystère de Saint Sébastien.17 Another 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 171, 194, 213, 237, 238. This anonymous fifteenth-century piece of 6 642 verses has 54 personages. It may have been played in Chambèry c. 1466. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 1350. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 69-71, 77-8, 85, 166, 172, 191-3, 216, 228, 237, 240, 274-6. Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 246. Greimas 1989, 521. Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 328, 542. On the functions and significance of blood in saints’ plays, see for example Perrot 1999, 468; Davidson 2002, 180-204. On the showing of blood and its connotations in texts and images in the later Middle Ages, see also section 3.3. On use and functions of bodily curses in late medieval and early modern popular culture, see for example Bahtin 2002, 167, 171. Ex 20.7. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 303. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 78, 172-3, 176, 204, 213, 228, 232, 238.

217

CHAPTER 6

good example is an anonymous piece dedicated to Saint Denis, where one executioner threatens his victim by saying: ‘Viellart sanglant, tu y mourras, / Par Mahon, puisque je te tien.’18 (Bloody old man, you shall die / by Mohammed, because you are in my hands). In the Old Testament play (III) one executioner swears ‘by Apis, my sovereign God’ (Par Apin, mon souverain Dieu).19 This category of curses referred, in a general way, to the low moral character of the executioner but it was, at the same time, a sign of unorthodoxy. In many works executioners are the representatives of adversaries of the Christian faith (Jews, infidels or pagans) and accordingly the henchmen of Satan. Omer Jodogne has examined the most common curses and their users in Le Mystère de la Passion (1486) written by Jean Michel, town physician and regent of the University of Angers.20 Swearwords occur frequently in the language of executioners but they are also common in the lines of demons, thieves, Jews, Pilate and Judas. Besides the expression dyable (devil) such words as sanglant and gibet (= gibbet) are popular. As Omer Jodogne notes, in mystery plays Christ, the Virgin Mary, the apostles and ‘the good Jews’ never utter curses.21 Consequently, the contrast between hangmen (and all the other lowly or evil characters) and the good and the pious is quite emphatic. Why did medieval writers so ardently aim at making cursing a typical feature of hangmen in religious drama? Profuse swearing functioned as an allusion to the lower classes, sin, evil and Satan. By linking swearing closely to the hangman’s character, writers signalled to the masses that the use of this kind of vocabulary was an extremely bad habit: it was a most sinful, despicable and vicious practice, a serious offence that every good Christian should hate and avoid. The aims of the late medieval play writers and their sponsors become more understandable if one takes into account the increasingly condemning attitudes towards cursing in late medieval France. Amongst conservatives this habit was considered a very deplorable and serious offence. Moralists regularly stressed in their texts the sinfulness of swearing and praised those who were free from this sin. Honourable persons did not swear. According to the anonymous writer of the Livre des faicts de Jean le Meingre, dit Boucicaut (1406–1409) marshal Boucicaut, the archetype of the perfect knight and an extremely pious person, had taught godly and chaste manners to all his servants, and had also trained them to avoid cursing.22 Jean de Joinville (1225–1317) had also claimed, in his Vie de Saint Louis, that the pious king never uttered swearwords, unlike many contemporaries who especially favoured the term devil.23

18 Le martyre de S. Denis et de ses compagnons, 118. In an English mystery play executioners also curse ‘by mahownes bloode’, see The Townley Plays, 251. 19 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 234. 20 As already mentioned, Jean Michel has followed very closely Arnoul Gréban’s famous play. 21 See Jodogne’s Introduction in Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, XCVI-XCVII. 22 Huizinga 2002, 116. Cursing and swearing also appear as a sign of depraved life in Geoffrey Chaucer’s text: ‘Gret sweryng is a thyng abhominable […] yden sweryng is a cursednesse’. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 345, 348, 352-3. 23 ‘…car onques jour de ma vie je ne li oÿ mal dire de nullui ne onques ne li oÿ nommer le dyable, lequel nom est bien espandu par le royaume, ce que je croy qui ne plait mie à Dieu.’ Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, 10.

218

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

Jean Delumeau writes that, in the eyes of the late medieval authorities, swearing was more than a mere outburst of anger; it was interpreted as an assault on God’s majesty. The penalties for cursing became more severe towards the end of the Middle Ages, partly because it was believed that this sort of defiance of God could bring down the justified revenge of the Almighty on the whole community. In France, legislation restricting cursing continued from the period of Saint Louis to the end of the Middle Ages.24 In a royal edict from the year 1397 (which renewed the statutes of 1296 and 1347 concerning cursing) offenders are threatened having their lips severed and their tongues cut off.25 These penalties were, nevertheless, inefficient instruments in the fight against cursing, for their exaggerated severity meant that they could not be carried out. Jean Gerson suggested, therefore, that the authorities should eradicate this offence by adopting more suitable methods.26 Legislation attacked the vice of cursing with particular intensity during the second half of the fifteenth century, on the initiative of Charles VII (1460) and Charles VIII (1490).27 The need to link the executioner and various evil personages so closely with cursing in religious drama becomes still more understandable if one notes that cursing and all witchcraft were seen as signs of a diabolical threat in the later Middle Ages. Ecclesiastics exhorted the faithful to combat this threat vigorously.28 Many people actually had the impression that cursing had never before been so popular as in their time. Some estimated that it had become a sort of fashionable pastime to compete with one another in inventing new swearwords. Burgundians had the reputation of swearing the most29 but according to some pessimists the sin of cursing was much more common in France than in other countries. Jean Gerson claimed that this despicable sin was the origin of the many plagues, wars, famines and tribulations that haunted Christianity and especially the kingdom of France.30 In one of his sermons Gerson complains that the rabble disgraces even the most holy feasts by lechery and swearing. He says that when they are warned of this, they just reply that great lords do the same without risking any penalties. Nicolas de Clamanges (c. 1363–1437) was also worried about swearing. Clamanges bewails in his treatise De novis celebritatibus non instituendis the fact that clerics themselves often offer a bad example to the common people as they spend their night watches playing dice and cursing.31 It has been suggested that the serious attitude of many late medieval people towards swearing emanated from the deep religious feelings characteristic of that time. Johan Huizinga wrote that cursing was originally a sign of perceiving the presence of the divine in the most insignificant things. It was precisely the feeling 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Delumeau 1978, 401-3. Ordonnances des roys de France, VIII, 130. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII:1, 3-5. Delumeau 1978, 401-3. For the cursing and favourite jurons of the French kings and different social or professional groups, see Bahtin 2002, 168. Delumeau 1978, 401-3. Huizinga 2002, 248. ‘Peccatum blasphemiae est magna causa pestiletiarum, bellorum, famis et aliarum tribulationum in christianitate, et specialiter in nobili regno Galliae, quod nomen et titulum habet quod sit christianissimum’. Adversus blasphemiae crimen in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 168-70, see also tome III, 889. Huizinga 2002, 244.

219

CHAPTER 6

that a curse was a challenge to Heaven that gave this custom a sinful attraction in the late Middle Ages. In the culture of later times cursing was no longer connected with oaths, and the fear of the fulfilment of a curse did not exist. Consequently, the habit of cursing lost its effect and weakened to dull brutality. In the later Middle Ages, however, the act of swearing still possessed aspects of boldness and pride that made it sort of demanding sport, Huizinga argued.32 In mystery plays, another essential lexical characteristic that made executioners’ language rude was the abundant use of insults and abusive names. As Nadine Henrard has observed, generally, all the violent actions of hangmen are accompanied by brutal insults and curses.33 A fine example is offered by a play dedicated to Saint Sebastian where the executioners call convicts (martyrs) by such names as ‘bloody rascal, son of a whore’ (sanglant ribaut fi de putain) and ‘false traitor, thieving Christian’ (fau traictre larom crestïent).34 In Le mystère de Saint Laurent, the executioner Fieramort abuses Pope Sixtus (in between threats and cuffing) as tres ort villaint, tout radoté,35 that is, a disgusting and decrepit boor. Later, Bruslecosté slanders Sixtus as ort villain, pillart deshoneste, 36 an ignoble boor and dishonest robber. Saint Lawrence himself is abused as le traistre seducteur, traistre desloyaulx,37 the deceitful and disloyal traitor, and Concorde is called ‘chienne rebelle’,38 ‘vieille putain meselle’,39 or rebellious bitch and stinking old whore, whilst the anonymous woman, ‘La femme’, is affollee, faulce grace,40 in other words, a mad and traitorous shrew, and Briant is fiz de putain folle41, son of a mad bitch.42 In Andrieu de la Vigne’s Le Mystère de Saint Martin (1496) the saint is abused as jeune merdier, or young scum(shit)bag, by his tormentors in a flogging scene.43 In Le martyre de S. Denis et de ses compagnons, Saint Denis is insulted as vieille vasche,44 an old cow, whilst Saint Peter and Saint Paul are called merdaille or riffraff in an anonymous piece. In addition, the executioner Menjumantin mocks Saint Peter by saying that this is a ‘bloody old man, tonsured as a fool’,45 when Saint Paul is called fol ou enragié,46 mad or enraged. The humiliations and sufferings imposed on Christ in late medieval religious drama are, of course, in their own class in the field of curses and verbal violence. In Arnoul Gréban’s famous work Le Mystère de la Passion (1450), the executioners heap abundant showers of insults on Christ. The saintly victim is called a vile peasant, 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

220

Ibid., 247-8. Henrard 1998, 390-3. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 171. Le mystère de Saint Laurent, 86. Ibid., 99. Ibid., 134-5. Ibid., 152. Ibid., 153. Ibid., 158. Ibid., 173. An anonymous writer’s Le mystère de saint Laurent is a typical specimen of it genre. It was played at least in Chambéry in 1460, in Compiègne in 1467 and in Metz in 1488. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 1344. Le Mystère de Saint Martin d’Andrieu de la Vigne, 419. Le martyre de S. Denis et de ses compagnons, 125. This outburst reflects both disrespect for old age and the ambiguity of the tonsured head as a symbol. These topics were discussed earlier in section 5.2. Le martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul, 78-9.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

traitor, robber, ruffian, etc.: ‘villain paysant’47 (disgusting peasant), ‘faulx musart, ort vil truant’48 (false liar, an ignoble and vile rogue), ‘coquin, putier, paillart, vray fol’,49 (scoundrel, lecherous, ruffian, true fool), ‘faulc glout, mauvais traistre’50 (false glutton, evil traitor), ‘faulx truant seducteur, villain, faulx enchanteur’51 (false rascal seducer, villain, false cheat), ‘truant, paillard, faulx trahitre enchanteur, faulx barteur, larron, menteur, mauvais seducteur’52 (rascal, ruffian, false traitor swindler, false liar, robber, liar, evil fraud). Exaggeration needed to be clear. The essential function of these exuberant oaths was the same as that of obscene gestures depicted in religious art53: to evoke feelings of compassion because of all the sufferings of Christ and also to make the audience see the great sinfulness of insults in general. It is worth noting that executioners do not only insult their victims in mystery plays. They also express their inner depravation by pouring offences upon each other. In Jehan du Prier’s work Le mystère du roy Advenir the hangman’s apprentice is called by his master gars infame (infamous rascal) and the apprentice, for his part, insults his master by calling him ‘un beau maistre de merde’ (a true shit master).54 In the play of Saint Martin, the master hangman reproaches his aide for being ‘always too slow, just like a bovine’ (‘Tu es tousjours long comme ung voulge’).55 In Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, the executioners Machecotom, Taliebodim, Rifflandoillie and Mal Feras issue orders to the anonymous master hangman (‘Bourreau’) who assists them in executing the penalties, calling him by many insulting names: ‘Lie le moy, villeim boureau’56 (Bind him for me, ignoble hangman), ‘Mechant bourreau, met luy la corde’57 (Vile hangman, put the rope on him), ‘Delivre toy, ribaut sanglant, / Il faut acoup couper cest testes’58 (Hurry up, bloody rascal / we must cut off those heads). We meet the same kind of lavish insults in numerous mystery plays. Demons are also fond of these rude lazzis and jeers in late medieval religious drama.59 Sometimes insults are, however, accumulated in the lines of personages that are not evil. In Arnoul Gréban’s play the mothers of the martyred children of Bethlehem call the men of Herod by many unflattering and insulting names.60 Thus, occasionally, and depending on the speakers, the verbal outburst could point to despair, not depravity. The copious insults typical of hangmen in mystery plays (towards convicts or towards colleagues) were meant and understood as a very stigmatic trait. In medieval imagery this linguistic feature associated the executioner with the possessed.61 It should be noted that in everyday reality verbal abuse was not necessarily 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 248. Ibid., 256-9. Ibid., 256-9. Ibid., 263. Ibid., 264. Ibid., 272. See section 5.3 of the present study. Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 542. Le Mystère de Saint Martin d’Andrieu de la Vigne, 407. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 191-3. Ibid., 204-5. Ibid., 213. Lebègue 1929, 162; Bahtin 2002, 237. Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 99. See also Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 232. On behaviour and verbal expression considered typical of the possessed in the Middle Ages, see for example, Katajala-Peltomaa 2004, 89-90.

221

CHAPTER 6

overlooked as an insignificant gesture but rather it was often perceived as a serious offence. We have abundant evidence showing that verbal abuse frequently provoked conflicts, fights and crimes of violence62 and led to extended lawsuits. Bronislaw Geremek has investigated the wide range of insults in late medieval France. Geremek suggests that their profusion was a form of revenge: popular language took reprisal upon conventional language by means of this terminology.63 I wish to repeat here the point I already mentioned in section 3.1 concerning the different modes of verbal expression. It is evident that ordinary people (– the ‘producers’ of the popular language) had more lexical freedom than the members of upper classes, who were more restricted by rules of courteousness and decency in this area (because they did not wish to be confused with the lower categories). Language and vocabulary were important ways of demarcating the distance between social categories in late medieval culture. As Bronislaw Geremek has observed, the most frequent insults depended upon themes of physical or moral repulsiveness and on concepts of what was vile, revolting and despicable. Geremek has remarked that the most common terms were those referring to various categories of outcasts and infamous persons, such as ruffian (ruffian), larron, (thief), maquerau (pimp), etc. In the general opinion, these marginal persons all belonged to the same doubtful class.64 I would like to observe that the most common terms for the executioner, bourreau and tyran, were also usual insults in popular language, especially when one wanted to emphasise someone’s cruelty and aggressiveness.65 Nonetheless, various bestial insults were also very frequent, because animals were often perceived as lower creatures, ‘others’ par excellence in medieval culture and society.66 In religious drama, executioners pour forth insults, especially in scenes of violence and in scenes of disputes. The disputes of hangmen are usually motivated by feelings of envy and greed; these quarrels often deal with such themes as ‘who is going to execute the sentence’ and ‘who is going to have the best part of the fee’, that is, of the clothes of convict.67 In Le mystère de Saint Sébastien the ‘tyrants’ quarrel about dividing the clothes of Tiburtius, their victim and pour curses and insults on each other.68 In Jean du Prier’s work Le mystère du roy Advenir, a quarrel between the anonymous master hangman and his aide also concerns the sharing of the execution fee.69 In an Old Testament play (VI) we meet Micet, an overenthusiastic hangman’s apprentice, who is keen to learn all the tricks of the profession but who always does 62 See, for example, Gauvard 1993, 1116, 1118. 63 Geremek 1987, 270. 64 Ibid., 270. For the insults relating to widely unpopular sergeants, see Gonthier 1995, 155-6. On insults (putain, garcon), see also BN ms. fr. 21731, fol. 65r. Late medieval people could also use as insults, negative historical or biblical names such as Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, 512. See also sections 3.1-2. 65 Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 99; Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 232. The term butcher (bouchier) was a popular insult, too. See for example Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 270. Even today, it is popular for some surgeons and dentists. See also Braun 1989. 66 For the use of animal names as insults, see section 7.3. 67 On motivations of these disputes, see also section 7.2. 68 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 237-8. 69 Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 541-2.

222

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

his job in a slovenly manner. This leads to repeated quarrels with master Gournay, who heaps insults on his clumsy apprentice. Even if careless, Micet is a cunning person and this is why, in one scene, we meet Gournay reduced to the position of his apprentice’s aide, which gives good reason for new disputes and insults. Later, two hangmen argue and brawl about dividing up a convict’s clothes, 70 which is a typical scene, as I have already explained above. Can one see in these scenes some glimpses of everyday urban reality? This is possible but one should not jump to hasty conclusions. Anyway, as mentioned earlier, it was common practice that the official hangman could keep a convict’s clothes.71 In addition, he received a separate payment for every convict: five sous was the usual sum in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Various extra expenses, which depended on the form of the sentence and costs concerning materials, were added to the basic sum. The executioner of the Duke of Orleáns, for example, got 55 sous parisis in 1418 for executing Olivier Bourgaut, the murderer of Louis of Orléans. This sum included eleven different modes of punishment: Bourgaut’s hand was cut off at the pillory, he was decapitated and his members were cut off and exposed at various prescribed places and the rest of the body was burned.72 As Jean Verdon has observed, quarrelling scenes are fairly ordinary in the late medieval theatre, especially in the genre of farce.73 In mystery plays disputes are commonplace not only to hangmen but all categories of low and evil personages, to demons, to members of lower classes. It is reasonable to assume that the popularity and comic power of these scenes were partially based on observations made in everyday life concerning the relations between masters and apprentices representing various professions. It is quite natural that clashes and conflicts often occurred: some masters did not perhaps treat their aides well enough – and some apprentices were probably stubborn, lazy or clumsy. The honourable title of master74 was, nevertheless, the target of secret dreams and frustrated thoughts for many young men. The period of apprenticing might have seemed insupportably long to some. It usually began between the age of twelve and seventeen75 and could last from two to even ten years76. The qualification of valet constituted a special stage, where one had to remain for some time before becoming a master.77 After having said this, I must 70 71 72 73 74 75

76 77

Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 76-177. See for example Le grand coutumier de France, 657. Loiseleur 1863, 277-8. On the fees of the hangmen see sections 3.1 and 4.6. In farces disputes are common especially in domestic fights between spouses. Verdon 2001, 191, 238. On fighting spouses in drama, see also Blockmans & Neijzen 1999, 265-76. Members of professional corporations were usually divided into three distinct classes: masters, valets and apprentices. In the Middle Ages a person was regarded as a child (puer) until the age of twelve years, and then, as an adolescent, adulescens or juvenis. Professional working started at this age in many places, for example, in the village of Montaillou. Le Roy Ladurie 1982. In Paris, the apprentissage could begin at the age of 8, 9, 11, 14, or 17, depending on the profession. Fagniez 1975, 56. In most professions the master could have only one apprentice besides his own son but some professionals (dyers and goldsmiths, for example) had the right to have two and in some cases (butchers and bakers) the number of apprentices was not limited. When a valet applied for his mastership, la maîtrise, he took the title of aspirant and he had to pass successive exams. He had to prove his aptitude by executing a chef-d’œuvre, usually by making various professional products. The execution of a masterpiece included many technical formalities, which were sometimes very detailed. During this phase, which often lasted several months, the aspirant had to work alone, deprived of all communication, under the observation of syndicates. At the end these pronounced their judgement –

223

CHAPTER 6

repeat that medieval playwrights and their audiences were very interested in all sorts of authority problems: not only between masters and apprentices, but also between husbands and wives, higher and lower demons, pagan kings and their satellites, etc. Inversion of hierarchies was a typical instrument of humour in medieval popular culture. Scholars have not always been unanimous about the function of disputes in the late medieval theatre. Some of them have thought that their justification was based essentially on aspirations towards realism, whilst others have suggested that they were merely connected with the need to produce a comic effect.78 It seems evident to me that writers could have had varying reasons but that in mystery plays disputes were clearly meant to be a degrading element, regardless of the prolixity of the injuries and curses included. Dramatists were well aware, for example, what the Bible teaches about quarrelling.79 The pious and the good do not quarrel and argue in mystery plays. Disputes and insulting were intended and understood as lowly and sinful behaviour (and mode of verbal expression). For medieval play writers disputes were one efficient method of degrading and stigmatising among others, whilst they also had important comic power. Thus, rude and abusive language was typical of the hangmen in religious drama in the late Middle Ages. These attributes were also common to other low or evil personages and their essential function is to mark their distance from the good and pious personages who express themselves in an elevated style, both in dialogues as well as in the long sermons and prayers that are common in mystery plays.80 Martyrs, for example, always verbalise their thoughts with dignity, restraint and selfcontrol. It is evident that the playwrights wanted to give every personage a style that suited his or her character.81 However, there exist some examples of hangmen who knew how to talk to convicts. One can find an idealisation of a hangman’s verbal expression, for example, in the Old Testament play (VI). In one scene the master Gournay addresses the convict as mon ami, my friend, and advises him in a gentle tone to be calm and repentant so that his last trial would go in the best possible way.82 This scene and Gournay’s language resemble a passage in the famous guidebook that Jean Gerson wrote for the assistance of dying persons (La médicine de l’ame). Here, the person lying

78 79 80 81 82

224

sometimes after a heated debate – on the quality of the product(s) and on the professional capacity of the aspirant. When the result was pronounced, the candidate had to give his oath to the king, before a provost or civil lieutenant (even if he had already given this oath when starting his apprenticeship) and to pay a tax, which was divided between the king (or seigneur) and the confrérie. Sons of masters always obtained an important rebate of this tax. On professional corporations in late medieval France, see for example Lacroix 1873, 295-326; Fagniez 1975, 55-74, 93-105; Coulet 1994, 55-73. It must be noticed that hangmen did not have guilds. They had, however, a sort of unofficial masterpiece: late medieval people understood the executioner’s first public decapitation in this sense. (See for example La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 149; Le mistére du Vieil Testament, VI, 91.) The spectators around the scaffold played the role of syndics and eventually gave their (mute) approval to the candidate. Garapon 1957, 83-5. See, for example, Prv, passim. Lebègue 1929, 161. As Omer Jodogne has put it: ‘Le ton doit être adéquat à la qualité du personnage’. Jodogne 1966, 592. On stereotyping by language in English mystery plays, see Lester 1992, 129-39. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 166-7. See also Le Mystère de Saint Martin d’Andrieu de la Vigne, 406-7, 409-10.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

on his deathbed is addressed in exactly similar terms.83 It is possible that the anonymous dramatist reflected or wanted to express a style considered as commendable to professional hangmen of urban reality. The idealisation of the hangman’s gentleness is taken to its utmost in La Passion d’Auvergne, an anonymous play from the second half of the fifteenth century,84 in a highly original scene between the executioner Maliferas and his victim, John the Baptist.85 Maliferas presents a long and eloquent monologue or complaint where he pours out his deep compassion and pity to his victim (‘My friend, I pity you. / My friend, I pity you. / But this job has to be done…’)86 and prays for understanding and forgiveness (‘Forgive me, John, I beg you! / I don’t do this for envy; / But this gives me great displeasure. / We all have to obey the king. / Forgive me, I beg you! / Forgive me, I beg you!’).87 Maliferas is obliged to work as an instrument of Herod’s bad justice and to accomplish a wrongful sentence of death. The anonymous writer’s main purpose was to condemn the execution of John the Baptist – and to do it by means of an unusual strategy.88 The unconventional construction, quite opposite to the norm, served to capture the spectators’ attention and forced them to meditate on the message of this scene. It also helps us, modern persons, to obtain a better grasp of certain essential features that were typically lacking in the hangman’s language. In mystery plays, the executioner was not usually depicted as compassionate or understanding, eloquent or silver-tongued. It is obvious that the rude language most executioners employed in mystery plays had not necessarily a great deal to do with the vocabulary and style of actual hangmen in day-to-day reality – and especially not with the language they used in punitive ceremonies. Lack of evidence makes it impossible to investigate this matter. Judicial documents, for example, do not offer us much information upon the issue.89 Chroniclers, on the other hand, did not usually consider the hangman worth showing or commenting. But when they did, the executioner was essentially a man of 83 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 405. Thus, in late medieval drama, the hangman sometimes took over the role, which in everyday reality belonged to a priest – or at least should belong. As already mentioned, at the end of the Middle Ages the Church ordained that convicted criminals should have the right to a priest’s assistance while preparing themselves for death. Earlier, confession was prohibited for convicts. 84 There exists a manuscript originating from the year 1477 today in the collections of Bibliothèque nationale de France (BN ms. n. a. fr. 426). The first critical edition was made by Graham A. Runnalls (1982). Roy has given this piece its current name but Runnalls observes that a more correct choice would have been the Passion of Montferrand. This piece was played in Monferrand in 1477. See Introduction written by Runnalls in La passion d’Auvergne, 7-10. 85 La Passion d’Auvergne, 100-1. 86 ‘Mon amy, j’ay pitié de toy. / Mon amy, j’ay pitié de toy; / Maiz il fault que se metier face. / Bien voy que fais contre la loy, /…’ Ibid., 100. 87 ‘Pardonne moy, Jehan, je t’en prye! / Je ne le fais pas pour envye; / Ains en ay je grand desplaisir. / Au roy nous fault tous obeÿr. / Pardonne moy, je t’en supplye! / Pardonne moy, je t’en supplie!’. Ibid., 100-1. 88 It should be noted, however, that in the execution ceremonies of everyday life it was an ordinary custom that a hangman asked his victim for forgiveness for what he was going to do. Sometimes these two embraced each other as a sign of goodwill. See, for example, Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1499, 61; Molinet, Chroniques, I, 134; Basin, Histoire de Louis XI, II, 270. For the meanings of a kiss in medieval culture, see Salmi 2004, 58-9. 89 One document mentions that the official hangman of Dijon, Jean Lescoeur, was inclined to use such bad language that he lost his office. In 1426 he was banished because he was ‘homme sédicieulx, rioteulx, noyseuls, juraix, putien, et homme de malvaix gouvernement et tel que ses voisins ne [peuvent] avoir paix à lui’. Quoted in Gonthier 1998, 195.

225

CHAPTER 6

action, not of words.90 Chroniclers were especially eager to report last words (and gestures) of convicts, especially high-ranking or pious, which is understandable when we consider these writers’ aims and audience.91 Undoubtedly, the official hangman was not expected to utter many replies in the ritual of execution. The ideal was that when he spoke to his patients, he must not insult or slander them. He had to treat convicts kindly and not use unnecessary violence,92 be polite or neutral. Such a style served best the authorities’ purposes; the executioner was supposed to evoke respect and incarnate the efficaciousness and impartiality of criminal justice. However, this issue is finally not crucial from the viewpoint and goals of the present study. If we accept the premise that late medieval dramatists considered their works to be critical mirrors for society and especially wanted to depict, for educational or critical purposes, various characters as temporary types, in that case we can assume that the linguistic features of the executioners on the stage can give us some glimpses into actual historical persons’ verbal habits. In any case, these plays can tell us about general beliefs, stereotyped notions and opinions relating to the verbal expression of hangmen and representatives of various social groupings, low, marginal or high. 6.2 Professional Jargon To writers of mystery plays one favourite instrument in expressing and shaping the hangman’s representation was jargon: terms and expressions foreign to everyday language, and especially ‘bad jargon’, those words that referred to the language typical of the lower classes, marginal and criminal people. In late medieval 90 Jean Juvenal des Ursins, in his chronicle, makes some negative comments about the official hangman of Paris, Capeluche, and claims that he spoke to his superiors (Duke of Burgundy) in a harsh or arrogant style quite illsuited to his status. Examples relating to Capeluche did not concern the hangman in his official role, i.e. assisting the criminal justice in a punitive ceremony. ‘Et plusieurs fois venoit ledit Capeluche parler au duc de Bourgongne, accompagné de meschantes gens, aussi hardiment que si c’eust esté un seigneur’. Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, 545. Jean Chartier underlined Capeluche’s insolence by claiming that he had started to call the Duke of Burgundy his ‘stepbrother’ (son beau-frère). Geremek 1987, 297. However, these remarks were probably based on propaganda aims. As I will explain in section 7.1, many chroniclers had a very negative opinion about Capeluche and therefore they intentionally exaggerated his bad qualities. 91 In the Interpolations of the Chronicle Scandaleuse, written between 1498 and 1502 by an anonymous cleric serving the Chabanne family, we can find a short conversation between Jean Cousin and his illustrious patient, Louis de Saint-Pol, in Paris in 1475: ‘… filz de Henry Cousin, maistre des haultes euvres, qui entra dans la chambre et luy dist: “Mon amy, n’est tu pas celluy qui me doys metre hors de ce monde?” Et il luy dist: ”Ouy, monseigneur, car c’est ce qui m’a esté ordonné par la court souveraine.” Et alors luy descousit le collet de son prepoint; ce qu’il print en gré en grant constance. Et, affin, qu’on ne vist point ledit descousu, luy atacha la cornete de son chaperon de dueil à deux espingles. Et, sortant [de] ladite chambre, dist ledit connestable telles paroles ou semblables. “Mon avoir et trop cuider savoir m’ont mis là où je suis”.’ Journal de Jean de Roye, II, 3523. These replies were supposed to have taken place in prison, just before the final ceremony. Naturally, we must doubt the authenticity of these lines. It is probable that the anonymous writer wanted to offer to his readers an ideal picture of a noble victim who played his role with dignity, and showed pious remorse. An official hangman was expected to address to such a high-ranking convict in a civil way. Jean Molinet writes that after the successful decapitation, ‘Aulcuns disent que la teste fut recueillie par le bourreau, qui la monstra au peuple, disant: “Voici la teste de Loys de Luxembourg, conte de Sainct-Pol”. Et l’execution faicte, aulcuns cordeliers prinrent tant le chef que le corps, et le portèrent au sépulchre, à leur église de Sainte-Claire.’ See Molinet, Chroniques, I, 182-5. (Publ. Buchon 1827–1828). Showing the head of the Constable was a way to signal to spectators the successful accomplishment of the execution. See also Basin, Histoire de Louis XI, II, 270. 92 Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363-5.

226

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

culture and society jargon, too, as any sign, was an ambiguous category, which could point to positive or negative contexts. It is evident that the language – a reflection of people’s mental life – was and is a constantly changing form of communication. In spite of the ever-changing character of the language, in different societies at different times, there has always existed some kind of standard (changeable itself) that provides a model and a mirror for the numerous variants of the verbal expression of individuals and groups, a basis for definitions of high and low style. Consequently, some forms of jargon could be interpreted as a positive sign of a high level of learning, whilst others were understood as signals of a lack of learning, as the attributes of uncivilised persons, often with a connotation of low social origin and meanness. In the use of play writers and numerous representatives of the elite, jargon was one important instrument of social and moral differentiation. It is not surprising, that some medieval dramatists employed ‘bad jargon’ as their tool when communicating and signalling their negative views about executioners. A fine example is provided by the cycle of Old Testament plays. In the story of Esther (VI) hangmen use many words and expressions that belonged to the argot of the lower classes or marginal people in late medieval France. In a scene depicting the execution of the provost Haman, the master hangman Gournay shouts to his aide Micet: ‘Happe la charge’,93 or ‘fix the cargo’, by which he obviously means fastening the hanging rope around the neck of the convict. In the anonymous writer’s play dedicated to Saint Denis, the executioners use various popular expressions of their blows referring to pieces and morsels food (meat, bread, etc.)94 and to popular themes already discussed in section 3.2. Presumably, some professional hangmen actually spoke the jargon of the lower classes in late medieval France, at least those individuals who were former convicts and had come from marginal or criminal circles. From the point of view of this study, the more important question is, naturally, what people in the past believed, how they were inclined to think that hangmen usually spoke.95 In late medieval drama the use of slang terminology was a very common feature. Writers mixed in their text (written in French) expressions originating from Latin, English, Italian, patois, langue d’oc, and other dialects. Dramatists knew that their audience especially liked to hear ‘bad French’ but also clumsy Latin was found to be very amusing.96 There also existed a category of jargon absolu, or ‘absolute jargon’, the words of which had no particular significance in any known language. Absolute slang was sometimes employed as a diabolical curse or as a reference to mental disorders.97 Not only hangmen but also numerous persons could use slang expressions in drama. The language of the underworld was reserved for demons and various evil 93 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 167. 94 Le martyre de S. Denis et de ses compagnons, 122. 95 Obviously, not every hangman in drama employed ‘bad jargon’: a counter-example is provided, once more, by Maliferas in the Passion d’Auvergne. 96 Garapon 1957, 101; Verdon 2001, 240-3; Bahtin 2002, 416-9. 97 Garapon 1957, 45-6. Another method that served the same purpose was to break the logic that structured the discourse, as we will see below in section 6.4.

227

CHAPTER 6

individuals such as robbers. The martyrs of mystery plays often speak some words in Latin or Greek in their prayers or sermons, which most of the spectators naturally could not understand, even if it was not an argot form of these languages. In a play on Saint Peter and Saint Paul, for example, Paul prays in Greek just before his execution. Paul’s litany inspires an executioner called Masquebignet to jest that: ‘il lit bien et chante sans note; / sy le vueil faire cardinal.’98 (He reads well and sings without note(s) / so that I would like to appoint him cardinal). Slang Latin is typical of cultivated personages in mystery plays, clerics and various learned men (docteurs), as well as of Lucifer and pagan kings.99 Professionals of the law spoke judicial slang: they used French terms in their archaic form, which probably amused spectators even if they could not always fully understand the significance of the words.100 As Robert Garapon has observed, the language of the late medieval theatre was quite popular at the level of vocabulary. One factor that explains this feature is that the French language itself was still quite young in the fifteenth century.101 It was close to its origins and had not yet lost the flexibility characteristic of a new language. Thus, playwrights enjoyed a privileged position as to the use of new or foreign expressions.102 One gets the impression that the late medieval audience liked to hear parlers estrangers, foreign languages or dialects.103 Jargon was not, however, only an entertaining element. It also was a very efficient weapon of satire or parody, an easy and simple way to make various personages ridiculous104 or to label some individuals as low and mean. It has been suggested that jargon was such a popular element in late medieval drama because of the new and fresh patterns of thinking that it produced. It brought novel liberty into the language. Medieval spectators enjoyed grasping the burlesque quality of some deviant word in the middle of everyday parlance. They loved to recognise terms belonging to some foreign language or dialect, even if they did not quite understand their actual meaning.105 One can also presume that François Villon, among others, was well aware of the great popular appeal of various

98 Le martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul, 86. Presumably, this joke might have mocked the lack of musicality and learning of some ordinary priests in everyday reality, especially those in the small villages of the countryside. However, mass singing was not supposed to be very melodic but monotone and one can assume that many ordinary churchgoers, who could not understand Latin, found it fairly boring to listen to. 99 Garapon 1957, 40-2. 100 Verdon 2001, 243-4. 101 Even if Latin had now become the language of the learned, it was still a living language used on many occasions. This fact explains the lively character of slang Latin. Garapon 1957, 100-1. It was during the thirteenth century that written French started to supersede Latin in the field of administration. Because there were not enough French words to satisfy the new needs and because clerics were usually bilingual, they often borrowed missing terms directly from Latin, a tendency that accelerated in the later Middle Ages. Cohen 1961, 837. See also Bahtin 2002, 416. 102 Garapon 1957, 100-1. 103 In general, late medieval people seem to have been quite sensitive to different dialects, which helped them to categorise and identify various speakers. 104 Also the mocking sermons of popular tradition, les sermons joyeux, almost always started with a Latin quotation followed by some burlesque reference. In late medieval drama, an ecclesiastic or a learned man who spoke bad (slang) Latin revealed his incompetence and vainglory. Garapon 1957, 37-8, 46. 105 Some slang terms were considered amusing because they were neologisms, new words invented just for the occasion. Garapon 1957, 46-7.

228

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

slang expressions and it was partly for this reason he used them in his poetry.106 Villon was naturally in a particularly privileged position regarding the use of argot, for he was not only closely related to the Parisian underworld, but at the same time he was also perfectly familiar with the jargon of the learned.107 Thus, he could make use of many different categories of slang in his works. Another important context that can help us to understand the frequent employment of slang expressions and coarse language in religious drama, features that some scholars have found peculiar and disturbing, is the tradition of popular sermons. Popular preachers such as Michel Menot, a Franciscan who taught theology in Paris 1480–1500, used methods very similar to the writers of mystery plays. It has been suggested that Menot attracted large audiences for the very reason that his sermons included numerous slang expressions both in Latin and in French (latin barbare et français burlesque) in addition to puns (calembours) and coarse jokes. Olivier Maillard (c. 1430–1502), a Franciscan monk and doctor of theology, also used the same procedure. It seems that Maillard’s vocabulary was even more vulgar. Jean Verdon suggests that these two preachers’ amazing success was based on the fact that medieval people appreciated le parler dru, coarse language, and that many clerics shared the tastes of the common people. In the later Middle Ages the Church had a most impressive capacity to adopt different tones in its teaching, according to various audiences, and thus influence mentalities. Especially preachers belonging to mendicant orders were very skilful in changing their style and vocabulary when they spoke to the peasantry instead of nobles or merchants and in using the kind of language that had an effect on a large audience. Men like Menot and Maillard knew well that horror and laughter were useful tools in religious teaching, because these helped to capture the attention of the audience. Some elements of sermons, which seem rude (or comic) to modern people, did not appear as such to medieval audiences. Evidently, the main purpose of preachers was to guide listeners towards growing wisdom and a more virtuous lifestyle.108 With respect to the jargon of criminal groups, it must be observed that this category was found to be especially stigmatic but also particularly intriguing. From the Middle Ages on it was generally believed that the underworld formed a counterworld with its own hierarchy, customs and language. Roger Chartier has underlined the importance of the special language of the underworld in the representation of gueux (beggars, vagabonds, ruffians, etc.) at the beginning of the early modern period.109 At the end of the Middle Ages, attitudes towards marginal groups became more suspicious and antagonistic and the notion of marginality was redefined. Leading groups became quite worried about the mysterious language used by the marginal elements of the society.110 We can find clear evidence of this concern in various sources. As Jean Delumeau has shown, this apprehension was linked to a general climate of suspicion, fear and guilt during the period of crises and plagues. 106 107 108 109 110

Villon, Poésies completes. See section 3.1. Verdon 2001, 31-4, 40, 48. On mendicant preachers, see also Hanska 1997. Chartier 1974, 376-88. See also Gauvard 1993, 1124; Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 442-3. Delumeau 1978, 410.

229

CHAPTER 6

The leading classes of society had become more and more obsessed with the idea of the secret agents of Satan, who lurked everywhere.111 The incomprehensible language of criminal and marginal elements nurtured their feelings of insecurity and doubts about the growing threat inside society itself (and not only on the borders of the kingdom). In late medieval society and culture jargon was a lexical feature that classified speakers into separate categories and thus demarcated and strengthened the barriers between. To sum up, it is quite clear that dramatists put slang expressions into the mouth of the executioner essentially for the reason that this was not only an efficient instrument for criticism and negative framing but also a handy tool for ridicule and satire. Jargon had the power to make audiences laugh and appreciate the play. Laughter itself could serve didactical purposes. Late medieval writers knew well that a sufficient dose of comedy could be helpful in the sending (and receiving) of a serious message. 6.3 Jesting about Pain and Death Writers of mystery plays also made the executioner reveal and express his moral character to spectators through macabre jokes and sadistic or obscene humour. Particularly in torture scenes, cruel jokes and puns are very typical of tirans and master hangmen, who often want to announce what they are going to do next to their victims – or explain what they are doing (i.e. they describe their own blows at the moment of giving them).112 These witticisms can be classified into several categories. In my source material the most common are 1) physician’s or quack’s jokes; 2) alimentary (cook and butcher) jokes; and 3) scatological jokes (jokes related to bodily secretions and odours). I shall focus on these three major categories in the present section. An important category of black humour in the executioner scenes of mystery plays is the one I call ‘physician’s or quack’s jokes’, that is, various puns where the victim becomes a patient to be ‘cured’ by the executioner. In popular language the term patient referred both to a patient of a medical doctor, a person awaiting or receiving medical care and to a convicted criminal – a patient to a public executioner. A fine example of this type of jokes can be found in Jean du Prier’s Le mystère du roy Advenir (c. 1455), a play on the legend of Barlaam and Jospahat, which was immensely popular in the Middle Ages.113 In du Prier’s play we find a scene where an executioner is about to decapitate a monk and who says: ‘Or sus, sire, sus, baissiez vous! / je vous gariray de la toux, / Se ma dolloire ne me fault.’114 (Now 111 Bernard Chevalier observes, however, that in late medieval France permanent criminal groupings such as Coquillards were still quite rare. ‘La société des truands n’existait nulle part encore, mais le fantasme est là, lové au fond des mentalités collectives et prêt du coup à lui donner réellement naissance’. Chevalier 1982, 291. 112 Hans-Jürgen Diller, who has studied this feature in English mystery plays, has called it ‘parallelism’. Diller 1992, 59. 113 Barlaam was a hermit who succeeded in converting Josaphat, son of the pagan king Avenir. 114 Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 327.

230

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

come, sire, come, bend forward! / I will cure your cough, / if my weapon does not fail me.) The pun about curing coughs is common to executioners and we also meet it in a play dedicated to Saint Lawrence.115 In the piece dedicated to Saint Denis an executioner named Humebrouet hits Saint Eleutherius and at the same time promises to cure his victim’s maladies with a special ointment: ‘J’au oignement de Bretaigne / qui garist de roigne et de taigne. / Tien, tu sera gary en l’heure’.116 (I have ointment from Brittany / which cures rash and itch. / You will be cured in an instant.) In Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, an anonymous hangman (‘le boreau’) promises a convict to be his omnipotent physician: Je seray vostre medicim. De tous maulx je vous tiendray l[ibre]. Il n’est ne gourgosom ne fievre Que ne sache la medicine. Jamés vous n’ares lant orine Ne nulle aultre maladie.117 I will be your physician. I will free you of all maladies There is not such throat ache, nor fever That I could not cure. You will never have bladder infection Nor any other malady. Later in the same play a hangman named Mal Feras assures his victim that if he has skin infections, he will soon be healed: ‘Si vous avés mules, vraymant / Vous en serés tantous gueris’118 (If you have boils, truly / you will be soon cured of them.) The core of these jokes was obviously in the fact that the function of an executioner was diametrically opposed to the healing function of a physician. Medieval spectators found this contrast very amusing. It is not too farfetched to think that at the same time some writers wanted to criticise the professionals of health (by associating them with the professionals of killing). We have much evidence indicating that medieval people often doubted the healing powers of physicians. Some critics claimed that for the most part, these were mere quacks.119

115 Le mystère de Saint Laurent, 89. 116 Le martyre de S. Denis et de ses compagnons, 128-9. 117 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 172-3. We find the same kind of physician joke in Gréban’s work, in a scene depicting the killing of the children of Bethlehem. The executioner Achopart says to Rachel after having murdered her child: ‘Je luy ay donné medecine / dont james ne sera malade.’ Gréban, Le mystère de la Passion, 99. See also Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, which is an adaptation of Gréban’s play. Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 356. 118 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 239. 119 According to Jean Dupin, ‘La science de sirurgie / Et de phisique est trabuchie. / L’art est corrompuz et faulsez. / Les complexions sont changes / Et nature est afeibilie, / Les maistres en sont tous esgarez…’ Les Mélancolies de Jean Dupin, 71. See also Wolff 1978, 128.

231

CHAPTER 6

Physicians everywhere were accused of seeking financial gain at the expense of their patients: ‘For gold in phisik is a cordial, / There fore he lovede gold in special.’120 As Nancy G. Siraisi has stressed, the criticism of physicians arose, finally, more from religious tradition, where healing was strongly linked with Christian charity, and its assertion of the priority of the healing of the soul over that of the body, than from the ineffectiveness of medical science. The fourth Lateran Council (1215) had ordered physicians to request calling a patient’s confessor before starting any medical procedures.121 In their writings and sermons, late medieval ecclesiastics often reminded Christian audiences about the primacy of priests, physicians of the soul, over ordinary physicians, who focused merely on the bodily well-being of their patients.122 Physician’s and quack’s jokes also reflect a pattern of thinking typical of late medieval culture: the habit of identifying various dubious categories of ‘men of blood’ with one another. In the eyes of the rest of society all those professionals that came into contact with polluting human or animal blood were suspect: hangmen, butchers, barbers, surgeons, pharmacists, etc.123 The link between hangmen and professionals of health was sometimes very real: there exists, in fact, some evidence to show that at the beginning of the early modern period, executioners sometimes functioned as bonesetters or physicians (of poor people, mostly) in different corners of Europe.124 At the same time it must be borne in mind that some medical and anatomical knowledge was necessary in the official executioner’s job. He had to be able to keep the convict alive till the end of the ceremony in those cases where there were one or several punishments of mutilation before the final execution. Lionello Puppi has suggested that the significance of professional hangmen was actually very important to the development of medicine on the eve of the early modern period and particularly to the development of techniques for arresting any bleeding. Professional hangmen often used animal bladders in this operation, a technique that was also common to butchers working in abattoirs.125 Finally, the professionals of health co-operated with agents of criminal justice in several situations, for example, by supervising the course of a torture session,126 helping judicial authorities to determine the cause of death,127 or sometimes helping an inexperienced hangman to arrest bleeding during a punitive ceremony.128 A large group of jokes in the executioner scenes of mystery plays focuses on the theme of food. Here I refer to jokes and puns where executioners present them120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

232

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 14. Siraisi 1990, 21, 43-4, 46. See for example Jean Gerson’s La médicine de l’ame. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 407. In Jean Michel’s text, the executioner Bruyant associates himself and his comrades both with physicians as well as with barbers. Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 258. Spierenburg 1984, 31-2. See also Delarue 1979, 84-7. Puppi 1991, 30-1. See also Camporesi 1988, 151. See section 2.1. See, for example, Registre Criminel de Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 462-3, 473. Jean de Roye mentions a case where a convicted criminal was pardoned on condition that he accepted letting the surgeons perform an experimental operation and examine his gallstones. Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 322-3. See also La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 264-5. Unlike Nicole Gonthier, I do not find it evident that the physicians and pharmacists present at this execution described by Vigneulles were there in order to give him assistance or advice but rather to learn more about the human anatomy. See Gonthier 1998, 158.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

selves as cooks or butchers and at the same time associate their victims with cattle, vulgar pieces of meat, or some other kind of food. In Le mystére de Saint Barthélemy from the fifteenth century the executioners proudly call themselves ‘perfect butchers, capable of cutting pieces of the right weight and size’ (perfes bochiers, capables de tailler des cartiers de bon peis et de mesuro) after which they slice their victim as an ordinary piece of meat.129 Similarly, in Arnoul Gréban’s work, an executioner (in the service of Herod) praises his colleague as a habille boucher,130 that is, a skilled butcher. In a torture scene executioners strip the clothes of Christ that are stuck to his injured skin and one of them compares the saintly victim with a skinned animal: ‘Ce semble ung mouton qu’on escorche: / la peau s’en vient avec l’abit.’131 (He looks like a lamb that has been flayed: / his skin comes off with the habit.) In the Mystere de Saint Sébastien one executioner announces before decapitation that there will soon be enough blood for anyone who wants to make sausages: Vous verrez tantost sur ma vie Se je sçay ren de boucherie. Qui voudra feyre des bodins, Aporte aprés des tupins. Il aura toust du sanc assés.132 You will soon see, by my life If I know anything about butchering. He who wants to make sausages, Should bring near dishes. He will soon have enough blood. In a play dedicated to Saint Quintus, the executioners talk like ordinary cooks in a kitchen, surrounded with grills and frying pans, slices of meat and sausages: FOURURE Rotissons trippes et boyelles De ces cristiens boursouflés Let’s grill the intestines and bowels Of these fat Christians TEMPESTE Nous les taillerons par rouelles Ainsi que gros boudins enflés.133 129 Henrard 1998, 390-1. 130 Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 100. See also Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 445. The executioner Malengrongne says to his victim in Le mystère de saint Laurent: ‘De vostre corps seray boucher, / Chevalier, puis que je vous tien.’ Le mystère de saint Laurent, 157. 131 Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 313. 132 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 214. 133 As Jelle Koopmans has remarked, these lines remind us about mocking sermons, carnival plays (the battle between Carême and Carnage) and Rabelais’ texts. Koopmans 1997, 110-1.

233

CHAPTER 6

We shall cut them in round slices Like big swollen sausages. Play writers often made executioners exchange these kinds of grimly humorous replies in the manner of cooks. In Jehan du Prier’s work Le mystère du roy Advenir we find an anonymous hangman who has just burned five hermits and shows the intestines of one of them and shouts: ‘Harau, comme la gresse crie! / Que les lodiers estoient gras!’134 (Hark, how the grease cries! / Weren’t those rascals fat!) as if the victims were just pieces of steak. In another scene of the same play we meet executioners jesting about salting their skinned victims.135 These examples were from hagiographical plays. Alimentary jokes are also common in biblical plays. In La passion d’Auvergne one can find a scene where Longinus pierces Christ’s side with his spear. An executioner called Janus comments on this by exclaiming: ‘Jhesus, si vous estes sac plain, / maintenent rendés la farine!’136 (Jesus, if you are a full sack, / pour the flour out now!). One also encounters a similar comparison in the Old Testament play. Here an executioner named Maudollé tells his victim, the keeper of Pharaoh’s bread store: ‘Regardez, voicy une place / Dont je vous mectray en saisine, / Lyé comme ung sac de farine’137 (Look, here is the place / where I will hang you, / Tied like a wheat sack). In an anonymous mystery play from the first half of the fifteenth century executioners, in a torture scene, call Christ jokingly maistre Ognon,138 master Onion. Master Onion was a carnival saint and hero of the sermons joyeux, mocking sermons of medieval popular tradition. Saint Onion was presented as the only saint – after Lazarus – as having been resurrected. His greatest miracle was to help people cry at the funerals of those persons they had never really liked. The cook – and executioner – of Saint Onion was the biblical figure of Nebuzaradan.139 A common feature of the executioners in mystery plays is also to jest that hits and blows are ingredients that they serve to their victims: ‘Or tien, Jhesus, prent ces deux noix / Et ceste figue mal rostie! […] Mange ceste poree boulie / Et ceste guasteau mal prestit! […] Tien cecy, mange ces deux eufz!’140 (Here, Jesus, take these two nuts / And this badly roasted fig! […] Eat this cooked pear / And this raw cake! […] Here you are, eat these two eggs). The anonymous playwright has made use of ambiguous slang expressions that were popular amongst the lower classes and connected violence with alimentary themes. 134 135 136 137

Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 502. Ibid., 191. La passion d’Auvergne, 230. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 90-1. One encounters a joke on pies both in Gréban’s work (in the martyr scene of the children of Bethlehem) and in Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes. Gréban, Le mystère de la Passion, 99; Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, I, 354. The executioner Narinart kills Raab’s child and says: ‘Or tenez, portez boulir, / ou vous en faciés des pastéz.’ 138 Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 170. In the Mystère de Actes des Apôtres the executioner Maubué calls Saint Etienne by the name of ‘master Onion’. Koopmans 1997, 110. 139 Koopmans 1988, 453; Koopmans 1997, 109-10; Verdon 2001, 188. Mocking sermons often ended with a prayer or comic advice. In one sermon Saint Onion says: ‘Je vous commande, mes amis / Pensez à boire et à manger!’ Verdon 2001, 189. For the mocking sermons and other forms of parodies in late medieval popular culture, see also Bahtin 2002, 76-8. 140 La passion d’Auvergne, 189.

234

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

It is not surprising that the executioner was also associated with the cook and the butcher in the numerous jokes of torture scenes in mystery plays. As I have already observed, in the later Middle Ages the figures of the executioner, butcher and cook were actually perceived as being quite similar (including those of the physician (or quack) and barber-surgeon).141 The instruments and methods these professionals employed – and the terms referring to these – were identical. The function of these rude and macabre jokes was to reveal the cruel and evil character of the executioner and to degrade and bestialise him. It should also be remembered that demons were often represented as cooks in the products of late medieval culture. It was typical to identify Hell, not only with a slaughterhouse or a torture chamber, but also with a kitchen.142 These cook and butcher jokes also linked the executioner with the carnival tradition of the Middle Ages and its alimentary theme already discussed in section 3.2. The executioner became a part of the fiction of the ‘other’, the carnival representing the other side of things. Pieter Spierenburg has written on the humour of popular culture: ‘Next to the regenerative humour and the private parts, was a love of food and drink, the third element.’ In comical processions people carried kitchen instruments and poultry. Abundant meals – a favourite motive of popular stories – were also part of the reality of these festivities. Sometimes these were associated with the function of debasement. The heroes of many stories played with their enemies by having a copious meal whilst they were tortured. In many cases eating was explicitly associated with the inverse world. As Spierenburg notes, one important function of comic modes was the neutralisation of different fears and anxieties. It was for this reason Hell was often depicted in a humorous light and demons could turn into comedians.143 There are good reasons to presume that the macabre jokes of executioners – called by amusing names such as Riflandoillie, Tailliebodin, etc. – served to evoke both laughter and horror in the late medieval audience. These jokes dealt with one of the great fears of people in the past: the fear of being consumed.144 Medieval people were obsessed, not only by the idea of being eaten by beasts such as wolves, but also of being gnawed by all sorts of disgusting tiny creatures (worms, for example) after their death. At that time people were strongly conscious of the fact that human bodies ultimately were (and are) the food of animals.145 The medieval Christian’s fear of being consumed focused on the idea of perdition and eternal

141 These opinions also prevailed in later times. On early modern notions and attitudes toward anatomists (and physicians and hangmen) see Sawday 1995, 59, 81. Piero Camporesi has examined the close association of the roles and techniques (as well of terminology) of cooks and medicine in late medieval culture. Camporesi 1988, 171-2. 142 Jérôme Baschet has examined Hell’s changing imagery at the end of the Middle Ages. According to Baschet, the central role was given to the kitchen tools and instruments familiar from the domestic milieu, because this made Hell a still more powerful instrument of conditioning for the Church. Baschet 1985, 185-207; Baschet 1993. For the kitchen instruments, see Piponnier 1996, 525-36. 143 Spierenburg 1991, 81-2. 144 Joyce E. Salisbury observes that food was often associated (besides life) with death in the Middle Ages. The food consumed by humans (i.e. dead animals) transforms first to life (man’s own flesh) but finally man dies and worms eat up his body. Salisbury 1994, 70-6. 145 This is one factor that explains the great care that late medieval people took to ensure a proper burial.

235

CHAPTER 6

death,146 which was contrasted with salvation and eternal life. The bodily resurrection promised by religion offered victory over the horrible teeth of beasts and also of those of death. Christ’s resurrection had defeated worms, dragons, demons and all the animals that just waited for the opportunity to devour human bodies.147 To understand macabre alimentary jokes in mystery plays one should also remember that late medieval persons were much more used to the sight of mutilated flesh and dead bodies than modern people are, particularly because of public execution ceremonies. Undoubtedly, these spectacles did not usually leave spectators indifferent but evoked very ambiguous thoughts and feelings: on the one hand, fear and disgust and, on the other, one of great curiosity or even macabre hilarity, because of the associations relating both to theatre and to food. A valuable testimony about past attitudes is provided, for example, by the chronicler Philippe de Vigneulles. Vigneulles admits openly his great interest both in dramatic presentations148 and in public executions. He reports both kinds of spectacles often and carefully and also observes some analogies between them. In a report from the year 1492 he describes the scaffold constructed for the execution of a certain Jean de Landremont and says that it was just like a platform in a dramatic presentation.149 Vigneulles describes Landremont’s execution in detail and pays particular attention to the cutting of the convict’s flesh, its colour and quality, as if he were giving a recipe for the kitchen. He ends his report by commenting rather harshly that the exceptional fatness of the convict’s white flesh was a sight that probably killed the appetite of many spectators (to have meat) for that night.150 As I have already underlined (in section 3.3) Vigneulles was quite an exceptional chronicler because he liked to show the consequences of judicial violence, blood and pain, which was not usual for most of his colleagues. Vigneulles’ text gives us valuable information about the associations and emotions that public spectacles of violence evoked among people of the past. In the executioner scenes of mystery plays one can also discern a category of jokes that I call ‘scatological jokes’. These are jokes and puns on the various secretions and odours of the human body. A fine example is furnished by Le mystère de Saint Barthélemy: in a torture scene the executioners speak about bad smells that spread from their victim’s mutilated body and decide finally that they must get rid of the 146 Clear manifestations of the great fear of being consumed are found in the countless depictions of Hell’s mouth, which resembled a giant wolf’s head and in those representing the Devil devouring the souls of the damned in Hell. See, for example, Lucifer in The Limbourgs, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. 1413–1416. Musée Condé, Chantilly; Dante, La Divina Commedia, 295. 147 Salisbury 1994, 70-6. 148 Vigneulles mentions many presentations of mystery plays in his hometown Metz. Vigneulles himself actively took part in the realisation of some of these, being l’ung des gouverneurs de conduicteurs. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, I-IV, passim and IV, 155. 149 ‘ung grant parquez (ou ung hours), qui estoit fait tout propice pour cest office et eslevé en hault, comme se ce fût pour juer ung jeux’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 264-5. Lionello Puppi has also paid attention to terminological similarities and suggests that the French word échafaud, scaffold, originates from the language of the theatre. In German one can refer to this by the term Schaubühne. Puppi observes that punishment ceremonies were urban spectacles par excellence. Puppi 1991, 15. 150 ‘Celluy Jehan de Landremont estoin ung homme gros, court et gras; et estoit en sa chair aussy blanc que neige […] Et avoit troys doy de lairt dessus le col et par les cuisse; par quoy plusieurs furent descourés de mengier chair pour celle nuyt dez Roys’. (Or, the 5th of January.) La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 264-5.

236

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

stinking offal: ‘Buten lous cartiers a part / Per lou gardar de sentir.’151 (Let’s put those pieces away / so as not to smell them.) In Jehan du Prier’s work Le mystère de roy Advenir we meet, in a torture scene (hangmen are binding their victim upside down), an aide of the master hangman who exclaims: ‘Fy! Je croy au’il a fait ung pait. / Je croy que son cul se descorde.’152 (Phew! I think he has farted. / I think that his arse disagrees.) One can guess that this comment was intended to be particularly funny. In the same play there is also a scene where various persons tell what they intend to give as a gift to the king’s newborn son. The ideas of the executioners reveal their brutal character and certainly evoked great amusement among late medieval spectators: Barbacas promises to give his rope and Agripart an iron bar. The most provoking is, however, the idea of the official town’s executioner, ‘le Bourreau’: Et moy unes brayes que j’ay, Qui sont toutes pleines de merde. J’ay grant paour que je ne les perde. Ma femme si les m’a donné. Quatre ou cinq blancs ilz m’ont cousté, mais il n’en fault ja rechigner.153 And I [shall give] a pair of trousers of mine Which are all full of shit. I have had a great fear of losing them. My wife has given them to me. They cost me four or five coins but I must not weep for the loss. These grotesque jokes about bodily secretions were not only a comic element but also a very stigmatic attribute in late medieval drama, a function of which was to refer to the low moral character of the hangman and to link him with ideas of impurity and pollution. At the same time these jokes referred to the lower classes and were meant be understood as criticism of the rude puns especially appreciated in popular culture. As María José del Río has observed, in carnival culture, for example, language and gestures referred systematically to basic bodily functions.154 Pieter Spierenburg has also stressed that popular humour was, in general, closely linked to the human body and its functions and especially those of its lower parts. This association with the body and the material world served as a means to mock respected things but at the same time the position of these was strengthened and reaffirmed. ‘Popular humour loved the realm of urine and excrement’ Spierenburg

151 152 153 154

Henrard 1998, 390-1. Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 229. Ibid., 202. Río 1993, 86.

237

CHAPTER 6

notes, defecating was as interesting an action as swallowing in the popular imagery.155 It should be observed, too, that the executioners’ numerous jokes and references to bodily secretions and bad odours also pointed to impurity and danger, death and Satan. I have already emphasised the link between filth, putrefaction, sin and perdition in previous chapters (sections 2.3 and 3.2). Dante, for example, filled Hell not only with horrible tortures and blood streams but also with an awful stench and filth.156 In the late medieval thinking sweet odours were frequently associated with Paradise. In the heavenly court the angels ‘carry sweet incenses around / which give a great and wonderful odour’ (Ces douz encens portent entor, / Qui mout getoient grant odor.) as one can read in La Court de Paradis, an anonymous poem from the end of the thirteenth century.157 In Heaven there was neither putrefaction nor filth nor any sources of repulsive odours but only beautiful, agile, perfect bodies and the most agreeable and wonderful sensory experiences. In everyday reality people were also sensitive to bad odours. As Jean-Pierre Leguay has shown, pollution and repulsive smells were a growing problem in late medieval towns and also the target of repeated complaints.158 Town-dwellers complained continuously, not only about the odours and wastes related to abattoirs and various artisan activities but also about the stench of the rotting corpses of convicts on the gallows and near the town gates. It was common that a whole town was carefully cleaned and corpses were removed before some important occasion, such as a princely visit or a royal funeral.159 The modern reader may find it quite amazing that playwrights included jokes on such topics as the breaking of wind or excrement in religious drama.160 To understand this one should bear in mind two points already mentioned in the previous chapter: 1) the standard of shame in late medieval culture differed from that of ours; 2) these motifs had an important stigmatising function. Because the criterion of shame was different in the Middle Ages, people (not only the common people but also the learned) could speak and write much more openly about different bodily functions. For example, in conduct books written by ecclesiastics this theme was discussed quite openly (from the point of view of modern standards). A well-known example is De civilitate morum puerilium (1530) by Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus writes very comprehensively and openly about such topics as breaking wind, spitting, vomiting and urinating.161 As Norbert Elias has observed, ‘the unconcerned frankness with which Erasmus and his time could discuss all areas of human conduct is lost to us. Much of what he says oversteps our threshold of 155 Spierenburg 1991, 81-2. Jean Verdon has reminded us that in fabliaux, or stories in poetic form, meant to be read aloud and written from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the fourteenth century, a central feature was their obscene tone. Fabliaux often emphasised bodily functions, eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, sexual activities (– but not deviant sexuality). Verdon 2001, 176-8, 191. 156 Dante, La Divina Commedia, 46, 60, 87, 151-2, 245. 157 La Court de Paradis, 99. See also Dante, La Divina Commedia, 507, 573 and passim. 158 Leguay 1999, 28-9, 38, 54-5. 159 Hillairet 1956, 35; Leguay 1999, 11. For the cultural meanings of smells in the Middle Ages and in different cultures, see also Classen, Howes & Synnot 1994. For studying smell-scapes, see also Salmi 2001. 160 Scatological jokes have also been appreciated in other cultures. On the theories on the comic power of scatology, see Douglas 1975, 95. 161 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [15, 26-7, 38].

238

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

delicacy’.162 The essential point is that Erasmus and his colleagues wrote about these ‘intimate’ topics in order to condemn various bad habits related to them: the message was that urinating in public places or spitting on other people’s clothes, etc., are vile gestures not suitable for any decent person to indulge in. The executioners’ rude jokes and sinister humour also ran in many other directions besides these major themes or categories that I have discussed above. The following examples reveal other themes that were fairly typical in mystery plays. In the Old Testament play (III) there is a scene where Egyptian children are killed by drowning. The executioners jest that they are teaching the children to swim: ‘On luy aprendra a nager’163 (We will teach him to swim) or giving them a nice bath: ‘Le vella, il est en ung bain, / Qui n’est ne trop froit ne trop chault.’164 (There he is in a bath, / Which is not too cold nor too hot.) In a play dedicated to Saint Sebastian, an executioner promises to help his victim to get rid of his extra weight on a torture bench, which is humorously called lit de pleysance, a bed of pleasure.165 Later in the same piece there is a hanging scene where the hangman promises to further his victim’s study of astronomy166 and to put him beyond all dangers: ‘Vous estes hors de tous dangiés.’167 (You will be out of all dangers.) An executioner promises to Nicostratus just before his beheading: ‘Il ne te chaut ja chaperom, / Jamés n’auras froit en la teste.’168 (You will never need a hat again, / You will never have a cold head.) It must be noticed that in the late medieval theatre, coarse jokes were typical of hangmen but other mean or evil personages (gravediggers, jailers, bad soldiers) could cultivate them, too.169 Jesting executioners in mystery plays are comparable to demons in their special appeal – demons, which many scholars have considered as most effective comical figures in drama, for the paradoxical reason that they evoked, at the same time, such great fear. As J.B. Russell has underlined – that the purpose of play writers was not to make their audience to laugh with demons but at them.170 The same is very true in the case of hangmen: dramatists wanted to make people laugh at the vulgarity of executioners of Christian saints, their brutality and meanness – and not with them. As the wise, the good and the pious never jested in mystery plays, the contrast with the language of executioners, demons and evil persons was, consequently, very striking. The message of playwrights was that grotesque and rude jokes were totally unsuitable for any decent or honourable person. 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170

Elias I 1983, 58. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 231-2. Ibid., 233. LE BOUREAU: Il est gra comme une tarpe, / Mes je vous feray venir meygre.(modo ligat eum) / Vous estes couchié a tom eyes / En cestuy beau lit de pleysance. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 192. LE BOUREAU: Or ça, ma damme, vous serrés / Au plus haud de voustre besognies. / Vous verrés dessus le montagnes / Pour estudier astronomie. / Or ça, montés lassus, ma mye. Ibid., 204-5. Ibid., 207. Ibid., 216. One can also find the ‘hat joke’ in an anonymous mystery play from the first half of the fifteenth century. Here, an executioner serving Herod says after having decapitated John the Baptist: ‘Plus ne te fault de chaperon!’ Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 85. On gravediggers’ macabre jesting, see Le Mistére du Viel Testament, IV, 372-3. Russell 1984, 259-60. For the demon scenes, diableries, in late medieval drama, see also Bahtin 2002, 237-8. On popular beliefs, notions and attitudes relating to devils in the Middle Ages, see Katajala-Peltomaa 2004.

239

CHAPTER 6

Jesting about pain and death is typical not only of medieval popular culture; black humour was also a common feature in the literature of ancient Rome, for example.171 In the Middle Ages one important function of black humour was to serve as an antidote to the fear of death.172 In popular culture many anxieties could be neutralised by means of humour and rejoicing. As Pieter Spierenburg has noted, this is why people could dance at funerals, play cards, show pantomimes or mock fights, and drink heavily. These habits had nothing to do with disrespect towards the deceased (even if some clerics wanted to think so) but they had a serious and important function as neutralisers of fear.173 It is essential to remember that the writers and audiences of mystery plays lived in a world obsessed by the fear of death and perdition. By the end of the Middle Ages death had become a major theme in art, sermons and literature. This increased fear and anxiety found countless manifestations. The rituals and gestures related to dying multiplied impressively. It became quite usual, for example, to carefully plan all the details of one’s own funeral in advance. In testaments one can find very exhaustive instructions and orders concerning complex and long funeral ceremonies, tombs, prayers and the masses for the soul’s salvation.174 The central features in late medieval attitudes towards death were, on the one, hand familiarity and openness and, on the other hand, an unusually high level of fear. As Michel Vovelle has shown, this growth of sensitivity with regard to death was linked to several different factors, not only to that of high mortality but also to economic, political and social changes and disturbances.175 It was just because of this familiarity and openness that medieval people could speak, write and even jest about some aspects of death that many modern persons might find quite shocking. To sum up briefly, the writers of mystery plays used the macabre jokes of executioners to entertain the audience, which could appreciate black humour for various reasons, but also to stigmatise the hangmen. Jesting about the pain and death of saintly victims was a feature that revealed the inner decadence of executioners. The jokes thus served a didactic purpose. Even if this sadistic humour could make medieval spectators laugh, it was expected to evoke, at the same time, negative associations and feelings of disgust, fear and horror. Of course, in day-to-day life, it was not permitted to public executioners to make fun about their patients’ sufferings. Spectators of execution ceremonies were also expected to show compassion and not to laugh at the sight of pain and death. Dramatists, here, defined the ideal by depicting its opposite.

171 Bauman 1996, 68-9. 172 Bahtin 2002, 83. Steve Linstead has examined the functions of humour and stresses that ‘Humour can function as a coping device to release tension, allay fear, forestall death, defuse aggression or distance the unpleasant.’ Linstead also observes that humour allows the negotiation of taboo topics, sensitive issues and marginal serious content. Lindstead 1988, 142. A famous study on the functions of jokes in different cultures is Douglas 1975, 90-114. 173 Spierenburg 1991, 136. 174 See for example Testaments enregistrés au Parlement de Paris sous le règne de Charles VI, passim; Chiffoleau 1980. 175 Vovelle 1983; Vovelle 1990, 64-80.

240

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

6.4 Incoherent and Idle Talk Besides coarse language, cursing and jesting, play writers also employed the vanity of words, i.e. prolix language, as a stigmatic signal in communicating and constructing negative representations about certain marginal, low or evil individuals and groups. Saintly figures do not usually speak too much in religious drama and their language is nice and plain. The executioners’ language, on the other hand, is often grotesque and they are sometimes tireless babblers. This feature is typical, in particular, of fifteenth century plays. As mentioned earlier, in earlier plays executioners did not have many replies. A good example is offered by Arnoul Gréban’s famous Le Mystère de la Passion, where executioners dominate the action for almost 7 000 lines.176 In the Actes des Apôtres, the loquacious executioner Daru speaks as many as 1 133 lines.177 This play was written around 1460–1470 and it has been sometimes attributed to Arnoul Gréban’s brother, Simon. It became enormously popular as well and was presented often until the middle of the sixteenth century.178 One can discern four main categories in the executioner’s garrulous verbal expression: 1) repetitions; 2) enumeration; 3) boasting, and 4) incoherent talk. I shall examine these groups in depth in the present section and discuss their logic and possible interpretations in late medieval culture. In religious theatrical tradition, the executioners were as ruthless comedians as demons, their colleagues from the other world. When studying mystery texts one cannot help noticing that repetition (répetition) is a common feature of the executioner’s verbal expression. Executioners also repeat and parrot, besides their own words and phrases, those uttered by others. Fine examples are provided by a play dedicated to Saint Sebastian179 and a play on the legend of Saint Lawrence,180 where executioners restate again and again their willingness to serve and their eagerness to obey. As R.L. Wadsworth has observed, because of the repetitions typical of executioners, the torture scenes are like parodies of children’s games. Executioners reiterate and echo each other’s words and rhymes in a manner similar to the way a certain formula is repeated in many games.181 Wadsworth has used as an example 176 Lines 19009-25730. There are over 12 000 lines between the first and last replies of the executioners (1775729804). Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion. 177 Lebègue 1929, 207. 178 A mystery play on the apostles already existed in the first part of the fifteenth century. It was usual to play a Mystère des Actes des Apôtres in the two churches of Besançon twice a year 1421–1454. This text has disappeared, however. Later, King René of Anjou ordered from Simon Gréban a play on the same topic. Scholars have presumed that Arnoul may have helped his brother in this project. In 1478 King René ordered his valet du chambre Jean du Prier, writer of the Mystère du roy Avenir (c. 1455) to ‘mettre en ordre un livre des Apôtres’ or to make modifications to Gréban’s play. Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 1048. 179 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 85-6, 230-3, 274-5. 180 Le mystère de Saint Laurent, 43, 71-2. On repetition, see also the replies of the executioners Abisay and Abiron in an Old Testament play. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, V, 63-4. 181 Wadsworth 1970, 503. Wadsworth observes that later (in Gréban’s play), in attempting to justify the capture and tormenting of Christ, ‘the bourreaux senselessly repeat again and again in their refrains the few hollow excuses furnished them by the conspirators: Jesus is a sorcerer, a fraud, a dangerous rabble-rouser, an enemy of

241

CHAPTER 6

Arnoul Gréban’s work, which was very famous in its time and later had many imitators. It is quite true that in Gréban’s play repetitions are a very central feature, especially in the nocturnal beating scene of Christ as well as in the flogging scene.182 Repetition was a common negative sign in late medieval literature.183 Repeating was often considered to be a sign of stupidity or mental disorder in medieval culture. It was perceived as a typical feature of very young or very old people as well as of heavy drinkers.184 For these reasons reiteration was an efficient means of stigmatisation for dramatists. Repetition made a character appear stupid and depraved. Besides its stigmatic effect, repetition also had essential comic power. In farces one can often find reiterations, especially in scenes of disputes. In repetitions play writers often played with the meanings of words and with sounds, as well. Words were frequently chosen on a qualitative basis, so that they defined the speaker’s person.185 In the Sottie des Coppieurs et Lardeurs, for example, two personages repeat numerous variations of the verbs coppier (to cheat, in jargon) and larder (to mock, in jargon): NIVELET Pour larder lard en larderie Tant qu’en lardant le lardé rie, Je larde lardons bien lardez. MALOSTRU Et pour coppier en coppie Coppieur coppiant coppie Les coppieux bien coppiez NIVELET Quant lardeurs ung larderay lardent De lard lardissent et le lardent, Lard enlargissent en lourdoys. MALOSTRU Quand coppistres coppians couppent Leurs coppes coppiars sincopent, Coppies coppient en coquoys.186 It is not possible to translate this dialogue. The essential point is, as Jean Verdon has noted, that the repetition of a certain word or phrase helped to make any theme

182 183 184 185 186

242

the state.’ Seemingly, they do not have any knowledge beyond their orders – and they often fail to comprehend even these. Wadsworth 1970, 508. Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 256-9, 298-9. See also Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 325-8, 361-6. According to Robert Garapon, repetition usually pointed to the stupidity or the degrading senility of old age in literary products of the later Middle Ages. Garapon 1957, 63. On these topics, see sections 7.2 and 7.3. Garapon 1957, 64. Cf. Enders 1999, 172-3; Enders 2002b, 96-7. Quoted in Verdon 2001, 234.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

funny, even serious ones.187 Of course, sometimes the enumerations were employed rather as a means to enhance the dramatic effect and raise the stress in the audience, not so much as an expression of stupidity. Playwrights could make the executioner reveal his lack of intelligence and low moral character by means not only of repetitions but also of other techniques. Enumerations (the accumulation of words) and boasting (boniments) are categories that are often fused together (and with repetitions) in mystery plays. A typical feature of executioners is, for example, that they present and enumerate their various instruments of torture in a very lengthy way, as Griffon, Brayart and Orillart do in Jean Michel’s Le Mystère de la Passion.188 This occurs in a scene where the executioners prepare for work. The list of different weapons and instruments is exaggeratedly long, as usual. Another fine example is offered by a play on Saint Lawrence. The executioners named Malengrongné and Maulevault present and enumerate, in an exhaustive way, all their cruel instruments: MALENGRONGNÉ Seigneurs, veez cy tourmens assez: Voicy courgees bien trenchans Et plommees grasses et pesans, Cloups de fer et bonnes tenailles Et crocs pour tirer les entrailles, Soufflez pour le feu allumer Et gros bastons pour assommer, Aultres tourmens de mainte sorte. Seigneurs, look carefully at these weapons: Here are whips that cut deep And thick and heavy clubs, Iron nails and good pincers And hooks to pull out intestines Bellows to set fire And big staffs for stunning, Many sorts of other torture instruments. MAULEVAULT Laurens, regarde que j’aporte: Vecy de gros bastons carrez 187 Ibid., 234. ‘Il s’agit plûtot d’un procédé comique qui permet de conserver un ton burlesque, alors que la situation n’a rien de plaisant.’ On the use of alliteration in late medieval English mystery plays, see Epp 1992, 150-61. 188 ‘GRIFFON: Chascun pregne son brandestoc, / Sa guyserme, sa halebarde, / Son bec de faucon ou sa darde, / Haches, voulges ou partizaines. BRAYART: Veeez en cy plus de dix dozaines. / Nous avons dacgues, braquemars, / Espees, rapieres et faulsars, / Saqueboutes, picquetz, estoz, / Mallets de fer, plombees, passos, / Escus, boucliers, targes, pavoys, / Tylolles, crys, trousse et carquoys / Pour tenir bon jusque(s) a demain. ORILLART: Vecy coulovrines en main, / Ars, esbalestres, trés de passé / Pour faulcer franc une curasse, / Lances gayes, bastons a deux boustz.’ Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 264-5.

243

CHAPTER 6

Et de bonnes fourches ferrez, Et si vecy barres de fer Pour ta charongne reschauffer, Cousteaulx, poignars, dagues, espees Et doloires bien asserees, Et si vecy chaines et cordes.189 Lawrence, look what I have brought Here are big angular staffs And nice iron pitchforks And here are iron bars For warming up your corpse, Knifes, poniards, daggers, swords, And blades well sharpened And here are chains and ropes. Executioners wanted to frighten their victim and to impress the other person present (as well as the spectators) with these long lists. Linking the large arsenal of weapons to the hangman’s figure was, on the one hand, quite logical. An executioner was a specialist in violence, a man of weapons. In the later Middle Ages, because of the great range of physical penalties, an official executioner had to be skilled in the use of many kinds of arms and instruments. Especially in larger towns his arsenal was quite large. As already observed, medieval people were extremely curious about the hangman’s weapons because they believed in their important magical powers.190 Sometimes these lists of arms have been connected with heralds’ calls and announcements on public places, relating to military reviews, call-ups, festivities, etc.191 On the other hand, one possible connotation underlying of this type of accumulation was that of the idea of stupidity. Stupid persons, children or very old people are inclined to enumerate trivial things in a detailed way. Thus, the element of enumerating weapons could have both a frightening and comic power. As already mentioned, the boundary between the category of repetition and that of enumerations is sometimes blurred. For example, long litanies of curses and insults could be interpreted as one subcategory of enumeration, in cases where the accumulation is very extensive, whilst there is, at the same time, a repetitive element in them, as there is in enumerations of weapons.192 189 190 191 192

244

Le mystère de saint Laurent, 112. See also Le Mistere du Viel Testament, III, 88-9. See sections 2.3 and 4.5. Bahtin 2002, 157. A good example of the use of enumeration as a both comic and stigmatic element is provided by Les Miracles de Sainte Genèvieve from the fourteenth century. Personages suffering from various illnesses list their numerous symptoms and sufferings. For example, L’HYDROPIQUE presents a following litany: ‘Je ne sens qu’angoisse et malheur / du fond du pied jusqu’à la tête. / Hélas, j’ai goutte douloureuse, / j’ai gale et lèpre, et rogne et teigne, / j’ai fièvre lente et suis podagre, / je brûle partout du mal saint Fiacre. / J’ai au cul des hémorroïdes; / ainsi je ne puis chier, c’est grande horreur […] / Je suis rompu, j’ai mal à l’estomac, / j’ai la pierre, j’ai la gravelle, / je suis enflé et hydropique, / et d’un côté paralytique; / j’ai l’haleine puante et forte. / Mort, qu’attends-tu? viens et m’emporte; / je ne me puis plus soutenir’. Quotation in Verdon 2001, 237.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

A typical trait of the executioner’s verbal expression in mystery plays is also that of boasting. In many cases this feature, too, could be classified as a subcategory of enumeration.193 Executioners mainly brag about their professional skills and merits that nobody appreciated, which made these scenes not only hideous but also comic. Naturally, in general way, exaggeration was an efficacious means to produce various effects among audiences. In the Actes des Apôtres, the executioner Daru, who has been considered the most perfect type of executioner in mystery plays,194 brags about his skills and his dubious genealogical origin as follows: Bon pendeur et bon escorcheur Bien bruslant homme, bon trencheur De testes pour bailler es fours; Trayner, battre par quarrefours. Ne doubte que meilleur s’appere Le sire grant de mon grant pere Fut pendu d’un joly cordeau Ma grandmere fut au bordeau, S’esgallant et menant grant chere; La superlative sorciere Dont on ouyt jamais parler, Pour petis enfants estrangler. Mon pere fut tout vif bruslé, Et mon frere fut decollé Et enfoy son aisné filz. En terre fosse luy fis, Et sur le ventre luy sailly. Mon autre frere fut bouilly Pour oeuvrer de faulse monnoye.195 Good at hanging and at skinning Burning a man well, good at cutting Off heads to put in the furnace; For dragging, whipping at cross-roads I doubt that there could be a better. The grandfather of my grandfather Was hanged with a pretty rope My grandmother was in a brothel, 193 Robert Garapon has divided enumerations in four subcategories: 1) cris that opened sotties 2) boastings (boniments), 3) accumulations of insults (accumulations d’injures), and 4) accumulations of delicacies (énumérations ‘succulentes’). Garapon 1957, 74. The habit of opening a sottie with a cri or general call of fools (Sots) was established at the end of the fifteenth century. It was a parody of the announcements of a herald in medieval courts. A typical feature was effusiveness: an actor listed twenty names or more, each of which referred to a different kind of fool: sotz lunatiques, sots estourdis, sots sages, etc. In mystery plays we encounter the same kind of long lists of demons. The cris of sorties are a subcategory of professional calls (cris des metiers) and of condiments. Ibid., 75-8. Similar lists of different categories of fools also appeared in sermons joyeux, see Koopmans 1998, 2623. 194 Lebègue 1929, 22. 195 Quoted in Muir 1986, 155.

245

CHAPTER 6

Living frivolously and extravagantly; The most superlative witch Ever heard of In strangling little children. My father was burnt alive, And my brother was decapitated And I buried his eldest son. I dug the ditch in the ground, And jumped upon his belly. My other brother was boiled For counterfeiting money. It is very likely that Daru’s proud monologue was expected to arouse shudders of fear and horror but also amuse the medieval spectators and presumably, to correspond well to their image of the executioner’s low character and origin. Raymond Lebèque has found it peculiar that the writer did not place this monologue of presentation in the scene where Daru first appears but only in a scene after the death of Mathew.196 It is probable that the writer considered this litany more a summary of those features that Daru epitomised in his work, which would explain its placement. It should also be noted that in Le Mistére du Viel Testament, the same type of litany is situated at the end of the play. I will take it as my last example of this category of boniments: MICET Je suis Micet, ce gracieux seigneur, Je suis Micet, despendeur bas et hault, Je suis Micet, maistre bourreau de honneur, Je suis Micet, ce gracieux lourdault, Je suis Micet pour flestrir d’un fer chault. Je suis Micet pour copper une oreille, Je suis Micet pour faire un echarfault, Je suis Micet qui point ne se travaille, Je suis Micet qui jamais ne sommeille, Je suis Micet, bateur sur les carreaux, Je suis Micet qui a mal s’appareille, Je suis Micet le varlet des bourreaulx! I am Micet, that gracious lord, I am Micet, who takes down corpses from gallows, I am Micet, a master hangman of honour, I am Micet, that gracious boor, I am Micet, for cutting with hot iron, I am Micet, for chopping off an ear, I am Micet, for building a scaffold, 196 Lebègue 1929, 207.

246

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

I am Micet, who doesn’t work, I am Micet, who doesn’t doze, I am Micet, a flagellator at the cross-roads I am Micet, who prepares torments, I am Micet, the valet of hangmen! GOURNAY Je suis Gournay, ouvrier espiciaulx, Je suis Gournay, a la haulte œuvre faire, Je suis Gournay qui ay fais mains assaulx, Je suis Gournay pour pendre a ung gibet, Je suis Gournay ou beffleurs vont d’aguet, Je suis Gournay pour coupper une teste Je suis Gournay pour les brigans d’aguet Je suis Gournay ou n’a nulle conqueste, Je suis Gournay qui fais fouldre et tempeste, Je suis Gournay pour bouillir et ardoir, Je suis Gournay qui de mal maine feste, Je suis Gournay, pillorieux a voir, Donc maint home n’est guiére resjouy.197 I am Gournay, a special worker, I am Gournay, for executing capital sentences, I am Gournay, who has done many exploits, I am Gournay, for hanging at a gibbet, I am Gournay, whom swindlers try to hide, I am Gournay, for cutting off a head, I am Gournay, for highwaymen, I am Gournay, who hasn’t his equal, I am Gournay, who makes lightning and tempest, I am Gournay, for boiling and burning, I am Gournay, who cuts evil wounds, I am Gournay, a hangman to be seen, Whom many men are hardly fond of. The two hangmen present this hilarious duet when preparing to explore the convict’s clothes (despouiller) to determine their value. The message of this goodhumoured boasting was that these men were, after all, proud of their despised and infamous occupation. The anonymous writer has begun every line with the hangman’s presentation: ‘I am M / G’. This element can be interpreted as a stigmatic extra motif that pointed to the ideas of naivety, sinful self-egocentrism and smugness.

197 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 176-7. On the bragging of executioners, see also Le mystère de saint Laurent, 158.

247

CHAPTER 6

It is not an insignificant feature that late medieval dramatists often represented executioners,198 as well as numerous representatives of other inferior occupations, as being very sure about their professional ability and very eager to make it known to one and all. Boasting scenes can be seen as references to popular culture and especially to the professional calls and songs. Professionals of the different métiers of the town praised their products or own occupation one after the other.199 Undoubtedly, one function of the executioners’ bragging scenes was to mock the professional pride of artisans and to laugh at their corporations with a strict hierarchy, rules and systems, their privileges, jealousy and spirit of brotherhood.200 At the same time this boasting (especially in the form of enumeration) was, obviously, an effective and simple means to link executioners of Christian martyrs with the ideas of lack of wit and stupidity, to sinful vanity and pride. In late medieval culture, boasting and conceit were often condemned as sinful and vile features by ecclesiastics and moralists who criticised, particularly strongly, complacence and self-praise in learned persons. That a good Christian should have a humble opinion of him or herself, was stressed, for example, by Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471) in De Imitation de Jésus-Christ, a spiritual treatise which had an incomparable influence on Christian piety in the second half of the fifteenth century.201 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Erasmus connected the same qualities with stupidity in the first pages of the Moriæ encomium (1509) where Folly asks what could be more fitting for a true fool than to trumpet his own merits and sing his own praises.202 Enumeration and boasting became more common in drama from the beginning of the fourteenth century on.203 Besides executioners, many kinds of low or evil personages boasted and bragged about their skills and merits (which did not usually reflect reality): travelling peddlers and physicians, who claimed to be best in the business in the whole kingdom of France, as well as messengers, and demons, too.204 In the cycle of Old Testament plays one can find a master gravedigger and his valet in a lengthy and gloomily humorous dialogue entitled the Debat du fossoieur et de son varlet. Gravediggers do not present here any long enumerations of their merits but just boast about their professional competence. In the manner of numerous hangmen they praise their demanding job, the art of fossoiage; the apprentice envies

198 See also Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 85. The executioner serving Herod declares (after having chopped off the head of John the Baptist): ‘Je suis certain qu’onques bourrel / N’esmouqua aussi bien haterel.’ 199 For the cris de Paris, see Bahtin 2002, 160-1. According to Heers, chants de métiers of carnival feast were common especially in Italy. Heers 1997, 291-2. 200 On professional corporations (corporations des métiers) in late medieval France, see for example Lacroix 1873, 295326; Fagniez 1975, 55-74, 93-105; Coulet 1994, 55-73. Of course, actual professional executioners occasionally competed for particularly profitable assignments; normally, the master reputed to be the most skilful was chosen by the authorities. See Calmette 2001, 259. 201 De Imitation de Jésus-Christ, 5-6. 202 Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 10. 203 One can also find, however, good examples of enumeration from the drama of the thirteenth century. Besides late medieval mystery plays, enumeration is very typical of farces and sotties. Garapon 1957, 33, 85-7. See also La Passion du Palatinus, 72-3. For the enumeration in mock sermons (sermons joyeux), see Koopmans 1988, 262-86. 204 Jean Verdon has observed: ‘Le monologue dramatique […] met en scène un vantard dont les paroles ne reflètent jamais la réalité beaucoup plus terne. Les valets savent tout faire, les soldats ont accompli des exploits, les amoureux font des prouesses sur le plan sexuel.’ Verdon 2001, 223-4. See also Garapon 1957, 34; Koopmans 1997, 105.

248

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

the office of his master; the master insults his aide; both worry about their fee, etc.205 When Petit de Julleville, an eminent scholar of his time, discussed the reason for the success of enumeration in late medieval drama, he asked if it arose from realistic aspirations. At the same time he condemned this feature as boring and tiresome. Robert Garapon has observed that even if these prolix lists may seem long and dull to modern readers, medieval people thought otherwise and found them very entertaining.206 Garapon suggests that sometimes the only function of accumuation and boasting was to make the audience laugh but in some cases their writers had realistic aims. They wanted to describe in a satirical way certain contemporary types, to make them appear ridiculous.207 As I have already underlined, the didactic purpose was, in a general way, very essential to medieval play writers. For this reason I am convinced that the ‘vanity of words’ in its different forms was very rarely merely an entertaining addition, a comical extra motif. There are good reasons to believe that executioners’ prolix accumulations of their professional skills, merits and instruments of violence were expected to provoke amusement and hilarity amongst spectators. At the same time, however, they understood the serious message of the writers. Ridiculous lists connected the figures of executioners with the ideas of sin, evil and stupidity and marked the boasting and self-sufficiency as despicable and undesirable features in any decent society of men. The concept of the stupidity or mental deviancy of numerous executioners was expressed particularly clearly by means of the category of fatrasies, or incoherent or irrational replies and monologues that we often meet in mystery plays.208 Le mystère de saint Christofle provides a fine example: the executioner Malferas presents an extended and incomprehensible litany in a scene where he is preparing, with his comrades, to execute some Christians. I quote it here only in Old French, because it would be virtually impossible to translate it in any sensible way: Il fault sçavoir que bone fera. Amenez aprés celle dance; Mais que diable me gardera Que je n’emplisse bien ma pance. Je me vueil jouer quant j’y pence A faire bien le chafouyn. 205 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, IV, 349-81. 206 ‘… il s’amusait comme nous avons peine à l’imaginer à entendre ces énumérations indéfiniment prolongées [...] Et il goûtait tant cette forme de fantaisie verbale, que les auteurs s’ingéniaient à multiplier les accumulations tirant sur le boniment, et le mettaient même dans les rôles qui semblaient pouvoir être égayés par d’autres moyens.’ Garapon 1957, 34. 207 Ibid., 79-80. Garapon uses as his example Maître Hamberlin’s enumeration of his skills, which would have amused medieval spectators because of its length – and not in spite of it. Spectators laughed at the verbose boasting of merits that would not impress anyone. Ibid., 81-3. As I have emphasised, this was the exact idea in the case of the executioner’s figure: hangmen of mystery plays bragged about skills and merits that were not deeply admired by contemporaries but evoked very equivocal thoughts. 208 Besides the term fatrasies, scholars usually refer to this category by such expressions as derveries and les propos sans suite.

249

CHAPTER 6

Regardez que ce quoquart pense; Je croy qu’il est venu de loing. Haro! Qu’esse que je disoye? Comme l’ay je peu oublïer? Par Saincte Marie, je sognoye Qu’on menoit nostre chat noyer. Si me fault ailleurs songer, Car j’ay d’aultre chose affaire. Je vouldroye avoir ung panier, Car c’est chose bien necessaire A gens, qui sont de mon estat, Pour serrer noyaulx et quoquilles, Affin que je n’aye debat, Quant je vois voir ces jeunes files. J’é icy beste qui me mort; Je ne sçay se c’est pou ou puce. J’en fisse voulentier tresor Vrayement en une belle aumuce. Je vous jure, se j’en avoye, J’en feroye belle garnison. Mais, par ma foy, je les tiendroye Pour eulx en maulvaise prison. Saichés de vray que j’en turoye Quatre milliers, je vous affie. Tenez! Tenez! Je ne faulx mye. J’en auray par tout ma partie Mis a leur fin.209 This delirious monologue or song of Malferas reminds us very closely of the replies of madmen, dervés, and possessed persons, démoniacles, in late medieval drama.210 In Arnoul Gréban’s famous play, for example, ‘la Fille Chananée’ expresses her mental disorder through incoherent talk.211 We can sometimes find this feature in the language of demons and fools. Also quite ordinary persons could occasionally lose control of their speech without becoming irrevocably insane.212 In the famous farce Maistre Pierre Pathelin, written 1456–1469, the malicious and cunning hero has a long, incoherent monologue where he spouts jargon in different languages and different dialects in order to fake a last agony.213 According to Robert Garapon, incoherent talk became a kind of trademark in mystery plays from the end of the fourteenth century on. This element was very 209 210 211 212 213

250

Le mystère de Saint Christofle, 57. Garapon 1957, 48. Gréban, Le mystère de la Passion, 160. Garapon 1957, 50; Koopmans 1997, 99. ‘Dont viens tu, caresme prenant? / Vuacarme, liefe gode man; etlbelic beq iglune golan; etc.…’ Maistre Pierre Pathelin, 46-7. I have made use of the edition by Richard T. Holbrook (1937) but there exist better versions, for example, the edition by J. Dufournet (Garnier Flammarion: Paris 1986).

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

common in didactic plays in general.214 One is dealing here with a very stigmatic feature, the function of which was to reveal executioners’ defective reason and to suggest insanity connected with demonic influences.215 I would like to suggest that, at the same time, this incomprehensible talk was one of those means that served to link the executioner with the vice of excessive drinking.216 Naturally, everybody in medieval society was well aware of the usual effects of too heavy drinking. Finally, it should be noted that in addition to its stigmatic function, the element of incoherent talk, too, had an important comic power – a fact that play writers knew well. A good example is the Sottie des Menus Propos, presented in Rouen in 1461, where three personages exchange short incoherent replies (propos) of two or four lines without any connection with one another. The dialogue goes on in a similar manner through the whole play of 571 lines: LE PREMIER Par saint Jean, qui la veut sanglier, ‘C’est autre chose’ dit la vache. By Saint John, who wants it to be a wild boar, ‘That’s another matter,’ says the cow. LE SECOND Qui bat un sergent d’armes, Il gagne cent jours de pardon. Who hits a sergeant-at-law, He will gain hundred days of pardon. LE TROISIÈME Je fus sept ans tire lardon En un carême qui passa. I was a bacon thief for seven years During one Lenten period in the past. LE PREMIER Un fromage mou me cassa Tout la tête l’autre jour. A soft cheese broke my Head totally another day.

214 Garapon 1957, 31. As Garapon observes, we must not mix systematic incoherencies or illogical phrases with jargon. Here, comic power is not in the words themselves but in the peculiar order of words or phrases. Ibid., 48. On loose speech in late medieval English drama, see Taylor 1992, 162-74. 215 These themes will be discussed in detail later in section 7.3. 216 I will explain in section 7.2, why this particular vice was very central to the image of the hangman.

251

CHAPTER 6

LE SECOND On entend les nouvelles au four, Au moulin et chez barbiers. One hears news in an oven, In a mill and in barbers’ shops. LE TROISIÈME Les chanoines et les charretiers Ont maintenant tout le temps.217 Vicars and coachmen Now have all the time. Jean Verdon has wondered how the medieval audience could laugh at such nonsense for almost a full hour.218 It might be difficult for a modern person to fully appreciate this method, but people of the past often found this kind of absurd dialogue extremely hilarious.219 The purpose of this section is to set forth the argument that prolix language was, for late medieval playwrights, an important means of signalling negative notions and opinions about executioners (especially, about those of Christian saints). It was a means of revealing their bad moral character and stupidity and making them ridiculous. To better understand this procedure one must remember that in medieval culture, effusive language and futile chatting were widely interpreted as signs of mental deviance, stupidity and sin, whilst the capacity to control the tongue was seen as proof of a person’s intelligence and piety. The moralists and writers of conduct books regularly emphasised the importance of controlling language.220 Christine de Pisan assures us in Le livre des fais et bonne meurs that King Charles V, a model of wisdom and piety, always spoke in a beautiful and controlled way: ‘Olt belle aleure […] Belle parleure tant ordonnée et par si belle arrenge, sanz aucune superfluité de parole.’221 (He had beautiful behaviour […] a beautiful manner of speaking, so well organised and so nicely arranged, without any superfluity of words.) From another moralising writing we learn that marshal Boucicaut, the ‘perfect knight’ famous for his devoted manners, always

217 Quoted in Verdon 2001, 247-8. 218 Verdon 2001, 248. ‘Aussi la question qui se pose est-elle de savoir comment les hommes du Moyen Age pouvaient rire en entendant de telles inepties, et ceci pendant près d’une heure.’ 219 However, one might find some resemblance here to dialogues in modern American comedies à la Airplane! (1980). 220 It was an opinion shared by many that both courteous and boorish persons revealed themselves through their language. ‘Et vilain sont cil qui vilainement se contiennent et en dit en fet.’, crystallised Philippe de Novare (d. 1261) this rather common view. Schmitt 1990, 224-5. 221 Pisan, Le livre des fais et bonne meurs du sage roy Charles V, I, chap. XVII, 48-9. Honoré Bovet, an eminent legal expert, also writes, in his discussion on the qualities of a good ruler, that he should show moderation in his speech, as in his all actions. L’arbre des batailles, 254-6.

252

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

observed the virtue of moderation in his actions and speech. He spoke only a little and mostly about God and the saints, virtue and courteousness.222 Medieval moralists often repeated that wise people do not talk much or at least not unpremeditatedly. Everybody should remember that careless speech easily led to quarrels and blaspheming. Theologians emphasised that most sin was caused by talking. Saint Augustine had already underlined that Christians were every day tested by their tongue. The good God demanded its careful control by the faithful.223 Jean Gerson, a prominent theologian and moralist, underlined the importance of premeditation and of governing one’s tongue. In Le doctrinal aux simples gens Gerson links coarse and idle talk with the sin of Wrath (mauvaise ire) and writes that cursing and insulting are very great sins (‘quant on dit blasme ou injure villainement, c’est trop grant péché’).224 In addition, Jean Gerson connects rude language and the vanity of words with the deadly sin of Gluttony. He speaks about the ‘gluttony of language’, gloternie de langue, which means talking in the wrong places (in a churchyard, au moustier, for example) or situations (during a sermon, au sermon) or to the wrong persons (such as excommunicates, aux excommuniés). Then Gerson names several other categories of careless and dangerous verbal expression such as ‘aucun secret reveller; mauvaises paroles dire ou en rapporter aucune; mensonge; moquier autruy, […] promettre et non accomplir; jurer par soleil ou par la lune, etc. […] ou par semblables paroles oiseuses qui ne tournent a nul profit’ (to reveal any secrets, to speak evil words or to slander; to lie; to mock others […] to promise but not accomplish; to swear by the sun or by the moon; etc. […] or by similar futile words that bring no profit). Lastly, Gerson reminds his readers about the importance of careful premeditation before talking: ‘Qui bien veult parler, pense deux fois premierement.’225 (Who wants to speak well, thinks twice first.) In addition to bawdy or prolix verbal expression, other negative verbal characteristics typical of hangmen and various low and evil personages in late medieval drama also exist which merit a moment of our attention: broken rhythms and rhymes, very short dialogues and replies. These are typical of executioners, particularly, in scenes of violence and in disputes. This style contrasts strongly with the replies of saintly figures, which are lyrical, composed and harmonious.226 A good example is provided by a torture scene in Arnoul Gréban’s Le Mystère de la Passion227 or by a flogging scene in Le mystère de saint Martin.228 The function of the rapid tempo

222 Livre des faicts, VII, 214, 185, 200-1. 223 ‘Cotidiana fornax nostra est humana lingua. Imperas nobis et in hoc genere continentiam: da quod iubes et iube quod vis.’ Augustinus, Confessiones, 255. See also Pv, passim and Ep 5.4.; Gerson, Pour qu’on réfrene sa langue in Œuvres complètes, 401. ‘Disons après, que parler d’autruy pour seule garrulacion c’est a dire pour satisfaire a son desir et a sa loquacité ou curiosité de sauoir et ouyr nouuelles ou de passer ainsi le temps ou de soy y deliter, se puet a grant paine excuser de pechié et passe souvent et faille en pechié mortel.’ 224 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 303. 225 Ibid., 304. 226 Heers 1997, 64. See also Henrard, 292-3. 227 Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 298-300. 228 Le mystère de saint Martin, 419-20. See also Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 259, 325-8, 361-6, 400-2; Le Mistére du Viel Testament, V, 63-4.

253

CHAPTER 6

and broken rhythm of replies was to produce an impression of chaos and cacophony and to signal the inner disharmony and depravity of the speakers.229 There are good reasons to believe that the auditive element, too, played an important role in the proceedings of negative framing relating to hangmen in mystery plays. Often, the verbal expression of executioners was not only fast; it was also loud. Especially in scenes of violence, executioners shouted and roared at their victims and to their colleagues. Loud talk was one of those characteristics that hangmen shared with demons in drama. It is evident that one can only speculate about the specific character of various sonic elements. Some extra evidence of the importance of this method can be found in the fictional first names typical of executioners such as Bruyant (or ‘Noisy’, from the French word bruit) and Brayart (from verb braire = to shout).230 Such usual names as Grognart and Malengrogne231 also point to threatening and disagreeable noises. The verb grogner means ‘to grunt’, ‘to growl’, ‘to snarl’, ‘to grumble’. The adjective groignart signified in Old French a person that was a grumbler or repulsive.232 I should like to observe, too, that in the fifteenth-century iconography, the open or distorted mouth of the hangman was a facial sign that could be understood as a reference ideas of yelling, bawling and rude language, for example. Such facial attributes are particularly common in works of religious art that depicted the very same scenes of martyrdom and excessive violence that were given a dramatic form in mystery plays.233 It is quite evident that excessively loud talk and shouting were perceived as being very disagreeable and offensive features in vocal expression in the later Middle Ages. In learned thinking they were found not only to be unpleasant but also quite discourteous, uncivilised habits. Changing the force and intensity of sound was, naturally, used as a rhetorical method following the model of the ancient Greeks and Romans.234 Many people thought that one should not, however, exceed certain limits in this form of ‘art’ but always observe moderation. Erasmus, for example, criticises the oratory of clerics in the Moriæ encomium (1509). He condemns those preachers who wanted to imitate the instructions of old rhetoricians and tried to intensify their presentations by continuously altering the loudness of their voice, and by filling the whole church with their bawling.235

229 Cf. Enders 2002b, 101-4. 230 It should be added that in Old French the expression bruant also meant a torrent. Greimas 1989, 85. One can meet executioners named Bruyant in several plays. See Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 272; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 202; Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 635. Bruyant is also an executioner’s name in the Istorio de Sanct Ponz, from the end of the fifteenth century and in the Vie de sainte Barbe presented in Laval in 1493. Henrard 1998, 301-2. An executioner named Brayart (and serving Pilate) figures, for example, in Gréban’s and Michel’s works. Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 282; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 31 and passim. 231 The executioner who decapitates John the Baptist in Michel’s work is called Grognart. Ibid., 102-3. 232 1) Qui a l’habitude de grogner, 2) Grondant, répugnant. Greimas 1989, 323. 233 For the executioner’s mouth and its expressions, see section 4.1. 234 On the rhetorical techniques of monks in the later Middle Ages, see Burke 1978, 70-1. Burke writes, ‘They preached in a colloquial style, making much use of puns, rhymes, and alliteration, shouting and gesturing, drawing on folktales to illustrate their message, and composing songs for their congregations to sing.’ 235 Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 132. ‘Age vero quem tu mihi comœdum, quem circulatorem spectare malis, quam istos in concionibus suis rhetoricantes omnino ridicule, sed tamen suavissime imitantes ea, quæ Rhetores de dicendi ratione tradiderunt? Deum immortalem, ut gesticulantur, ut apte commutant vocem, ut cantillant, ut jactant ses, ut subinde alios atque alios vultus induunt, ut omnia clamoribus miscent.’

254

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

Loudness of voice was also linked with bad moral character and sin in mummeries, which were moralising scenes (often pantomimes) with biblical or historical personages. Philippe de Vigneulles depicts in his chronicle mummeries, presented in the town of Metz in 1511. One of themes staged was the sin of gluttony, which was not only disagreeable to see, Vigneulles tells us, but also horrible to hear. Personages shouted and sang loudly and chaotically, in a very disagreeable manner.236 It should be noted that shouting, bawling as well as harsh and disagreeable noises were also a central element referring to disorder in carnival processions237 and in the tradition of charivari, which was a ritual way for popular culture to react against those who had offended the norms of society.238 Jean-Pierre Leguay has reminded us that people living in medieval towns had to put up with a cacophony of the most various noises around the clock: the shouts of merchants and coach drivers, the yelling of passing soldiers and the screaming of playing children, the bawling of jesters, the barking of dogs, the lowing of cows and squealing of pigs that were butchered in open shops, the ringing of church bells, etc.239 However, even if such a cacophony was a familiar part of urban everyday life, this does not mean that people did not suffer from it. Loud and harsh noises were a form of pollution, a disagreeable nuisance that one could not escape in a crowded town. It is not surprising that in medieval imagery loud and unpleasant noises pointed not only to sin but also to Hell. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Dante had filled Hell with loud and awful noises and cacophony: with screams of pain and anger, shrieks, squalls and yells, miserable crying, and threatening sounds of thunder.240 On the other hand, agreeable and pleasant voices, especially beautiful singing and music, were often associated with the heavenly court, where the blessed sing ‘doucement et cler, / Haut et seri a longue alaine’ (sweetly and clearly, / strongly and skilfully without long breaths) whilst the evangelists played nicely on silvery or golden horns.241 It should be noted that in the theatre, sound effects played an important role in the staging of Hell (disagreeable noises) and the court of Paradise (beautiful music and singing).242 In the science of physiognomy, which was very popular during the late Middle Ages, an individual’s voice (manner of using the voice and its tone) was an important sign referring to a person’s inner characteristics: Personne qui a bonne voix & bien sonnant est hardie, saige et bien parlant. La voix moienne qui n’est ne trop deliee ne trop grosse segnefie sens & pourvenance, verite & droicture. Personne qui 236 237 238 239

La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 105-9. See also section 7.2. Río 1993, 84. Spierenburg 1991, 68-72; Martin 1996, 281. Leguay 1999, 22-3, 30, 55. For the dominating role of the loud voice and speech in everyday life of the late Middle Ages, see also Bahtin 2002, 161. 240 Dante, La Divina Commedia, 20-300. Jean Gerson has also depicted the gnashing of teeth and loud moaning of the damned in Hell: ‘Hélas, les mauldiz dampnez de douleur estraignent les dens et gectent grans plains et grans pleurs et grans gemissements…’ Gerson, Œuvres complètes, X, 318. 241 La Court de Paradis, 92, 99 and passim. See also Dante, La Divina Commedia,789 and passim. 242 Muir 1995, 50-1. See also Le livre de conduite du régisseur et le compte des dépenses pour le Mystère de la passion joué à Mons en 1501, publ. by Gustave Cohen (1974), LIX, XC. Seventeen persons were needed to produce the stormy soundscape of Hell. See also Bahtin 2002, 237.

255

CHAPTER 6

parle hastivement et qui a gresle voix est personne de value. Grosse voix en femme est maulvais signe. Doulce voix segnefie personne plaine d’envie, de suspection, de mensonge. Voix trop deliee signifie gros cueur et folie. Grosse voix segnefie hastivete et ire. Personne qui se remue quant elle parle et mue voix est envieuse, nice, yvrogne et maulvaisement condicionnee. Personne qui parle actrempement sans soy movoir est de parfait entendement et de bonne condicion et de loyal conseil.243 A person who has a strong and melodious voice is a brave, wise and a good speaker. An average voice, which is neither too feeble nor too loud, signifies intelligence and far-sightedness, truthfulness and righteousness. A person who speaks hastily and has a fragile voice is a person of value. A loud voice is a bad sign in a woman. A sweet voice signifies a person who is full of envy, of suspicion, of lies. A too weak voice signifies wastefulness and madness. A loud voice signifies haste and anger. A person who moves when speaking and changes his voice is envious, stupid, a drunkard and of low origin. A person who speaks with temperance and without gesticulating has a perfect wit and a good origin and loyal opinions. Moderation of the voice, beauty of tone and harmony of expression were interpreted as signs of a virtuous and wise character in physiognomy. These popular concepts about a person’s voice were also reflected in chronicle writers’ texts. Philippe de Vigneulles, for example, obviously had great difficulties in believing that a person with a pleasant verbal expression or beautiful voice could be a great sinner and a criminal – which, however, happened sometimes to be the case.244 Even if beautiful voices were often linked with positive ideas and notions, at the same time it was thought that one should be aware of the fact that there were some dangers in them, too. In the Confessiones written by Saint Augustine medieval readers could learn about the risks and perils associated with beautiful voices and the sounds and pleasures of the ear. Augustine writes that in his youth he had been enslaved by the temptations of his ears until the good God freed him from these. Later on Augustine could still find pleasure in saintly words sung nicely but was not captured by them anymore. Augustine recommended (following the advice of Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria) that psalms should be sung so cautiously that the presentation would resemble more of a recitation than actual singing. Augustine explains that singing can help a weak soul to achieve a more devoted state of mind but if the melody of a song moves a person more than its content, this is a sin to be punished.245 The coarse and prolix language typical of executioners and other negative figures in mystery plays is a feature that has frequently been misunderstood and condemned in later times. Many scholars have considered such elements as cursing, 243 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [149]. 244 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 97, 147, 540-4. 245 Augustinus, Confessiones, 245-6.

256

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

insults, jargon and macabre jokes as unnecessary additions and at the same time quite shocking and ill-suited to their religious context. These views were predominant especially in the earlier literary historical tradition.246 The vanity of words – repetitions, enumeration and incoherent talk – has often been seen as evidence of the naivety and intellectual immaturity of medieval people.247 These concepts and opinions are, naturally, quite erroneous. As I have argued in this chapter, all these elements have to be seen as essential modes of image-making and communication, powerful signs and messages that had both an edifying, frightening and comic power. Today numerous scholars support the view that one can discern intentional didactic goals behind the violent and grotesque elements typical of mystery plays.248 These scholars think that they are dealing here with important and efficient influencing methods and not only some unnecessary additions manifesting bad taste in the people in the past.249 Scholars are not, however, unanimous about the fundamental motives of dramatists. Jody Enders, for example, argues that their major goal was to make violence and pain pleasurable and enjoyable, which would explain the vulgar or comic aspects of the hangman scenes.250 Others have, in turn, supported quite the opposite view. R.L. Wadsworth, who suggested that the executioner scenes in Arnoul Gréban’s text should be understood as an intentional educational method and a powerful means of stigmatisation, considered their function to be to reveal the depraved nature of executioners and to make spectators condemn it and also to make them to recognise the potential for the same kind of evil in themselves and in others.251 Charles Mazouer has thought, likewise, that Arnoul Gréban included violent scenes in his play in order to touch his audience, to evoke feelings of pity when confronted with Christ’s sufferings, rather than to satisfy the sadistic inclinations of late medieval spectators.252 Not only the good but also the bad personages in religious drama served educational goals: the one served as a model to be imitated, the other as an anti-model.253 246 See, for example, Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis first published in 1946. Auerbach 1968; Lebègue 1929, 32. 247 Robert Garapon, for example, has written that in the background of the popularity of puns and word plays in religious drama there were such reasons as insufficient psychological understanding. He also explains that late medieval people liked playing with words because they were as naive as their language was young: like little children they enjoyed repetition and the forming of words that meant nothing. Garapon 1957, 98, 101. Even if Garapon was an excellent scholar and perceived the important number of late medieval playwrights’ different literary techniques, he could not sincerely appreciate or understand medieval culture as a whole but saw people in the past as less rational and less purposeful than they were. 248 Of course, violence could have entertaining function in some genres of popular literature and drama. See Bahtin 2002, 185 and passim. However, I feel that one should not over-estimate this function, especially, in religious drama. 249 See for example Runnalls 1998, 29-30; DuBruck 1999; DuBruck, 2002, 50-1; see also Pietropoli 1992, 92; Heinzelman 2002. (Pietropoli has studied English drama material and Heinzelman, German.) 250 Enders 1999; Enders 2002b. 251 Wadsworth writes, ‘These games which the tortors play […] were not meant to seem hilarious, but were intended as a mimetic analogue of the depravity innate in fallen Man.’ Wadsworth stresses that: ‘The scènes de bourreaux […] afford considerable insight into the aims and methods of the medieval playwright; and they reveal a wealth of mature and effective dramatic technique.’ Wadsworth 1970, 499, 509. 252 Mazouer 1998, 200. 253 When examining the personages in Le Mistére du Viel Testament Mazouer observes: ‘L’enseignement est explicite, formulé parfois de manière répétitive, même lourdement répétitive; et les personnages du mystère médiéval sont parfois singulièrement plus édifiants que dans la Bible, qui n’a jamais été un livre édifiant! À l’orgueil, à la cruauté, à la luxure s’opposent l’humilité, le courage de la foi, la fermeté dans les épreuves, etc.’ Mazouer 1998,

257

CHAPTER 6

These opposing interpretations in this matter arise essentially from different views concerning late medieval people’s attitudes towards death, violence, and cruelty in general. Whilst such scholars as Jody Enders and John Spalding Gatton254 see medieval people as very much attracted to the sight of suffering (that they were pleased rather than repelled), others think that it would be a serious mistake to overestimate the sadistic inclinations of people in the past, of dramatists or their audiences. Above, I have stressed the educational aims of dramatists who made great efforts to condemn violence in their plays. With regard to their audiences, there is considerable evidence to indicate that late medieval spectators found violent scenes not only entertaining or funny but could also be moved to tears255 – just as they were capable of feeling and manifesting deep pity and empathy in the execution ceremonies of daily life. It is evident to me that the executioner scenes must also be understood in the larger context of themes relating to violence and death in late medieval culture. Sermons, literature and art constantly dealt with themes concerning death and particularly the frightening aspects of it, such as sudden death in a state of sin, the sufferings of agony, bodily putrefaction and the horrible tortures of Hell. In pictorial arts, one major favourite theme was Dit des trois morts et des trois vifs depicting an encounter of three living and three dead persons in different phases of decomposition. Still more popular was the theme of the Dance macabre, the dead (in a state of putrefaction and with open bellies) inviting people from all estates to a dance. The most famous and most imitated example of this theme was the fresco painted in 1424 in the cemetery of Saints-Innocents in Paris. Late medieval poets wrote countless ballads on the theme of the last agony and the decomposition of the body in the grave. Fine examples are provided, among others, by François Villon’s poetical testament 256 and Pierre de Nesson’s Vigiles des Morts.257 During the same period pictures of tortured martyrs, of the last judgement and of the gigantic torture chamber of Hell covered the walls of churches everywhere. Churchgoers could also meditate on the messages of fashionable transitombes that some highly ranked ecclesiastics ordered for themselves.258 In order to understand the special interest in all the details of Christ’s and the martyrs’ death, it

254 255 256 257

258

258

210. See also Clifford Davidson’s comments on violent and vulgar elements in late medieval English drama. Davidson suggests that their purpose was to create empathy with the suffering saintly victims and to encourage the affective piety that brought a new emotional quality to religion in the later Middle Ages. Davidson 2001, 967. See Gatton 1991, 80, 86. See, for example, La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 144. On late medieval audiences’ varied responses to torture scenes in the theatre, see Homan 1991, 93; Carlson 2002; Davidson 2002, 258. Villon’s impressive description of the last agony is widely known: ‘La mort le fait fremir, pallir, / Le nez courber, les vaines tendre, / Le corps enffler, lascher, moslir, / Joinctes, oz, nerfs croistre et estendre…’ Villon, Le Testament. Poésies complètes, 117. Pierre de Nesson, who belonged to the court of the Duke of Berry, has described the process of decomposition in the Vigiles des Morts, which was a great success at the beginning of the fifteenth century: ‘Et lors quant tu trespasseras, / Des le iour que mort tu seras, / Ton ordre char commancera / A rendre pugnaise pueur […] / Il conviendra que l’on te mecte / Ou l’on met tous ceulx qui trespassent: / En une grant, parfonde fosse, / Selon que la charoigne est grosse, /Comme se droit venin estoyes, / L’on t’enfoyra dans la terre, / Et couvrira d’une grant Pierre / Affin que iamais veu ne soyes. / O trestenebreuse maison, / O charoigne qui nes plus hom, / Qui te tiendra lors compaignie? / Ce qui ystra de ta liqueur, / Vers engendrez de ta pueur, / De ta vil chair encharoignee.’ Nesson, Vigiles des Morts, 83-4. See for example Mâle 1949, 355-80, 439-75; Cohen 1973.

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

must be remembered that in the late medieval period, identification with Christ’s passion became the most important act of Christian devotion. Mystics started to meditate upon all the circumstances and aspects of Christ’s sufferings with hallucinatory preciseness: how he was flogged, how many wounds he received, etc. The essential function of these realistic details was to facilitate the identification with saintly sufferings and, ultimately, to attain a mystical experience.259 Olivier Maillart assured his audiences that Christ received 5 475 strokes of the whip. Jean Quentin, writer of the Orloge de devotion, told that ‘les verges et les escourges se rompaient sur lui, et […] les noeuds restaient fichés dans sa chair’ (whips and scourges were broken on him […] and knots stayed fixed in his flesh). Quentin also explained that the holes for the nails of Christ’s cross were made in advance and that His right hand was attached without any difficulty. His left hand, however, appeared to be too far from the hole: ‘Alors ils vous attachèrent des cordes à l’espaule et soubz l’ayselle. Et, afin qu’ils purent tyrer plus fort, ils appuyoient leurs pieds à votre croix, et puis tous ensemble tyrèrent si terriblement que toutes les veines et tous les nerfs de vos bras se rompirent’.260 (Then they tied ropes under your shoulders and armpits. And, in order to pull harder, they pushed their feet against your cross, and then they pulled together so terribly that all the veins and nerves in your arms snapped.) This particular scene was repeated over and over again as the culminating point in numerous mystery plays: first the executioners pull the left hand from its joints and then the legs too, because the hole for the legs was also made in the wrong place. It does not occur to the hangmen to make new holes. When pulling Christ’s hand and legs, his veins and nerves broke.261 These short observations about the theme of death in late medieval culture, very exhaustively examined in numerous studies,262 should be sufficient to demonstrate my point: late medieval culture had a very special way of speaking about violence and death and its different (often materialist) aspects.263 The violent and brutal elements in mystery plays, verbal or otherwise, were actually quite ordinary 259 The gospels only briefly mention the torturing of Christ during the trials; the details of the crucifixion are not depicted. (Mt 26.67, 27.26-35; Mc 14.65, 15.19-25; Lc 22.63-64, 23.33; Jo 18.22, 19.1-3, 18.) So, late medieval mystics and playwrights significantly expanded these scenes in their works. Daniel Baraz has commented upon this topic, ‘Pain is essentially a subjective and private experience that cannot be shared. Therefore the pain of the crucifixion itself is quite incomprehensible and inexpressible. Yet one can identify with the smaller details […] By identifying with these, as certain amount of identification with the larger experience is achieved.’ Baraz 2003, 139. See also DuBruck 1999, 363, 369. 260 Mâle 1995, 90-1. See also Baraz 2003, 138-42. Baraz has stressed the influence of Meditationes vitae Christi of pseudo-Bonaventure (written in the second half of the thirteenth century) on the formation of the genre of meditations on the passion in the later Middle Ages. Baraz thinks that the new type of mysticism reached its zenith with such figures as Heinrich Suso (1300–1365) and Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–14??) . 261 Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 188; La passion d’Auvergne, 198; Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 324-5; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 400-1. One can also find this sadistic scene in some fourteenth-century texts, see for example Le livre de la Passion, 44-5. 262 See Clark 1950, DuBruck 1964, Cohen 1973, Ariès 1977, Martineau-Génieys 1978, Vovelle 1983, Binski 1996, DuBurck & Gusick (eds.) 1999. 263 One should not, however, forget that modern people can also sometimes find ‘macabre art’ very intriguing, even beautiful. In the summer of 2001 Die Körperwelten, an exposition of dead human bodies (these bodies had been testamented to science and conserved by a new technique invented by Gunther von Hagens) was a huge success in Berlin. Approx. 6 000 persons per day went to see these skinned bodies with exposed intestines, posing and dancing, running and playing chess. Berliinin raatotaide kiehtoo ja inhottaa. TS Extra 9.6.2001. The popularity of the American TV series Six Feet Under (Mullan Alla. MTV3, 2003) on professional undertakers also suggests the appreciation of macabre humour amongst modern spectators in Finland and elsewhere.

259

CHAPTER 6

stuff for dramatists and their audiences from various other forums,264 where their essential function was to invite Christians to live a better life: to avoid sin, to repent, to pity and admire the champions of the Christian faith who had suffered and died for other men’s sins, and to facilitate identification with their sufferings. Evidently, the augmenting preoccupation with death and cruelty was closely connected with several fundamental demographic, social, political and cultural developments and phenomena in the late medieval period. To end this chapter it can be concluded that the writers of plays could use various dramatic techniques to express their views (or those of their patrons / social group) about executioners and about their violence to larger audiences. The central aim was to idealise saints and, at the same time, reveal their executioners as depraved and ignorant persons, a message that could be transmitted by means of numerous verbal signs, amongst other methods.265 These techniques and procedures arose from the larger cultural context and concepts relating to verbal expression: notions concerning low and ignoble language or a honourable and courteous way of speaking. At the same time, the figures of hangmen served as one instrument through which the difference between these categories was defined and strengthened. Executioners (especially, the torturers of saintly victims who played major roles in these plays) helped to design certain forms of verbal or vocal expression as base, sinful and evil. The message of playwrights was that every honourable person and good Christian should carefully avoid coarse and prolix language and style, i.e. not speak ‘like a hangman’. The purpose was to make a large audience and especially the low and unlearned in it, take the verbal expression of good and pious personages as their example and model. The virtuous and the wise manifested their intelligence and irreproachable moral character through their beautiful and courteous language and controlled and moderate expression. Drama material from other European countries, from late medieval English culture, for example, shows that the basic tone was as coarse and obscene as in French plays. Here bloodthirsty torturers maim and abuse in a fairly similar manner to their French colleagues.266 However, the French mystery material is quite unparalleled in its abundance. In northern France and neighbouring regions, religious drama offered a unique forum for large-scale image-making relating to the hangman figures. 264 Death was a familiar figure with an exemplary or terrifying function even in medieval (children’s) tales. People of the past saw no reason to avoid talking about the death to young children; on the contrary, they even thought that it was as useful and instructive as was taking children to watch punitive ceremonies. 265 For other techniques, see section 3.2 and chapter 7. 266 Only four English mystery plays have survived to us: The Chester Play, The N-Town Play, The Townley Play and The York Play. Important studies of English mystery plays are the many works of Clifford Davidson, see for example Davidson 2002. See also Kahrl 1974, Diller 1992, and Lynette R. Muir’s study of the biblical drama of medieval Europe. Muir 1995. In The N-Town play executioners spit on Christ’s face, maim and mock him: ‘… here þei xal bete A-bout þe held and þpe body and spyttyn in his face, and pullyn hym down, and settyn hym on a stol, and castyn a cloth ouyr his face’. Later, the executioners dance around the cross and make obscene gestures. In English plays, too, torture scenes resemble parodies of children’s games: Christ, whose eyes are covered, is forced to guess who hits him (‘Whar whar now whole I / Wetyn how he can prophecy / ho was þat’). Verbal cruelty played an important role in these scenes, the swearwords and curses being similar to those uttered by executioners in French plays. See The N-Town Play. Cotton MS Vespasian D.8., 302-3, 313-4, 323-8; The Townley Play, 243-78.

260

THE HANGMAN’S LANGUAGE

The fundamental purpose of playwrights – who acted as intercessors to the whole community – was to praise Christian values to the Almighty, to invoke His favour and protection for all humble souls. Mystery plays were an expression of a worldview and an important ritualistic tool.267 Their message was aimed not only to the society of men living in earthly reality but also to the divinity who saw, heard and judged everything from the other, eternal reality. Medieval men could never forget their ultimate goal and the fact that an omnipotent God was constantly supervising every action and thought. In these ritualistic implorations, the executioners functioned as metaphors of that inherent evil that good Christians vigorously tried to repress in their own souls and in the society of men in its entirety.

267 Edelgard E. DuBruck has also paid attention to this aspect: late medieval people felt that redemption was urgent and thought that it could be obtained (besides indulgences) by attendance at and participation in passion plays. DuBruck 1999, 369.

261

CHAPTER 7

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER J’ey mon cueur si tresgay / De tüer, de nÿer, de pandre Le mystère de Saint Sébastien Plusieurs bourreaulx leur office ne desservent ou accomplissent aveq telle compassion et humanité vers les pacients comme bien appartient, ains ilz traictent souvent les delinquants et criminelz en les tirant, tuant et meudrissant si irreverement comme s’ilz avoient bestes en leur mains [...] si en ce servissent plus a leur sensualité, que la raison et iustice. Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion

In previous chapters, I have argued that positive inner qualities, such as pity, decency or wisdom, did not belong to the major characteristics of the executioner’s representation and depiction in late medieval culture. At that time a person’s body was perceived as an expression of his or her soul, intellect and character. The essential exterior signs of hangmen that have been closely examined referred systematically to their low social status and to three major features: 1) cruelty, 2) bad moral, and 3) lack of reason. In this chapter I investigate more closely these aspects of the hangman’s representations as expressed in my source material. My purpose is to explain how these were related to larger cultural contexts, to common notions and opinions (of cruelty, vices and virtues, temperaments, for example), circumstances and attitudes, and to shed light on their logic. 7.1 Cruelty In the Middle Ages, as in every age, there existed multiple perceptions of cruelty. These varied over time and depended on specific cultural, social, and political contexts. In a general way, cruelty was often viewed as a very serious defect. However, especially from the thirteenth century on sensitivity to cruelty increased1: it became a focal cultural concern and an important stigmatic label that was attached more and more often to various ‘others’ that were thought to threaten society from inside and outside. I find it quite surprising that so many scholars have disregarded this essential feature of late medieval culture. 1

An important study on changing perceptions concerning cruelty from late antiquity to the early modern period is Daniel Baraz’s Medieval Cruelty (2003). Baraz has shown how the concept of cruelty, which had been a central issue in late antiquity, received only little attention during the first part of the Middle Ages. However, from the thirteenth century on, interest in cruelty increased and escalated again. Baraz 2003. Now, emotions, on the whole, were more openly expressed, especially, in religious art and practice.

263

CHAPTER 7

Cruelty was regularly understood and represented as a ruling quality of the hangman in late medieval culture in the most basic meanings of the notion, not only in the sense that 1) the hangman’s actions caused great suffering to his victims but often also in the sense that 2) an executioner usually either enjoyed inflicting pain – that he was very eager to hurt – or that 3) he was insensitive to other people’s suffering, pitiless.2 In addition, the hangman could be associated with ‘excessive cruelty’ and ‘ferocious cruelty’, two separate categories in learned thinking, examined later in this section. As I explained earlier, on the level of terminology, the opinion of the executioner’s cruelty was made manifest in many ways, for example, in his many nicknames in popular language.3 In religious drama, the fictitious first names of executioners often referred to cruelty and a direct thirst for blood.4 In iconography, the notions and opinions of the hangman’s cruelty were expressed, for example, in the form of angular facial features and certain distorted expressions such as a smile of satisfaction with crumpled eyebrows.5 Different attributes pointing to cruelty appeared not only in religious art, on executioners serving the bad justice of infidels but also in secular pictures, on hangmen carrying out sentences passed by the legitimate authorities. In religious drama, the cruelty of executioners of Christian saints was signalled to the large audience through verbal expression (sadistic jokes, for example)6 as well as through an executioner’s actions, characterisation and appearance. In theatre, the keyword in the hangman’s violent actions was ‘excess’. Torturing and killing methods typical of executioners in mystery plays were usually fairly exotic or fantastic, strongly over-exaggerated, often impossible to perform in everyday reality. Torture scenes were based on legendary material and on mystics’ contemplations of the martyrdom of Christ.7 Methods such as skinning and salting, or the tearing off of hair, roasting on a grill, crucifixion, etc., were not common legal practices in late medieval France and Europe.8 All kinds of tortures, familiar and less familiar, made a great impression on spectators, not only because of their extent but also because of all sorts of requisites and technical effects typical of late medieval religious theatre. The hangmen of mystery plays had an important collection of the most diverse weapons and instruments of torture. Great quantities of fake blood, trapdoors, dolls (faulx corps) were also made use of in the realisation of execution 2

3 4 5 6 7 8

264

Just as in our modern world, the term ‘cruel’ was somewhat ambivalent in the Middle Ages. It could point, on the one hand, 1) to the severity of a blow, wound, or of any misfortune (thus cruel was a quality of something that causes much pain and suffering). On the other hand, it could refer 2) to enjoying of the suffering of others, a willingness to hurt (thus cruel was a quality of someone who got satisfaction from inflicting pain or witnessing the suffering of others), or 3) to a lack of pity, a lack of compassion confronted with the suffering of others. In The New Penguin English Dictionary the terms cruel and cruelty are defined as follows: Cruel 1) liking to inflict pain or suffering; pitiless; 2) causing suffering; painful. Cruelty 1) the quality of being cruel; a sadistic or callous turn of mind; 2) cruel behaviour, or an instance of it. Allen (ed.) 2001, 334. See section 3.1. See section 3.2. See section 5.1. See section 6.3. See section 6.4. On the usual methods related to the late medieval penal system, see section 2.2.

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

scenes.9 Sometimes the need to impress and touch spectators was so great that the actors’ lives were even endangered. Philippe de Vigneulles writes in his chronicle about the Jeux de la Passion Nostre Seigneur Jhésu Christ presented in 1437 in Metz. He says that one of the executioners in the play was made ‘Saviour’, because the curé de Saint Victor, who had played this role, hung so long on the cross that he had a stroke.10 It is obvious to me that the excess and cruelty of torture made a saintly death presented on the stage more touching and admirable, and at the same time the executioners’ violent actions and personages appeared more repulsive still. Medieval dramatists had numerous means to signal and stress the executioner’s cruelty. In many mystery plays one can encounter an over-enthusiastic hangman’s aide who yearns to be allowed practise his skills with convicts11 or a bloodthirsty and boasting gang of tyrants.12 Executioners of martyrs often put into words their lust for maiming and killing,13 the sadistic joy they receive from all kinds of violent acts. In Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, Machecotom crystallises the notions about the hangman’s cruelty and sadistic character by declaring that: ‘J’ey mon cueur si tresgay / De tüer, de nÿer, de pandre’14 (My heart is so very gay / Of killing, drowning, hanging.) In Jehan du Prier’s Le mystère du roy Advenir, the executioner Barbacas describes in a similar way the sadistic joy he gets from his job, how his heart rejoices on every occasion he has to chop off heads.15 In cases where a writer did not portray the hangman as a proper sadist, it is made clear that this individual is completely indifferent to the convicts’ fear and suffering. Executioners seem to lack all feelings of pity and compassion, qualities that were thought to characterise every decent, wise and virtuous person.16 9 10

11 12 13 14

15

16

See, for example, the staging instructions in Le mystère de saint Laurent, 99, 158-9, 173 and Le livre de conduite du régisseur et le compte des dépenses pour le Mystère de la passion joué à Mons en 1501, ed. by Gustave Cohen (1974). See also Cohen 1951, 148-52; Frank 1954, 172; Gatton 1991, Davidson 2002, 189-91, 257. ‘…cuidait morir, luy estant en l’airbre de la croix: car le cuer lui faillit, tellement qu’il fut estés mort, s’il ne fut éstes secorus; et couvint que ung aultre prebstre fut mis en lieu pour parfaire le parsonnaige de Dieu. Et estoit celluy prebstre alors l’ung des bouriaulx et tirant dudit jeux.’ Readers are told, in addition, that Jehan de Nissey, chanoine de Mairange, who played Judas in the same play, almost died in a suicide scene ‘because he hung for too long a time’ (pour ce qu’il pandit tropt longuement). La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, II, 245. Jody Enders has discussed these two episodes in her book on medieval urban legends concerning drama, see Enders 2002a, 55-66. See, for example, Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 83, 88-9; Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 484-5. A good example is Le mystère de saint Christofle where the executioners declare that they are ‘tout prest sans attendue’, ‘tantost sommes aprestés’ to commit violent actions, to maim and kill. Le mystère de saint Christofle, 32, 53-4. See also Le mystère de saint Laurent, 35, 71-2. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, V, 57, 64, 68. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien , 70. This comparison greatly resembles one pronounced by another executioner in Le Mistére du Viel Testament (tome III: XXVII, De la mort des enfans d’Egipte): ‘Tout mon cueur de plaisir s’esmeult / Quant quelqun me fault a mort mettre’. In this piece the executioners manifest their eagerness to kill in many other instances as well: ‘Plus que de manger avons fain / A faire aux gens extorcion.’, etc. Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 229. “Tout de cueur du ventre m’eslieve / De grant joye de ceste allee. / Crez qu’aucune teste couppee / Y aura, ad ce que je voy’. Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 141. Malengrongne says in Le mystère de saint Laurent: ‘Je suis achenné comme ung chien / A couper bras, jambes et testes; / A tous les jours, aussi aux festes / Je me console a gens tuer.’ Le mystère de saint Laurent, 157. The executioner Maulevault describes himself in the same play as follows: ‘Je suis Maulevault le tresfort, / qui maintes gens ay mis a mort: / Je m’y delicte et m’y console, / Je tue, j’escorche, je pen / Et jamais je ne me m’en repen. / Après ma main nul ne demeure: / Quant je le tien, il fault qu’il meure.’ Ibid., 158. Sometimes insensitive hangmen exhort convicts to take care of the salvation of their souls (admit their guilt and repent) but it is evident that their main concern is to finish their job as quickly as possible. See Le mystère de saint

265

CHAPTER 7

It is especially in torturing and execution scenes that hangmen manifest their cruelty, their lust for blood and sadism, very emphatically and in many different ways. As Raymond Lebègue has observed, this is a typical determining feature of the executioner in mystery plays: in the late medieval theatre hangmen were always eager to kill, hang, skin, burn and cut to pieces.17 Some scholars have stressed the entertaining function of these scenes.18 The fundamental purpose of extended depictions of torture and maiming was, however, to stigmatise the bad justice of ‘others’ (infidels) and their hangmen, to condemn cruelty and evoke feelings of compassion and pity toward martyrs. On an allegorical level of significance, the hangman’s cruelty referred to the lack of charity in mankind. The noteworthy feature in these episodes is that hangmen are portrayed as individuals who enjoy brutal violence and inflicting pain: they are bloodthirsty sadists who do not care a bit about the legitimacy or justness of the sentences they execute. As I will explain later, in learned thinking this pointed to the most negative category of cruelty, defined as ‘ferocity’, a bestial feature, by Thomas Aquinas.19 Thus, it is not surprising that one often finds sarcastic references, not only to the hangman’s eagerness to kill and shed blood but also to his slavish willingness to obey: ‘Mon seigneur, en rien refuser / Ne vous veulx mais obeÿr’ (My lord, I don’t want to resist you in anything, but only to obey), assures Machecotom in Le mystère de Saint Sébastien.20 This attitude had nothing to do with the virtue of Obedience but it pointed rather to a despicable and stupid desire to serve, a trait visible in some animals considered ignoble, such as dogs.21 The message of the playwrights was that these hangmen do not even possess what is necessary to understand or assess the justness of the orders they execute. Hangmen, especially those serving bad justice of pagan tyrants, are closer to idiots or unreasonable beasts that obey only their instincts or sensuality (sensualité) in order to satisfy their base lusts and find pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering. Most hangmen in mystery plays are evil and sadistic. However, La Passion d’Auvergne offers us an interesting counter-example in the personage of Maliferas, the executioner of John the Baptist. The scene between Maliferas and his victim is quite original.22 Maliferas has been ordered to decapitate John. Instead of hurrying to do his job with great enthusiasm and joy typical of executioners in mystery plays, he voices a long complaint where he declares his profound compassion and pity for his victim and prays for forgiveness and understanding. He assures his audience that he will do his job as gently (doulcement) as possible, to make the act easier on the

17 18 19 20

21 22

266

Martin, 406-7, 409; Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 85-8, 166-7. In Le Mistére du Viel Testament hangmen execute their former chief as cheerfully as any other convict; all they care about is the good compensation. Ibid., 165. Lebègue 1929, 136-7: ‘... conformément à l’usage ils sont avides de tuer, pendre, écorcher, brûler, écarteler.’ See, for example, Enders 1999; Enders 2002b. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q155-170, 117. Le mystère de saint Sébastien, 69-71. See also Le mystère de saint Laurent, 71-2, 113. ‘Sire, tantost sommes aprestés / De vostre commandement faire […] Voulentiers, yrons sand deloy, / Incontinant.’ Le mystère de saint Christofle, 53-4. Le Bourreau, town’s executioner says in du Prier’s play: ‘Quel chose vous plaist il, chier sire? / Tout che qu’il vous plaira me dire, / Je le feray sans remanoir.’ Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 185. On this link, see section 7.3. La Passion d’Auvergne, 100-1, 108-9. See also section 6.1 and the Introduction written by Runnalls in La passion d’Auvergne, 7-10. Actually, the whole play, not only this particular episode, is very interesting. As Graham A. Runnalls has written, the piece is entirely different from other French passion plays. I must warmly thank Professor Runnalls (University of Edinburgh) for having advised me to pay special attention to this play.

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

convict. He also expresses his great reluctance to perform this execution, which he knows to be unjust, because of the great virtues of John.23 The anonymous writer’s main purpose was to condemn the execution of John the Baptist. He stresses the hangman’s executive, powerless role. Maliferas has to work as an instrument of Herode’s bad justice and accomplish a wrongful sentence of death. After the decapitation Maliferas continues to complain and stress his great unwillingness.24 He thinks himself to be cursed to Hell because of his horrible deed25 and wishes that it would be night so that no one could see what he has done26 and that no one could see his deep misery and tears of despair.27 It cannot be doubted that, here, the function of the hangman’s exceptional kindness and humanity was to underline the unjustness of the sentence and the cruelty of Herod, the tyrant who had the real responsibility for this act. The figure of the hangman was sometimes exploited for similar reasons in popular stories, even though in popular thinking hangmen were generally associated with the idea of cruelty. At the beginning of the early modern era, a popular Swedish story situated in the reign of Christian II (1520) told how rebels in various towns were executed on the orders of this unpopular monarch and how in Jönköping the official hangman was asked to decapitate the Ribbing brothers (Peder and Lindrum) as well as their young sons, 8 and 5 years of age. After having killed the two men and the elder boy the hangman refused to complete his job, moved by the words of the younger: ‘Dear man, do not soil my shirt with blood as you did that of my brother, for then my mother will admonish me’.28 His refusal did not go unpunished; Christian ordered a less soft-hearted soldier to finish the task, and the hangman, too, thus lost his life. Similar stories were told among common people for propaganda purposes in different corners of Europe during the later Middle Ages. The executioner’s figure was exploited to mark a tyrant or some other unpopular person cruel, ‘worse than a hangman’. The representation of the hangman’s cruelty was also expressed and fashioned in the works of late medieval chroniclers. As explained in section 3.3, writing about the ignoble person of the hangman was quite exceptional in this field of literature. Accordingly, the readers would pay special attention to the executioner’s framing in

23 ‘Mon amy, j’ay pitié de toy. / Mon amy, j’ay pitié de toy; / Maiz il fault que se metier face. / Bien voy que fais contre la loy, […] Jehan, plus ne puis cy arrester; / Guyeres plus n’es longue ta vye, / Je t’affye. / Pour ce fault ton chief aprocher, / Doulcement le te veulx louger / Et toucher. / Affin que te ne falhe pas. / Pour ta paine mieulx abreger, / Sans presser / Advance toy encore ung pas. / Or es tu pres de ton trespas! / Dieu, helas, / Bien me desplait que te martyre / Poir les grans vertus que tu as. / Pardonne moy, Jehan, je t’en prye! / Je ne le fais pas pour envye; / Ains en ay je grand desplaisir. / Au roy nous fault tous obeÿr. / Pardonne moy, je t’en supplye! / Pardonne moy, je t’en supplie!’. La passion d’Auvergne, 100-1. 24 ‘... le cas me desplait / Que j’ay fait. / Dieu scet bien que l’ay fait envis; Pas ne l’ay fait par mon soit...’ 25 ‘Las, de ma vie ne fis pis / Ne entrepris! / Maintenant suis je bien mauldit […] Certes, je suis / Le pire gars qu’onque Dieu fit.’ 26 ‘Maintenant vouldroye fut nuyt, / Qu’on ne me vist / Porter ce chief tant gracïeux.’ 27 ‘Or suis je pouvre desconfit; / Si n’ay respit / De plourer, pourcheré mes yeulx. / Que ce lieu las est effreyeux! / Je ne scet comant je le voye. / (Tunc fodiat modicum et ponet caput suspra.) / Tenés vostre chief precïeux, / Doulx corps; je pers toute ma joye!’. La Passion d’Auvergne, 108-9. 28 ‘Käre man, bloda icke ner min skjorta som min broders, ty då får jag ris av mamma.’ The executioner replied, moved, ‘Nej, förr skall min egen skjorta blodas, än jag skulle bloda din!’. Lindqvist 2000, 71-2.

267

CHAPTER 7

those cases where the writers decided to break their habitual silence and write some words about him. A fine example – the best, probably – is furnished by the many portrayals of Capeluche, the official hangman of Paris in 1411–1418. Capeluche is one of the rare executioners who escaped anonymity in fifteenth-century chronicles and journals probably for the very reason that he was so well suited to crystallise the concepts and opinions of the hangman’s otherness and cruelty. It should be noted that the descriptions of Capeluche’s cruelty are not actually connected with his actions as a public executioner but with his role in the bloody commotions that occurred in the capital in 1418. In these fights Burgundian partisans killed a great number of Armagnacs (– or persons suspected of favouring the Armaganc party) in the streets and in prisons.29 Numerous chroniclers stressed that Capeluche played a leading role amongst those rioters supporting the Burgundian party who came from the lowest classes. In the Chronicorum Karoli Sexti, the historian monk of the abbey of SaintDenis30 explains that it was especially the riffraff that stirred up the riot and, in addition, defied the Duke of Burgundy and demanded the rapid condemnation of Armagnac prisoners.31 When the royal army had left Paris, these rioters attacked Grand Châtelet.32 Readers are told that Capeluche made a great impression on the dregs, when he proudly rode on his horse in front of his troops, who followed him on foot. The hangman goaded his men to commit numerous horrible murders. They killed, on his orders, over two hundred most noteworthy bourgeois, the Saint-Denis’ monk claims,33 and then describes the culminating point of the massacre: ‘crudelitate nequissima excecrabilia homicidia consummans, quamdam insignem et pulcherrimam domicellam, nomine…, expoliatam coram omnibus decollavit, alleguans solum quod ipsam Armeniacam reputabat.’34 (to consummate all those abominable crimes by an act of horrible cruelty, [Capeluche] made a well-reputed and beautiful

29 See, for example, Calmette 2001, 120-2. 30 From the middle of the thirteenth century, the historiography of the monarchy was entrusted to the abbey of Saint-Denis. A monk with the title of historian was to compose, in Latin, the history of the reigning sovereign. After the death of the king the text was to be deposited in the archives of the abbey where it could serve as a base for the French revision of Les Grandes Chroniques de France. The identity of the historian monk who wrote a long chronicle on the reign of Charles VI remained, for a long time, unknown but was finally revealed as Michel Pintoin (1350–1421), precentor (chantre) of the abbey. The history of the reign of Charles VI consists of 43 books (1380–1420). Jean Chartier, successor to Pinot, wrote up the last two years. As scholars have observed, the historian monks of Saint-Denis often made use of second-hand information in their chronicles, even if one frequently has the impression of reading reports by direct witnesses of various events. Many other chroniclers, for their part, later made use of the Saint-Denis’ monks’ texts in their works. Bossuat, Pichard & Rayndaud de Lage 1992, 1250-1. 31 ‘Jam repetitis vicibus ex communi Parisiensi populo perturbatores transquilitatis publice et vilibus mechanicis artibus continue insudantes dominum ducem Burgundie adierant, erecto supercilio et rigenti cervice postulantes ut de incarceratis Armeniacis, quos proditores pessioms nominabant, fieret justicia.’ Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, VI, 262. 32 ‘Armis et bellicis instrumentis rubiginosis more suo muniti, principale Castellum regium tumultuose et violenter intrantes, decreverunt quod omnes indiferenter occiderent, noxios ab innoxiis, nec religiosos vel clericos a layeis secernendo’. Ibid., 264. 33 ‘Plectendorum judicialiter civitatis publicus execuutor, Capeluche nuncupatus, solus equester, confusam multitudinem pedestrem conducendam susceperat; cujus jussu cum ultra ducentos magne auctoritatis cives frustratim gladiis interfecissent...’ Ibid., 264. 34 Ibid., 264.

268

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

demoiselle named … undress and decapitated her, on the pretext that she was a supporter of the Armagnacs.) M.L. Bellaguet has observed that the name of this demoiselle is not indicated in any chronicle of this period.35 This is quite a revealing detail in my opinion. It strongly suggests that the shamefully murdered maiden X was a purely fictitious figure invented to serve the authorities’ propaganda. If there ever were such a young female victim of higher social origin, the chroniclers, who were always very specific with titles and names, would have known and reported it. The monk of Saint-Denis’ gives his readers even more reasons to detest Capeluche, when he tells them later that the executioner led his followers to the fortress of Saint-Antoine in order to kill the prisoners who were kept there. The chronicler explains how the Duke of Burgundy tried to stop this plan and made Capeluche promise to accompany the prisoners safely to Châtelet. First the hangman gave his word to obey but then he deceitfully broke his promise. The prisoners were brought out one by one and the hangman, urged on by his excited followers, cut off their heads.36 Several other chroniclers also wanted to underline Capeluche’s significant role in the massacres, which occurred in Paris in 1418. Jean Juvenal des Ursins (1388–1473) and Jean Lefèvre de Saint-Remy (c. 1396–1468), who both wrote in the second part of the fifteenth century, supported an analogous interpretation of the course of events and of the famous Parisian hangman’s part. Juvenal des Ursins, who made use of the manuscript of Chronicorum Karoli Sexti in many parts of his work,37 maybe here too, presents Capeluche as the ‘captain’ of the rioters. 38 Just like the monk of Saint-Denis, he also reports the murder of an innocent, well-reputed and honourable maiden (‘une damoiselle de bien, qui avoit bonne renommée’) whose body was left in the middle of the street, as well as those of several knights, murdered ‘tres-inhumainement’, very cruelly.39 Jean Lefèvre de Saint-Remy describes in his text the massacre of the prisoners and the efforts of the Duke of Burgundy to stop the slaughter in very similar terms to his colleagues40 He stresses that the most guilty person of all was Capeluche: ‘Et estoit le plus principal d’iceulx tirans nommé Capeluche, lequel estoit bourel de Paris.’41 (And the highest principal of those mur35 See footnote 1. in the Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, VI, 265. 36 Ibid., 266. 37 On the relation between these two works, similarities and differences, see Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 797. 38 ‘Le vingt et uniesme jour d’aoust, le Roy, la Reyne et le duc de Bourgongne estans à Paris, il y eut une grande commotion de peuple: et disoit-on que Capeluche le bourreau en estoit le capitaine, et tuerent plus de deux cens personnes, qu’ils nommoient Armagnacs, dont il y en avoit plusieurs gens de bien. Et par haines particuliers tuerent plusieurs des gens du duc de Bourgongne, qui mesme demeuroient en son hostel, soubz le gouvernement desdits de Lisle-Adam, Chastelus, et Veau de Bar.’ Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, Roy de France, 545. 39 Ibid., 545. 40 Lefèvre de Saint-Remy stresses that the leaders of rioters had promised the Duke of Burgundy to accompany the prisoners to Châtelet to be judged by justice, but then they killed them all in a very cruel manner before arriving there: ‘tuèrent tous inhumainement sur la cauchée, et là les desvetirent.’ Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, Chronique, I, 337-8. 41 Ibid., 337-8. As already explained (in section 3.1) Lefèvre de Saint-Remy has particularly made use of the chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet (c. 1390–1453). Monstrelet had also underlined the leading role of

269

CHAPTER 7

derers was called Capeluche, who was the hangman of Paris). The use of term tiran is significant. As explained in section 3.1, besides its original meaning (tyrant) it was a popular pejorative term referring to all kinds of killers and also to a professional executioner. Now we must ask seriously the question how likely it is that a hangman could have had that much authority over the rioters, as these chroniclers claimed. In my opinion Bronislaw Geremek is correct in considering Capeluche’s leading role amazing and even questionable on the basis of what we know about the wide unpopularity of hangmen in late medieval society and culture.42 It seems very likely that these writers expressly exaggerated the role of Capeluche – that they actually actively misinterpreted the course of these tragic events and the famous hangman’s part in these. The purpose of the chroniclers was to assure and signal to their upper class readers (to their own circle) that their own kind of honourable people had nothing to do with this cruel and shameful slaughter.43 Thus, it was like a silent agreement for the purpose of putting all the blame onto ‘others’. The guilt lay totally on the dregs of society and particularly guilty was the nefarious hangman. Capeluche appeared to be a fine specimen of his despicable category, a bestial brute, a cruel and evil man who eventually would get his due and would burn in Hell. Obviously, the fact that many respectable citizens had lost their lives for nothing in that pitiless butchery would certainly not please the Almighty. Therefore, this event should be severely condemned by all good Christians and honourable persons, the chroniclers thought and indicated. If one takes a closer look into the fifteenth-century chronicles, one notices that Capeluche’s fierce cruelty, his eagerness to kill (his bad temperament) is a feature that is effectively underlined in many texts. The anonymous writer of the Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris emphasises that ‘the hangman was more inclined than anyone else’ to commit those brutal murders (et à ce faire était le plus enclin le bourreau que nul des autres). This writer does not speak about a martyred maiden but claims instead that Capeluche had killed, among others, a completely innocent, pregnant woman.44 Whilst it is not certain that this accusation is true either, it is quite evident, at the

Capeluche in his text: ‘Desquelles communes estoit ung des principaulx capitaines Capeluche, bourreau de Paris’. Monstrelet, La Chronique, III, 290-1. 42 Geremek 1987, 295-7. Geremek has discussed possible reasons that would explain the important role of Capeluche if writers did not exaggerate it: ‘Whilst it is difficult to see in Capeluche a true leader, this could be a consequence of the spontaneity and lack of organization of the movement; he was certainly the most conspicuous and colourful figure, and most popular. The awesome figure of the executioner, inherently repulsive but also imposing, since force and violence rank high in the hierarchy of prestige in the Middle Ages, exercised a degree of fascination over thousands of Parisians, the ’miserable wretches’ of the town.’ Joseph Calmette, on the other hand, seems to have quite easily accepted all the accusations made by chroniclers and considers Capeluche as an important terrorist. Calmette 2001, 106, 122-3. 43 In martial law, the killing of prisoners of war was considered a criminal deed. If a knight killed an imprisoned enemy, he should answer for his offence in court. L’arbre des batailles, 138. For the important role of ransom in late medieval practices of warfare, see Duby 1958, 193. 44 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 128. This text has been considered as one of the most important testimonies of its kind. It describes the day-to-day life and general mental climate in late medieval Paris. See Colette Beaune’s Introduction in Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 5-26.

270

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

same time, that in the eyes of late medieval people the killing of a pregnant woman was an even more serious and horrible criminal act, a double homicide.45 Pierre de Fénin (?–c. 1433), for his part, described the events of the year 1418 as follows: ... il y avoit souvent de grans desrois en la ville, et accusoient tous l’un l’autre: et par espécial aucuns mechans de communs qui pilloient sans merchy ceulx qui avoient tenu le parti au conte d’Ermignac. Et lors qui haioit à Paris aucun homme, il ne falloit que dire: ‘Il a esté Ermignac,’ présentement estoit tué [sur] le carrel. Et y avoit ung bourel, nommé Capeluche, qui tousjours avoit tenu le party au duc Jehan, lequel estoit mout malvais, et tuoit hommes et femmes, sans commandement de justice, par les rue de Paris, tant par hayne, comme pour avoir le leur; mais enfin le duc Jehan luy fist coper le haterel. De telz desroiz y eut à Paris mout pour ce temps qui estoit mout piteux.46 ... there were often great disorders in the town, and everybody accused each other: and especially some wicked boors who killed without mercy those who had supported the party of the count of Armagnac. And anyone who at that time hated another person had only to say: ‘He has been an Armagnac,’ and instantly that person was killed in the street. And there was a hangman, named Capeluche, who had always been a partisan of the Duke John, and who was very evil and killed men and women, without an order of justice, in the streets of Paris, as much for hatred, as to get their [possessions]; but finally the Duke John had his head cut off. There were many such disorders in Paris at that time, which was most pitiful. The report of Fénin, the provost of Arras, was written some time after these events and on the basis of various sources.47 As one can see, Capeluche appears in Fénin’s text, too, as a fiendish person, a sort of frenzied choleric who spread death and chaos out of a lust for aggression and killing. It should be noted that at that time it was considered to be quite unpardonable for an official hangman to take part in violent actions and manslaughter with out any court order. This kind of initiative clearly pointed to cruelty. It is worth noting that Fénin expressly linked Capeluche’s violent deeds with the mortal sins of anger and envy. In learned thinking, a homicide originated from Odio (hatred), Invidia (envy) and Ira (anger).48 45 Pregnant women were, for example, treated more gently before the law. Pregnancy saved a guilty woman from the death sentence. 46 Mémoires de Pierre de Fenin, 594. 47 Not much is known about this writer. Scholars have presumed that he was from the region of Artois. His chronicle covers the period of 1407–1422 and is dedicated to the fight between the Armagnacs and the Bourguignons. Bossuat, Pichard & Rayndaud de Lage 1992, 1173. 48 Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q155-170, 93.

271

CHAPTER 7

Many writers mention, as if relieved, that eventually Capeluche had to pay for his deeds: he was sentenced to death.49 An anonymous writer claims that even in the face of death this dreadful man behaved in a dubious way: Et ordonna le bourreau au nouveau bourreau la manière comment il devait couper tête, et fut délié et ordonna le tronchet pour son cou et pour sa face, et ôta du bois au bout de la doloire et à son coustel, tout ainsi comme s’il voulait faire ledit office à un autre. And the hangman told the new hangman how he should cut off his head, and [he] was untied and [he] arranged the block for his neck and his face, and cut off some splinters with a blade of a weapon and with his knife, just as if he would have liked to do the operation to some other person. This writer reports that on the scaffold Capeluche wanted to personally supervise and check the preparations and details of his own execution and seemed very placid and composed. The unidentified chronicler says that this weird behaviour scared all the spectators (‘dont tout le monde était ébahi’ – ‘it made everybody frightened’).50 The amazing and frightening aspect here was that instead of being passive, humble and repentant as everybody might have expected (or alternatively that he might have manifested desperate resistance, indicating fear of death and guilt), Capeluche took quite a novel kind of role as a patient. Late medieval people always paid considerable attention to the behaviour and gestures of the convicts. These were considered as important indications of the soul’s movements and of a person’s destiny in the hereafter.51 Capeluche’s total serenity and apparent lack of repentance appeared very sinister to these contemporaries. His attitude pointed to devilish pride. Everyone would have expected his kind of great sinner to show deep remorse and humility at the moment of death, to implore for divine pardon for his soul in order to avoid the horrors of Hell. This anonymous writer’s report reflected a conviction that Capeluche had to be the Devil’s henchman to behave as strangely and indifferently as he did. As Christiane Raynaud has suggested, it is also probable that Capeluche wanted to ensure a successful execution, rapid and painless death at the hands of his less experienced aide.52 49 The Duke of Burgundy finally settled the difficult situation in the capital by calling rioters to help in the siege of Montlhéry, which was occupied by the Armagnacs. After several thousands of Parisians had left, a disciplinary operation was organised in Paris. Numerous leading figures of the riots were arrested and sentenced to death. Capeluche and two of his companions were also seized on 23.8.1418. Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, VI, 266; Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, Chronique, I, 338; Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, Roy de France, 545. 50 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 129. 51 Writers often mention the exemplary attitude of convicts, une belle repentance, i.e. repentance and humility, and on the other hand, attitudes that appeared wrong or strange. Philippe de Vigneulles writes, for example, about a certain master Jennin, an old man who was hanged in 1437. All the way to the execution place Jennin sung a cheerful song in a loud voice: ‘Hé! Robinet, tu m’ay la mort donnée,/ Car tu t’en vais et je suis demourée’. This gave reason to presume that the convict had lost his reason and hope (faith) or was possessed: ‘Et chantoit celle chanson ledit maitre Jennin aincy comme s’il fut désespérés’. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, II, 247. See also Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 60-1. 52 Raynaud 2002, 306.

272

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

Besides the famous Capeluche, other cruel executioners lacking all feelings of compassion and pity appear in chronicles. An anonymous writer of a Parisian journal from the beginning of sixteenth century also included an example of the hangman’s cruel character in his work. He tells how, Macé, an aide of the hangman of Paris tried to cut the throat of a convict who had miraculously regained consciousness after having been taken down from the gallows. The aide was, however, prevented from fulfilling his intention by a poor woman who began to shout: ‘Ha, traitor, you kill him! Don’t you see that this is a miracle!’ Macé’s gesture was considered inhuman and sinful by common people, because in this kind of case the convict should be pardoned, as was the old custom.53 In many cases the writers’ propaganda aims are very evident. A good example is provided by Jean Molinet’s report of a public torture spectacle organised by the rebellious burghers of Bruges during Maximilian’s captivity in 1488. A huge scaffold with a torturing bench was erected in the middle of the market place. Three deposed councillors were severely tortured to make them reveal some information about their conspiracy. Finally, the victims begged to be killed, Molinet writes, and continues, ‘Le boureau, qui volentiers entendy ces mots, pour son gaing et affin que la chose ne demourast à faire par faulte d’apariteur, monta soudainement sur le hourt où se firent le executions; et, en attendant sa proye, estoit sorti d’éspée et de bendeaulx.’ (The hangman, who willingly heard these words, for his gain and so that the act would not be delayed because of him, suddenly mounted on the scaffold where the executions were carried out; and, when attending his prey, took out his sword and blindfolds.) Here, Molinet, official chronicler at the court of Burgundy, depicted the public executioner of Bruges as being an overenthusiastic butcher only interested in his profit. Undoubtedly, the essential purpose of Molinet’s report was to reveal and condemn the villainy and unjustness of the Flemish rebels, ‘others’. Stressing the cruelty and enthusiasm of the executioner served this specific aim nicely.54 One should also notice that torturing in public was highly exceptional. In this case it was explained by the political character of the trial and the high rank of the accused. Torture, as an act of judicial violence (not necessarily performed by official executioners), remained mostly beyond the public gaze.55 Another fine example is furnished, again, by the monk of Saint-Denis who tells the story of a certain death convict who asked to be chosen as the executioner of his condemned comrades so that he would save his own life, as was common practice. The man did his job quite well for a novice: he actually succeeded in cutting off every head with a single blow. Afterwards it was revealed that the new executioner was a relative of all the men he had decapitated. The chronicle writer tells us that the King (Charles VI) was most shocked by this information: Rex vero audiens quod omnes tunc interemptos non minus quam in tercio gradu consaguinitatis spiculator attingebat, exeratus est 53 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de Francois Premier, 372-3. See also Jelle Koopmans’ comments on this report as well as some analogous examples and the complex relationship between literary depictions and reality. Koopmans 2000. 54 Molinet, Chroniques, I, 599-600. 55 On practice of torture, see section 2.1.

273

CHAPTER 7

seviciam crudeliorem beluis, cum nec origini sue nec proprio sanguini perpecisset, et in oculis omnium exidendam racidem hanc incommodam judicavit, sic quod tandem occisus est, fructus sue inhumanitatis recipiens.56 When the King learned that the executioner was related to all those men at least in the third degree, he was horrified at such cruelty, which surpassed that of the wild beasts and decided that this disgusting fruit of a guilty race had to be exterminated. Thus this man, who had not spared his own family or his own blood, was executed in front of everyone and received a just penalty for his inhumanity. The chronicler reported this incident in order to underline the virtuous character of Charles VI, and at the same time stress the depravity of the Franc rebels. To fully understand the reactions and opinions of the King as well as the writer, one must bear in mind that in the medieval system of values, to kill one’s own relative was a much more serious crime than to kill someone else. In a similar situation, any decent and honourable man would have preferred to die with his relatives rather than to lift his sword against them.57 It was a revolting crime to ‘betray’ one’s own kin in this manner and fulfil and perform the vile function of executioner with such evident eagerness as this man had done. His attitude manifested a total lack of human loyalty and natural compassion; it expressed cold calculation and most sinful egoism.58 This man was too cruel, wicked and perverse (bestial) a person even for the wretched job and existence of a hangman and so he too had to be exterminated. So, the cruel executioner’s figure was often exploited for reasons of propaganda or ideology in chronicles. However, as mentioned in section 3.3, we also have some counter-examples of chroniclers who could depict an executioner more neutrally or in a favourable light, such as Philippe de Vigneulles or Jean de Roye.59 In the chronicle by Vigneulles we can also find an example of the ideal behaviour of hangman in such a situation that he is ordered to kill his relative. Vigneulles writes that when the executioner of Metz was obliged to execute (by drowning) his own godfather in 1503, he wept most profusely and died soon afterwards from pure sorrow.60 As comes to legal experts, these avoided even more carefully commenting upon the hangman in their texts. A rare exception is Josse de Damhouder, a Flemish writer61 whose treatise from the mid-sixteenth century nicely reveals the ambiguous image of the executioner. In his text, Damhouder observes that the hangman’s name itself points to a cruel character: ‘…il a ung nom fascheux et ennuyeux, qui semble estre cruel, et severe, et pas humain…’ (he has a name that is hateful and 56 Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, II, 384-5. 57 See for example L’arbre des batailles; Davidson 2002, 122. 58 As my readers perhaps remember, in the Actes des Apotres one can meet the evil executioner Daru, who actually boasts about having himself executed (buried alive) his own nephew. See section 6.4. 59 See section 3.3. 60 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 2. However, Vigneulles could also criticise the hangman, see tome IV, 26. 61 See Monballuy & Dauwe 1999, 2-4 and sections 3.1 and 3.3.

274

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

disagreeable, and which seems to point to cruelty and severity and inhumanity). Damhouder also insisted that: … les bourreaulx eulx mesmes et leur office font hayr, vilipender, et avoir en hayne, advient par ce que plusieurs bourreaulx leur office ne desservent ou accomplissent aveq telle compassion et humanité vers les pacients comme bien appartient, ains ilz traictent souvent les delinquants et criminelz en les tirant, tuant et meudrissant si irreverement comme s’ilz avoient bestes en leur mains.62 …hangmen make themselves and their office detested, despised and loathed, which results from the fact that many hangmen do not carry out or accomplish their office with such compassion and humanity towards their patients as they should but they often treat malefactors and criminals badly and hurt and injure them as if they had animals in their hands. Damhouder explains that it was solely the hangmen’s own fault that they and their office were so unpopular and loathed everywhere, for many professional executioners were pitiless and cruel towards their victims. Later in the same text, Damhouder demands more gentleness and humanity from hangmen but at the same time he asks for more understanding for these professionals from the common people.63 Damhouder’s purpose and motive was, without doubt, to support the punitive system of his time, the authorities’ position and aims. His message was that ‘the fault lies not in the system but in some cruel and wretched hangmen who do not perform their duties properly.’ After having examined the link between the idea of cruelty and the figure of the hangman as expressed in my source materials, it is worthwhile to study the wider context of the concept of cruelty in the late Middle Ages. Negative attitudes found their clear manifestation not only in learned treatises and their definitions but also in the more general usage of the terms ‘cruel’ and ‘cruelty’. The writings of Thomas Aquinas offer us important information about the ways of perceiving and defining cruelty in medieval culture. Aquinas, a leading intellectual authority, had examined carefully the meaning of the concept in his Summa in the thirteenth century. In a chapter entitled Quæstio CLIX. De Crudelitate Aquinas made a clear distinction between the vice of cruelty and severity, which was considered as a virtue. One could call severity ‘reasonable cruelty’ or rather ‘reasonable harshness’.64 As the term ‘cruel’ could point to the severity of a punishment (so that ‘cruel’ was only the quality of something that causes much pain and suffering, as explained above) some medieval writers could, in fact, refer to very 62 Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363-4. 63 Ibid., 363-5. 64 Ancient philosophers, such as Seneca had also defined the concepts of severity and cruelty in very similar terms. See Bauman 1996, 78-9; Baraz 2003, 14-15, 29-31.

275

CHAPTER 7

severe punishments of ‘good justice’ using the this term, cruel,65 even if many writers avoided employing it because of its negative connotations.66 In Thomas Aquinas’s thinking there existed two kinds of cruelty. One could call these ‘ferocity / bestial cruelty’ and ‘excessive / human cruelty’. The first one pointed to bestiality and the animal kingdom and the other to human maliciousness. This kind of cruelty was diametrically opposed to the virtue of clemency. Aquinas explains first that the words sævitæ (savageness) and feritatis (ferociousness), which are sometimes used of cruel persons, are comparisons to wild beasts, to those animals that attack men in order to eat them and not because of any sense of justice. A sense of justice was linked closely to reason, a quality that beasts did not possess. According to Aquinas, those persons who do not take into consideration criminal acts when handing out punishments but who act only for the pleasure they got from the suffering of other people, express the kind of cruelty that points to bestiality, because this sort of enjoyment is not human but bestial and originates from perversity. There are also those persons who take into consideration the guilt of the victim when ordering sentences but who overstep moderation in the punishment. This kind of cruelty does not point to bestiality but to human maliciousness.67 As to the precise meaning of the term cruelty, Thomas Aquinas explained that the word originates from ‘crudeness’ and that it points to things that have a repulsive and rude taste, because they are underdone or raw.68 Françoise MichaudFréjaville has suggested that in the late Middle Ages, this connotation was widely known, the term ‘cruel’ was often associated with a liking for bloody meat, a feature considered typical of wild beasts and not of men.69 Indeed, when one examines literary material from the late medieval period, one cannot help noticing that the term cruel was typically employed as a very negative attribute, with connotations of bestiality and extreme ‘otherness’, and also with implications of tyranny, evil and sin. It was regularly connected, for example, with the most hideous crimes as well as with ‘bad justice’, which was unjust, unfair, and immoderate – its punishments were excessive and caused too much suffering.

65 See, for example, La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, passim. 66 Justice was defined as ‘good’ when it gave to everyone his or her due, impartially, and according to each criminal’s deed (status, sex, age, etc.). A severe or cruel crime merited a severe or cruel punishment. Justice was not considered ‘good’ if the penalties were too harsh or too mild. These concepts are clarified, for example, in Le grand coutumier de France: ‘… doit l’en toujours plus estre enclin à absolution que à condempnation; et vauldroit mieulx espargner deux coulpables que punir ung innocent; et si se doit le juge plus feschir par humilité et par miséricorde que soi endurcir par rigueur. Car justice sans miséricorde est crueuse, et miséricorde sans justice est lascheté’. Le grand coutumier de France, 650. Thus, sentences of both good justice and bad justice could be defined as cruel but in the case of good justice this meant that the penalty was related to the criminal deed, which was considered cruel. In the case of bad justice, a cruel penalty was an unjust penalty. Once should notice that in late medieval culture virtue was closely linked to the idea of moderation: it was as far from excess as it was from lack of some quality. The concept of severity was in complete accord with the virtues of charity and justice. 67 Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q155-170, 116-8. 68 Ibid., 113. ‘…nomen crudelitatis a “cruditate” sumptum esse videtur. Sicut autem ea quæ sunt cocta et digesta, solent habere suavem et dulcem saporem; ita illa quæ sunt cruda, habent horribilem et asperum saporem.’ 69 Michaud-Fréjaville 1999, 333. See also Baraz 2003, 4.

276

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

‘Bad justice’ was not in harmony with the virtues of charity and justice but based on wrath and injustice.70 In the later Middle Ages, the term cruel was frequently associated with many kinds of negative figures, not only with hangmen but also with demons, tyrants,71 murderers, enemy soldiers and particularly infidels.72 This connection is not surprising but quite understandable and logical, especially if one takes into account the fact that from the thirteenth century onward, sensitivity to cruelty had considerably increased and the concept was more and more often exploited for political or ideological ends. As Daniel Baraz has observed, cruelty was regularly manipulated to delegitimise ‘others’, not only external enemies, but also internal minority groups – and often also to justify violence against them.73 This development was linked to the growing anxiety, general climate of fear and suspicion, that gained increasing ground in the perturbed period of the end of the Middle Ages, because of several important demographic, political, social and cultural changes and disturbances.74 In late medieval France and Europe there were many who thought and argued that when any agent with an imperfect intellect and morals – a woman, a pagan, a beast – engaged in violent actions, there was always an aspect of cruelty included: he / she / it received vile and sensual satisfaction from hurting and causing pain and was motivated by base aspirations. A most enlightening example relating to women is the case of Joan of Arc. As Françoise Michaud-Fréjaville has shown, all the crimes that Joan was accused of were connected with the idea of cruelty. According to her opponents, Joan had manifested cruelty every time she had taken part in violent actions. The defenders of Joan tried to explain that she actually dreaded shedding blood. They also tried to find support from such biblical figures as Judith and Deborah. Her opponents managed, nonetheless, to lower Joan to the position of a semi-human and semi-bestial creature that had to be erased (just for this reason) from mankind.75 As I explained in section 2.1, violence and the shedding of blood could be seen in a positive light in the Middle Ages, if they served the right motives and quarters and if the question was about masculine action.

70 Daniel Baraz has also noted that the most common medieval definition of cruelty was the excessive application of judicial violence. Baraz 2003, 132. On deeds that were considered extremely cruel, horribles cruaultez, see for example Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, Chronique, I, 152-3; Monstrelet, La Chronique, V, 351-2. 71 Daniel Baraz has examined the purely political exploitation of the concept of cruelty in sources concerning Pedro I, King of Castile. Pedro had two nicknames, ‘the cruel’ and ‘the just’, one given by his opponents and the other by his partisans. For Pedro’s opponents, defining him as cruel was crucial: this implied that he was a tyrant, and therefore the struggle against him was justified. Baraz 2003, 132-6. 72 The writer of an anonymous Parisian journal from the beginning of the fifteenth century systematically used the adjective ‘cruel’ when writing about enemies and particularly Saracens. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 34, 39, 46, 77, 103, 141, 144, 154, 160, 176, 178, 184, 191, 198, 201, 235, 319, 326, 385, 399. As Colette Beaune has remarked, ‘Les Sarrasins, qu’on identifiait, au XVe siècle, aux Turcs musulmans sont supposés ne respecter aucune morale. Celle-ci est réservée aux chrétiens’. See also Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, VI, 249; Auton, Chroniques de Louis XII, IV, 140-2. Auton describes the cruel treatment of the French by Genoese soldiers in 1507. 73 Baraz 2003, 123-42. 74 See Delumeau 1978, Delumeau 1983. 75 Michaud-Fréjaville 1999, 331-7.

277

CHAPTER 7

Feminine violence was not accepted, for it evidently stemmed from cruelty and not aspirations to peace, from sensuality and not from rational thinking.76 Lastly, it must be repeated that one can sometimes meet the term cruel in positive contexts in literary sources, that is, in reports related to punishments involving ‘good justice’ and to such legal practices, corporal or death penalties, that caused much pain and suffering but were considered just.77 Here, the term cruel signified ‘very severe’. As already clarified, the concept of severity was in perfect harmony with the virtues of charity and justice. However, the negative employment of the term cruel is more common in late medieval texts. Important contexts that cast additional light on the ways of perceiving cruelty and lack of pity – in hangmen or in men in general – are the medieval doctrine of the emotions: the right and wrong kind, and the importance of Charity in the system of virtues. In the Middle Ages, leading thinkers considered and defined emotions as a feature that made a person human, whilst lack of them was often seen as unnatural and as a sign of insanity or sin. Man had feelings as a result of the weakness of his or her human condition. Animals also had feelings, whilst God and the angels did not.78 Emotions (both wrong and right) were understood as a feature that belonged essentially to earthly life and not to the hereafter.79 It is important to remember that emotions and passions were not only viewed as individual (microcosmic) phenomena but they originated from the macrocosmic level.80 A person’s temperament was also of importance in these matters: a choleric was particularly inclined to experience anger, a sanguine feelings of joy and a phlegmatic and a melancholic, feelings of sorrow.81 It was thought that a wise person could and would resist the negative influences of the heavenly bodies and the tyranny of the emotions and his natural inclinations by means of his intellect. Moreover, a wise person was able to direct his emotions along the right path and turn them to his advantage. In medieval learned thinking the emotions were not seen as a feature that should be eradicated altogether: they gave men a chance to practise Christian virtues, such as charity. Good Christians felt the right kind of emotions for the right motives: they feared eternal punishment, regretted their sins

76 Saints, for example, engage themselves in violent actions in medieval miracle stories. See Krötzl 1992. However, in late medieval thinking saints’ violence did not express cruelty but severity and justice, for it was based on wisdom and virtue. 77 In Philippe de Vigneulles’ work, for example, the term cruel was used in the description of both very serious crimes as well as their severe and righteous punishments. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, II, 25; IV, 71, 80, 83, 87-92, 131, 540, 545. Cruelty was actually considered an aggravating circumstance in late medieval criminal law. When deciding a sentence judges had to pay attention to the cruelty of the criminal deed (– the importance and seriousness of wounds, which pointed to cruelty) Gonthier 1998, 25-6. 78 Saint Augustine explains that God and his angels only seem to act on the basis of their emotions, whereas, in fact, only follow their reason. Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, 254-5. 79 However, some theologians were sure that in Hell, numerous negative emotions torment sinners: they will feel continual fear, shame, anger, and jealousy, whilst in Heaven, the blessed experience perfect love. Mormando 1999, 125, 127. 80 See section 5.1. 81 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, 146. On temperaments, see section 7.3.

278

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

and were happy because of their good works.82 Anger, for example, could be turned into a virtue, if directed against evil and sin.83 As I will explain next, pity and compassion were considered to be very essential emotions for every Christian interested in his or her soul’s salvation. (I will return to the topic of the vices and the control of the emotions in sections 7.2 and 7.3.) To obtain a deeper understanding of the great sensitivity to cruelty, a major vice, in late medieval culture, it may be useful to turn our attention in a totally opposite direction, towards the greatly praised and sought after virtues of compassion and charity, the opposites and antidotes of cruelty. In the chivalrous culture of the Middle Ages, pitilessness towards helpless and innocent persons, especially women, children, old persons, orphans or clerics, was traditionally seen as a very ignoble feature. An ideal knight was just and merciful; he protected and pitied the little people and the weak.84 In Christian thinking it had been often stressed that not to feel and show compassion when an innocent person was in pain was a great sin. This view of and demand for compassion became even more intense at the end of the Middle Ages. It was obviously the sufferings of Christ and the martyrs – constantly brought to the minds of all believers in art, sermons and literature – that should evoke particularly deep pity and compassion. For Christ and the saints were not only innocent victims but victims that had suffered for the sins of other men and whose torments were, in addition, much more severe than those inflicted on any ordinary people. Theologians stressed, moreover, that other people also deserved compassion and that it was utterly condemnable to rejoice in the afflictions and sufferings of others.85 Later times have sometimes interpreted all this preaching as evidence of a lack of charity and forgotten that this testimony also tells about past 82 Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, 254-5. Christian teaching on the emotions and virtues received important influences from Stoic ethical doctrine. The Stoics had conceived virtue as conformity with the rational law of nature; vice, on the other hand, consisted in following the irrational impulses of the emotions. Whilst certain emotions such as joy, caution and wishfulness were rational and therefore good, all others were wrong and vicious. The Stoics had categorised these under the four general headings of pleasure, distress, fear and desire and designated these as passions. In order to achieve the desired state of virtue and happiness a wise man had to eradicate these impulses totally. As Jill Kraye has explained, certain aspects of Stoic ethics did trouble some of the Church Fathers. Lactantius thought that the emotions should not be eradicated, but rather redirected down the true path. Fear, for example, was transformed from a vice into a great virtue when directed towards God. Augustine’s position was similar: he stressed that in Christianity it was not whether a pious man was angry that mattered but why he was angry. He also chastised the Stoics for condemning pity as a vice and rejected their concept of passionless virtue as inappropriate for Christians. Kraye 1988, 364, 367-8. See also Sorabji 2002. 83 On the difference between bad and good anger, see Gerson, Œuvres complètes, 303. ‘Il est une bonne ire quant on se courouce contre mal ou le deffault d’aultruy; telle ire n’est pas péché.’ According to Gerson, good anger signified a hatred of evil, which was not a sin. ‘Bad anger’ (une mauvaise ire) has a wrong motive and direction and leads to other sins, such as blasphemy, cursing, stealing or homicides. 84 See, for example, L’arbre des batailles, passim. See also La Sale, Le Reconfort de Madame de Fresne. Antoine de La Sale wrote this original and pathetic story about the execution of a young boy to console a woman who had just lost her first child. De La Sale has put a special weight on this child’s great fear and anxiety in order to condemn the cruelty of such a sentence. Obviously, de La Sale thought that this kind of story would help the mourning mother to see her loss from a different, less sinister, angle. See also Erich Auerbach’s analysis of de La Sale’s story. Auerbach 1968, 253-68. 85 See Duby 1988, 207-9. Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa, ‘Sed in homine viatore maxime est culpabile quod reficiatur aliorum pœnis; et maxime laudabile ut de pœnis doleant.’ Later, he explains that it is condemnable to rejoice over other people’s sufferings as such and that the only positive aspect in them would be their possible beneficial effect. ‘In viatore non est laudabile, quod delectetur de aliorum pœnis secundum se; est tamen laudabile, si delectetur de eis, inquantum habent boni annexum.’ Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Suppl, Q87-99, 247, 249.

279

CHAPTER 7

peoples’ dearest ideals and aspirations. Moreover, scholars have often ignored the fact that the depictions of Christ’s and the saints’ passion were, in fact, a sophisticated technique of exploitation: here, the issue of cruelty was manipulated for purely religious purposes, for the attainment of the mystical experience.86 In the Christian thinking of the later Middle Ages Charity (Charité), i.e. the opposite of anger, cruelty and envy,87 those passions or mortal sins that nourished cruelty,88 was ranked as the most important virtue.89 Charity signified an ardent love of God as well as of one’s neighbours.90 It was the highest virtue and manifested itself in the forms of ‘grace, paix, pitié, doulceur, misericorde, indulgence, compassion, benignité, concorde’91 (graciousness, peace, pity, clemency, mercy, gentleness, compassion, benignity, concord). In late medieval France, ecclesiastics and moralists never ceased to stress the importance of charity and the avoidance of anger and cruelty in their texts and sermons, not only when they were addressing their words to the rich and powerful but also when speaking to ordinary people, to the ignorant and poor. In Miroirs aux princes written from the Carolingian period onwards it was explicitly emphasised that a prince should observe charity in meting out justice as well as in all his many other duties.92 Charity should lead a prince to show mercy, miséricorde, towards his subjects and especially to the little people.93 A pardon given to a convicted criminal also arose from this major virtue.94 The avoidance of anger and cruelty and the observance of charity were demanded, not only of the authorities but also of their subjects, from the common people. In Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, a popular encyclopaedia from the fifteenth century, Charity is also placed highest in the scale of virtues.95 In the writings and sermons of leading ecclesiastics 86 See Baraz 2003, 136-42, and section 6.4. 87 Geoffrey Chaucer thought that the best antidotes to anger were ‘Debonairetee’ and ‘Pacience or Suffrance.’ Charity, the love of God and of neighbours was the first remedy to the ‘foule synne of Envye’. See The Parson’s Tale in Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 563, 573. 88 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, 303. 89 In the system of virtues, frequently depicted in a form of tree (L’arbre des vertus) the root was humility (humilité), whilst the top was charity, charité. The branches were faith (foy), hope (esperance), prudence (prudence), moderation (aqctrempence), justice (iustice), and force (force). Each of these main branches was divided into several smaller branches or leaves. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [95-6]. 90 ‘Charité treshaulte vertu de toutes est desir de pensee ardant bien ordonne de aymer dieu & son prouchain.’ Ibid., [97]. 91 Ibid., [97]. 92 For late medieval theorists, the act of meting out justice (faire justice) was central in the definitions of bon gouvernement, which in its turn maintained order and peace. These acts were associated with the person and function of the king. Gauvard 1991, 895. Jean de Joinville has described how Saint Louis made considerable efforts to find a provost who would be a good justicer, sever and equal: ‘Et fist enquerre par tout le royaume et par tout le pays ou il pourroit trouver homme qui feist bone justice et roide, et qui n’espargnast plus le riche home que le povre.’ Finally, he appointed a suitable person, Étienne Boileau. Consequently, malefactors left Paris because otherwise they would have been hanged. The kingdom started to prosper and many wanted to move there just because ‘good justice’ meant security and order. See Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, 356. 93 Honoré Bovet, among others, has stressed in his work that a good ruler is always just, impartial and merciful in his role as judge. He never issues a death sentence in anger. L’arbre des batailles, 253-6. Antoine de La Sale observes in Le Reconfort de Madame de Fresne that ‘misericorde doit resluire en nous, et especialment es personnes des princes’. La Sale, Le Reconfort de Madame de Fresne, 22. 94 Gauvard 1991, 895. 95 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [97]. See also the knight of La Tour Landry’s advice to his daughters concerning anger (Le CIIIIe chappitre. Du pecie de yre) and pity (Le CVIe chappitre. Cy parle de pitié) in Le livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry, 201-4, 206-8.

280

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

it was stressed, too, that only Charity can save souls from eternal damnation. Therefore, the avoidance of anger and cruelty was not only morally correct – it was also patently reasonable. Jean Gerson, among others, underlined in his sermons the important role of charity from the point of view of salvation. In a sermon entitled Pour le jour des morts Gerson first reminds his readers of how very essential it is to start to prepare for one’s own death in time: the whole earthly life of a Christian should actually be seen from this angle.96 Then Gerson gives three pieces of advice, the following of which will help believers to live a good life, have a good death and avoid suffering in the hereafter: one should be repentant, patient and benevolent.97 Gerson explains that benivolence signified both physical and spiritual works of charity. He gives three truths (verités) or the means of showing benevolence: 1. ‘aidier autrui en sa necessité corporelle ou le visiter et le consoler’, 2. ‘pardonner a autruy ses iniures pour l’onneur de Dieu’, 3. ‘chastier par bonne amour les errans et malfaiteurs’.98 (To help another person in his corporal need or visit and comfort him. To forgive another person his insults for the honour of God. To punish erroneous persons and malefactors from good love.) Gerson reflects here the Christian ideal that charity should also manifest itself in concrete works, not only in thoughts.99 It should be noted, too, that Gerson expressly considers the punishing of malefactors as an important form of charity (besides helping and comforting neighbours and forgiving them all injuries).100 In the Middle Ages leading thinkers thought that it would be a great sin to let malefactors to continue in the way of perdition, that is, to leave them without the possi96 Believers should turn their back on the noisy world and on all sins and focus upon pursuing virtue. Because a good death was as important as a good life, one should always bear in mind one’s transitoriness. ‘Pourquoy bien panse a la fin? Pour nous instruire a fuir et echuer ce douloureux tourment ou elles sont’, Gerson writes and refers to souls in Purgatory. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 690. 97 Gerson explains that one should repent earnestly of one’s sins and also confess them fully without hiding any details. One should fulfil conscientiously the penitential exercises ordered by one’s confessor. Patience (pacience) signifies a voluntary resignation to misfortunes. If one suffers patiently in this world, this may have a positive effect on one’s destiny in the hereafter. Ibid., 694-5. 98 In the conclusion of his treatise Gerson stresses, once more, that a person who really wants to save his or her soul should and could evince charity in his or her every action: ‘Toutes ces verites se puent declairer par panser a la fin; et par ainsi la personne peut en tout et par tout faire partie de son purgatoire, car n’est heure que on n’aye aucune adversite ou que matiere ne viengne ou de penitence ou de patience ou de benivolence.’ Ibid., 694-5. Charity could be manifested in many different ways: by loving God above everything else and taking care not to offend Him and following His orders; by showing a humble and patient attitude in the face of all kinds of misfortunes; by loving one’s neighbours as much as oneself and hoping that these would love and serve God and do virtuous deeds to gain a place in Paradise. Gerson stresses that one should feel pain in the face of a neighbour’s sins and misfortunes and that the notion ‘neighbour’ refers to everybody, also to one’s enemies. 99 For a visual depiction of these same ideas (or, Mt 25.31-46) see, Master of Alkmaar, The Seven Works of Mercy. 1504. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (on loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Rotterdam. 100 Jean Gerson linked the non-punishing of children and malefactors with the mortal sin of Sloth. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 305. As explained in section 2.1, the physical punishing of children was not considered too harsh a method of education in the Middle Ages. However, the essential thing in all punishing was that the boundary of moderation was not overstepped, i.e. that punishment did not cause too much suffering and thus become harsh, or cruel. It was important that a person who punished an evil child did it from pure charity and was not stimulated by hatred. This person should not find any satisfaction or pleasure in the act of causing suffering to a child, for this would make him or her a cruel and bad educator instead of being a severe and good one. Physical penalties and particularly flogging were universal methods of correction and legal practices but also ordinary ascetic practice. For most ardent devotees, self-torture was a means to get closer to God. Bottomley 1979, 213. See also Bynum 1989, 162-3.

281

CHAPTER 7

bility of reconciliation and purification, which could happen through the medium of suffering. At the same time, it was emphasised that one should not feel satisfaction but pity, faced with the suffering of convicts. This was not a novel idea. Saint Augustine had already condemned enjoying the pain of criminals. He also condemned liking bloody gladiatorial spectacles as cruel and sinful. Augustine notes, furthermore, that if the servants of the law find pleasure in executing punishments, this is a sin.101 In late medieval France, Jean Gerson was an ardent spokesman for important reform concerning criminal justice. He had a pivotal role in the improving of the position and treatment of convicts sentenced to death. He wrote a report and request on this matter to King Charles V demanding for those condemned to death the right to religious reconciliation before their execution. Gerson argued that it was contrary to divine law and also a mortal sin not to allow confession to convicts.102 In his many writings and sermons Gerson stressed the importance of inter-human identification and charity and condemned cruelty. Compassion and pity for convicted criminals was a very essential theme to Gerson. His efforts had some concrete effects. A very significant symbolical gesture was the erection of a stone cross in the neighbourhood of the gibbet of Montfaucon in 1397 on the initiative of Pierre de Craon.103 In front of this cross convicts could confess their sins to the Franciscan monks who accompanied them to the gallows. Success of the view that convicted criminals also deserved compassion is manifested in the growing resistance to cruelty by the end of the Middle Ages, expressed in daily gestures and in various products of culture. In chronicles and journals we can find numerous approving reports about the spectators’ heartfelt compassion, tears and prayers at execution ceremonies, especially in the case of humbly repentant convicts.104 The growth of compassion was not only a French phenomenon.105 In Italy, for example, a similar development occurred. It is worth noting that here, from the fourteenth century on, secular brotherhoods existed that specialised in helping and comforting convicts. The first one, the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Croce al Tiempio, was founded in 1343.106 In the later Middle Ages, an increasing number of people thought that to be indifferent or to enjoy a convict’s sufferings was sinful, evil and inhuman. Pity was particularly important (not only feeling but also showing it) in such cases where a malefactor willingly admitted his or her guilt and deeply and humbly begged for divine forgiveness. As Mitchell B. Merback has observed, it seems that convicts 101 Augustinus, Confessiones, 48-9, 111-2. 102 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 341-3. 103 See BN ms. fr. 7645, fol. 320r; BN ms. fr. 21731, fol. 320r. On this reform and Gerson’s role in it, see also Cohen 1990, 295-6. 104 See for example Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, passim. 105 On the general development and growth of emotion in the Middle Ages, see Taylor 1966, 346-6. 106 The guidebook of this brotherhood contained very detailed directions on helping convicts at the execution ceremony. The brothers were, for example, advised to block the convicts’ view with a tavoletta (i.e. a religious picture, which Samuel Y. Edgerton has called as a fine example of early art therapy) so that they could not see the scaffold when approaching it and suddenly lose their nerve. The convict should be exhorted to show patience and dignity and to relate his or her own punishment to those of Christ and the martyrs, who all died violently. Edgerton 1985, 179-80, 184, 219. For the guidebook of the brotherhood of death in Bologna (on the manner of consoling prisoners), see BN ms. ital. 154. On French brotherhoods that helped death convicts and poor people, see Vincent 1994, 74-8.

282

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

were often transformed into images of Christian martyrs in the eyes of spectators.107 In France, the royal power was built more on charity than on judicial harshness.108 An important turning point was situated at the very end of the fourteenth century (I refer here, for example, to the campaign led by Gerson and its effects). Linking the idea of cruelty closely with the hangman’s representation served to further this development. The purpose of the present section was to throw some light on the representation of the hangman’s cruelty from different angles in the larger contexts of late medieval culture.109 It is evident that later times have often disregarded the late medieval man’s great sensitivity to cruelty and also underestimated his capacity to feel compassion and pity when confronted by other people’s sufferings.110 This tendency has been typical not only of laymen but also of historians. The depictions concerning the hangman’s cruelty multiplied towards the end of the Middle Ages. The motives of various ‘representers’ were connected with notions and opinions about the villainy of cruelty as well as the violence of ‘others’. These framings did not concern only the hangman as an instrument of bad justice of ‘others’ but professional executioners in general. The ambiguous attitude toward physical and death penalties reflected on the image of the executioner. Even if capital executions and punishments of mutilation were seen as necessary legal practices, these evoked ambiguous thoughts and feelings, repulsion and anxiety. The hangman and his actions could not be fully accepted: his violence seemed not fully honourable and fair. Therefore, the executioner’s figure was linked with evil and sin in the products of culture and in collective imagery and the notion of cruelty was closely connected with the whole category of hangmen. Cruelty – a liking for causing suffering – was seen and represented as a determinative characteristic of most executioners. The kind of cruelty the hangman epitomised was understood as an unpardonable defect – an attribute of vicious persons and great sinners, a bestial and despicable feature. At the same time Charity was considered the most essential virtue, a guiding star that every person interested in salvation should follow: prince or beggar, learned or unlearned, rich or poor. ‘Foy sans charité est morte’, faith without charity is dead, i.e. nothing, Jean Gerson reminded his audience.111 Only charity could open the gates of Paradise, whilst cruelty and anger led to perdition. In late medieval culture, cruelty was, often and in various contexts, a severely condemned and deplored feature. Cruelty also became progressively stigmatised towards the end of the medieval period. It was not only described more often and more in detail, but also more frequently employed for manipulative pur-

107 Merback 1999, 20, 152, see also Puppi 1991, 32, 52, 54. 108 ‘Exercice de la justice est limité par la nature du pouvoir royal qui, à l’image du pouvoir divin, est fondé sur la miséricorde plus que sur la rigueur de justice […] le roi des XIVe et XVe siècles a choisi: c’est sur la grâce plus que sur la colère que s’est construit l’État.’ Gauvard 1995, 290. 109 A modern interpretation of a cruel and a compassionate executioner is provided by Frank Darabont’s film The Green Mile (2000), with Tom Hanks in the role of Paul Edgecomb and Doug Hutchison as the sadistic Percy. 110 See Baraz 2003, 1-2. 111 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 296.

283

CHAPTER 7

poses – political ones or with the purpose of achieving a religious end.112 Needless to say, many descriptions of hangmen’s cruelty did not have necessarily anything to do with the behaviour and inner qualities of actual executioners. However, some of them were former convicts condemned of crimes of violence, a fact that had an unavoidable influence on general beliefs and opinions. There is also some evidence of officeholders being condemned of crimes that point to cruelty and aggressiveness (fights, homicides) in the fourteenth and fifteenth century in France and elsewhere.113 The figure of the hangman offered one important instrument (besides demons, infidels, murderers, etc.) for past people’s efforts to define and mould the concept of cruelty. At the same time, these framings served to distance people from cruelty, to affirm the ‘representer’s’ and his group’s virtuous and humane self-image. The discourse upon the hangman’s cruelty had unfavourable effects on the representation and status of professional executioners in late medieval culture and society, even if no one explicitly questioned the necessity for a hangman as such. 7.2 Vices of the Hangman In the late medieval period the central feature in the representations and depictions of hangmen was a wide-ranging viciousness, their general inclination for many kinds of sins. Artists and writers systematically signalled to their audiences that, besides being cruel, executioners were generally immoral, corrupt and wicked. This tendency was best visible in the field of religious literature and art depicting executioners serving bad justice of ‘others’, infidels and pagans. A major feature in the descriptions of the hangman’s depravity in religious drama was the sin of Gluttony, gloutonnie, and especially that of excessive drinking.114 In mystery plays the executioner is often associated with a lust for wine and heavy drinking. Some writers have referred to this penchant through executioners’ first names such as Tirevin and Gastevin,115 whilst others preferred employing the instrument of verbal expression and signalled this trait through hangmen’s incoherent manner of speaking or continuous repetition, for example. These features were commonly recognised as typical, not only of simple-minded individuals but also of 112 Baraz suggests that the manipulation was particularly pertinent to the type of cruelty identified with the ‘other’ in previous centuries (barbarians). At the end of the Middle Ages, types of cruelty traditionally attributed to the external ‘others’ were internalised. In the field of religious literature and art, the issue of cruelty was manipulated to attain a mystical experience, for example, in depictions of Christ’s passion. See Baraz 2003, 12342, and section 6.4. 113 See La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 104; Spierenburg 1984, 27; Gonthier 1998, 23, 34, 143, 195. It is worth noting that the authorities showed no mercy to their servant in these cases but the penalties were severe. 114 In Christian thinking, the sin of glutonnie not only signified excessive eating (particularly the eating of red meat) but also drinking. Especially to get intoxicated was a great sin: ‘Soy enivrer c’est péché mortel.’ Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 304. As already mentioned, Gerson also knew a category of excessive speaking, gloternie de langue. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, The Parson explains the forms of Gula as follows: ‘This synne hath manye speces. The firste is dronkeness, that is the horrible sepulture of mannes resoun; and therfore, whan a man is dronken, he hath lost his resoun; and this is deedly synne.’ Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 586-7. 115 In drama the executioners had first names that connected them with the sin of gluttony, not only as wine lovers but also devourers of meat, as shown in section 3.2.

284

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

drunken persons. A still more efficacious and usual method was to include a scene where hangmen have a very urgent need to go and drink in a tavern in the middle of the working day and / or after it. A fine example is provided by La Passion d’Auvergne: after having executed the sentence of crucifixion, the first necessity of the executioners is to go and booze in an inn. When the limbs of thieves are cut and Christ’s side is pierced (these techniques were supposed to ensure a rapid death), the executioner Maliferas urges his colleagues: ‘Ilz ne bouchent guieres le front. / Alons nous en boere tresfort!’116 (They hardly move any more. / Let’s go and drink a lot!) The message of this anonymous writer is that quenching their thirst is more important to these men than working – not to mention the careful finishing of the task. These executioners did not even care to ensure that convicts were really dead, as they were expected to do. Dramatists portrayed executioners as unrestrained drinkers who had great difficulty in stopping carousing once they had begun. Hangmen continue drinking even if they should already return to their duties. An executioner called Malque observes to his colleagues in La Passion d’Auvergne that they have stayed too long and they should go back to work and bury the convicts’ corpses (‘Nous advons cy trop demeuré. / Alons ensevelir ces larrons!’) but one of them, Sirius, who is still thirsty, suggests: ‘Encore une foiz bevons, / Et puis irons a nostre office.’117 (Let’s drink once more, / And then we can go to work.) The central message of numerous plays was that the sinful pleasure of drinking surpasses working and everything else in the depraved life of executioners. In Le Martyre de S. Denis et de ses compaignons we find an episode where the friends of Christian martyrs profit from the executioners’ well-known weakness for wine. The hangmen have just received the order to throw the corpses of the martyrs (Saint Denis and his companions) into the river Seine. Then they meet Catulle, a Christian bourgeois woman, who invites them to eat and drink in her house. Catulle serves them so much food and especially wine that the executioners become intoxicated and fall asleep. In the meantime the friends of martyrs snatch the corpses and give them a proper burial.118 The anonymous writer of the Old Testament play (VI, De Hester or Story of Esther) linked the hangmen with the sin of gloutonnie in the presentation scene. The master hangman Gournay and his aide Micet are in the middle of feasting and drinking when Atach, officer of the provost Haman, comes to call them to work:

116 La Passion d’Auvergne, 233. Similarly, in a play about Saint Sebastian, the executioners suffer from a chronic thirst, they are ‘dying of thirst’, so that they must every now and then go to ease their pain in a tavern with some portions of wine. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 85, 245, 288. 117 La Passion d’Auvergne, 248. In the anonymous Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras) Christ’s executioners become thirsty in the middle of a beating session and decide that one of them should go to fetch some wine. The thirstiest of them volunteers by saying: ‘J’yray, j’ay soif des huy matin.’ Later, when everybody has drunk enough, the executioners decide to start a game: the one who gives the best blows will have a portion of wine as a prize: ‘Cellui qui mieulx le racquera, / Ung lot de vin il gaignera.’ Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 170. One also encounters thirsty executioners in La Passion de Biard in verse from 1470/1, which is based on a mystery text from the fourteenth century. Here the executioners yearn for wine after having crucified Christ. La Passion de Biard, 108. 118 Le Martyre de S. Denis et de ses compaignons, 148-53. See also La vie de Saint Denis. BN ms. fr. 2092, fols 63r, 65r.

285

CHAPTER 7

ATACH Que fais tu, Gournay? What are you doing, Gournay? GOURNAY Quoy? Grant chére Avecques mon varlet Micet. What? I’m feasting With my valet Micet. MICET Vien boire avec nous, s’il te plait, Et fais comme nous ton devoir.119 Come drink with us, if you please, And do, like us, your duty. Revelling and drinking is depicted humorously as the ‘duty’ of hangmen in this scene. The message of the writer is that a depraved hangman saw these pastimes as the benefits of his job, which offered a lot of free time and easy money.120 Later in the same play we find, moreover, the usual scene where hangmen hurry to a tavern after the job is done.121 Medieval spectators would not be left in any uncertainty about the favourite pastime of these two executioners, Gournay and Micet. All in all, examples of the hangman’s lust for wine are numerous in mystery plays. According to Nadine Henrard, this feature is also typical in Southern French plays and she writes that this expected scene probably made medieval spectators laugh.122 One may also think that several writers employed the executioner’s yearning for wine as a metaphor for a great sinner’s spiritual thirst, which could not be eased if he or she did not find the truth of God.123 At the same time, this motif was meant and understood as criticism of excessive drinking and the sin of gluttony in contemporary society. The hangman was linked with the vice of drinking not only in drama but also in other products of culture. Painters and illuminators had many means to hint at the hangman’s excessive drinking, such as swollen or worn facial features, a reddish skin colour and red eyes. Presumably, the unbalanced and complex postures typical of hangmen might also point towards this particular vice.124 Physical attributes familiar from religious art also appear in secular paintings. In Gerard 119 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 76. 120 This notion was, of course, not accurate. Besides his duties as an officer of criminal justice, the hangman was obliged to take care of numerous lowly jobs in many places. At the end of the medieval period he did not have as good an income as his colleagues in later times. These topics were discussed in section 3.1. 121 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 91. 122 Henrard 1998, 301, 390-1. 123 Inextinguishable thirst was, in addition, one of the torments of Hell. Mormando 1999, 124. 124 See sections 5.1 and 5.3.

286

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

David’s Jugdment of Cambyses, the hangman’s assistant depicted in the lower left corner has quite a reddish skin, he and his colleagues (not including the young apprentice) seem like men who have heavy drinking habits; their faces are worn.125 The hangman was linked with heavy drinking in chronicles, as well. It is not at all surprising that Jean Juvenal des Ursins, for example, emphatically mentions in his text that the notorious Capeluche was, at the moment of his arrest, drinking in a tavern near les Halles.126 Executioners that drank too much were a favourite topic in many popular stories. Some hangmen drank too much especially just before executions, to give them greater courage.127 In fact, in different corners of Europe, hangmen were known as drunkards during the late Middle Ages and the early modern period.128 To understand the link between the hangman and heavy drinking, it is important to examine more closely general attitudes towards this tendency in the Middle Ages. One will discover that this vice was, on the one hand, greatly blamed but on the other hand, quite widely practised amongst all classes, just as in our modern world. During the long medieval period, moralists and preachers never tired of fighting against excessive drinking in their writings and sermons and stressing its sinfulness and dangers.129 They could refer, for example, to Saint Augustine, who had severely criticised, in his Confessiones, the vice of drinking and praised, in comparison, his mother’s temperance. This pious woman’s soul was totally free from the lust for wine. The joy of a drunken man is false, Augustine had stressed. He said that one should have the same attitude towards food and drink as one has towards medicine. Food and drink should serve one’s health, not the sinful lust of pleasure.130 In medieval conduct books, moral treatises, and other texts it was regularly underlined that a decent person should always show moderation in drinking as well as in eating. Honoré Bovet emphasised in the Arbre de batailles that especially a prince should show temperance in his habits related to drink and food. Knights of ancient times offered an excellent example, Bovet thought, for they did not pursue the pleasures of the flesh, delits charnels, but lived a brisk outdoor life and ate very simple meat and drank water.131 Many writers reminded their readers that 125 David, Judgment of Cambyses: Skinning. 1498. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. 126 ‘… fut pris ledit Capeluche bourreau, qui beuvoit en la rappée ès halles, et incontinent on luy couppa la teste.’ Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, 545. 127 Spierenburg 1984, 14. 128 Sometimes this tendency was used to explain their repeated failures in executions as was the case with Bryngel Höck, the executioner in Suomenlinna, who, according to a popular legend, had to hit Olof Lustig, a convicted murderer, no less than seven times to complete the sentence. Palomäki 2001. 129 Montanari 1996, 122-3. As Montanari observes, this same Christian culture that appealed for moderate and controlled wine consumption had carried out an intense propaganda in favour of wine as both alimentary symbol and a ritual tool. 130 Augustinus, Confessiones, 99-100, 107, 194-6, 242-3. 131 L’arbre des batailles, 249-56. Jean de Joinville stressed in his book the moderate drinking habits of Saint Louis: ‘Son vin trompoit par mesure selonc ce qu’il veoit que le vin le pooit soufrir’. Once King asked why de Joinville did not put any water in his wine. De Joinville explained that it was his physicians’ advice. King replied that this advice was a bad one; it was better to get use to this healthy habit in time; drunkennes did not suit to elder men or honourable persons, ‘ce estoit trop laide chez de vaillant home de soy enyvrer’. Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, 10. In older times alcoholic beverages, especially wine, were held to have important therapeutic powers. It was also a common practice to correct water with wine; in fact, water was almost never consumed unadulterated as it was often not fit for drinking. The addition of alcohol served as a kind of antiseptic. Montanari 1996, 122.

287

CHAPTER 7

excessive drinking and a state of intoxication led to loss of judgement and so the drinker easily committed other sinful acts.132 At the beginning of the early modern period Erasmus wrote that drinking ruined a person’s health and physical appearance, as well as one’s reputation and good manners.133 Chronicle writers, who were usually very conscious of their didactic aims, often criticised and stigmatised heavy drinking by telling examples of the fatal consequences of a lust for wine. Philippe de Vigneulles knew many examples of people who had ruined their lives because of this vice. He tells how the lust for wine led a certain Jehan Ancillon, a sergeant-at-law in the town of Metz, to destroy his career and whole life. On one particular day of September 1495 Anchillon was impatiently waiting for the arrival of his wine order. When he learned that his delivery would be delayed, he completely lost his patience, became furious and started insulting his superiors. (‘Et alors ledit Jehan, aincy comme il estoit fornaiticque et furieulx, commensa à despiter les seigneurs de la cité et à dire plusieurs parolles desdits seigneurs, très mal dictes.’) Ancillon was punished by having his tongue cut off and he lost his office.134 He lived the rest of his life as a vagabond and died in miserable penury (‘Et fut depuis toutte sa vie ung homme waulcabondant par le pays; et mourut pouvre homme.’)135 Chroniclers knew that drinking not only tempted powerful and wealthy people but also quite ordinary folk, regardless of their age. This wretched inclination ruined a young man from Liège in 1510. After having got drunk the young man started to quarrel with his own mother and finally killed her in a fury: Environ la sainct Remey, ung josne filz de la cité de Lièges retournoit de boire en la taverne; et, luy venus à l’hostel, sa mère, à qui il en desplaisoit, le print à tencer et à demener. Et tellement alla leur prepos, de l’ung à l’aultre, que celluy josne filz se courrossa, et tirait ung cousteaulx, duquelle, comme ung homme plain de fureur et raige, il tuait la dicte sa mère. Near the feast of Saint Rémy, a young man from the town of Liège was returning from a drinking party in a tavern; and when he arrived at home, his mother, who was displeased, started to blame 132 Geoffrey Chaucer assures us in his work that gluttony and drinking often lead to lechery: ‘lecherye […] is annexed unto glotonye. / The hooly writ take I to my witnesse / That luxurie is in wyn and dronkenesse’. We are told that drinking makes a man not only lecherous but also physically repulsive and stupid: “A lecherous thyng is wyn, and dronkenesse / Is ful of stryvyng and of wrecchednesse. / O dronke man, disfigured is thy face, / Sour is thy breeth, foul artow to embrace, / And thrugh thy dronke nose semeth the soun / As though thoy seydest ay “Sampsoun, Sampsoun!” / And yet, God woot, Samsoun drank nevere no wyn. / Thou fallest as it were a styked swyn; / Thy tonge is lost, and al thyn honeste cure; / For dronkenesse is verray sepulture / Of mannes wit and his descrecioun. / In whom that drynke hath dominacioun / He kan no conseil kepe, it is no drede.’ Excessive drinking is a serious defect and great sin also because it ruins man’s memory: ‘somtyme a man foryeteth er the morwe what he dide at even, or on the nyght birforn.’ Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 349-51, 586. 133 Erasmus, De civilitate morum puerilium, [61-3]. 134 ‘... le samedi XVIIe jour d’octobre, il fut mené au pont des Mors, et là luy fuit par le bouriaulx la langue coppée par santence de justice; et fut son office de sergenterie escheutte aux seigneurs de la justice; car, alors, l’on lez vandoit bien chier.’ 135 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 353-4.

288

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

and to reproach him. And their quarrel became so severe, that this young man got angry and took a knife, and killed his mother with it, full of fury and rage. The crime was very serious so that the punishment had to be very harsh, too, the chronicler explains: the convict was stripped naked and tied to a grid and dragged to the place of execution. He was given the sentence of the wheel (roué), which was considered as the severest modes of execution.136 Vigneulles’ many examples show that in the late medieval thinking the lust for wine and heavy drinking were closely associated with aggressiveness, verbal and physical violence, which often led to fatal consequences.137 Whilst the warnings and criticisms of conduct books and chronicles reached mostly upper class audiences, the common people learned about the sinfulness and dangers of drinking through sermons and the visual arts. In pictures, the illiterate could see how gluttons were tortured in Hell in many terrible ways: they were forced to drink and eat contaminated drink and food.138 The repulsiveness of drinking was also stressed in mommeries.139 In Metz, in January 1511, the whole town could admire numerous mumming plays depicting biblical, historical and legendary scenes, for example, neuf preux (nine worthies)140 in sumptuous clothing. These mummeries travelled through the streets in wagons pulled by horses. All the wagons were very beautiful to see, the chronicler tells, all except one, which was entitled Le paradis des yvrognes, the ‘Paradise of drunkards’ and which was ugly (‘estoit lait’). Spectators laughed at it. In this wagon there were ‘seven or eight foul and unpleasant personages’ (VII ou VIII parsoinnaige qui estoient dedans mal acoustrés et malz plaisant) sitting around a table, eating and drinking ‘like starving dogs, in a very uncivilised manner’ (comme chiens enfamés et très deshonestement). These personages made a horrible and chaotic noise: ‘when eating they sang and shouted all together, one from high, the other from low, without rhymes and without any sense’ (en mengeant, il chantoient et hurloient tous ensemble, l’ung jault, l’aultre baix, sans rimes et sans raison).141 One may presume that all the spectators as well as readers of this description easily got the message of the villainy of drinking.

136 ‘La Justice, advertie du fait, firent mettre la mains à luy; puis fut loyés tout nudz sur une planche et traïnés par toutte la ville; et, ce fait, luy furent les deux jambe rompues, et puis fut frappés d’une tonne contre la cuer. Et ainssy morut.’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 85. Vigneulles also tells about a young man from Namur who was visiting Metz in 1513 and, after having drunk heavily, started to quarrel with his friend and struck him two or three times with a knife. As he did not realise that he had killed his companion, he went to sleep in his room in an inn and did not try to hide or escape. (‘Et avoit tant beu qu’il ne sçavoit qu’il faisoit; ne n’olt pas l’entendement de ce mettre à saulvetés aux Augustin.’) He was arrested next morning and soon sentenced to death. The chronicler observes that it was a great pity that such a fine young man died because of a stupid fight and drunkenness: ‘Dont c’estoit pitiet, luy qui estoit de grant lieu et richement mariez, et, avec ce, l’ung des biaulx josne homme, hault, droit, et eslevés, de ainssy meschantement morir pour sa paillairdie et yvroinerie.’ Ibid., 155-6. On other examples of how excessive drinking often led to fights and killings, see La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 357; IV, 164 137 On the role of drinking in homicide rates in late medieval France, see also Muchembled 1987, 42. 138 See, for example, the picture in Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [70]. 139 On mummeries, see for example Heers 1997, 58-60. 140 On nine worthies, see section 5.2. 141 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 105-9.

289

CHAPTER 7

Thus drinking was widely resisted in the later Middle Ages, even though it was quite extensively practised, too, by all levels of society. As Esther Cohen has observed, the level of the consumption of alcoholic drinks was high, not only during leisure time but also during the working day. Especially in winegrowing areas, such as the Paris region, workmen drank 1.5–2 litres of wine per day (wine being the main category of drink) in the fifteenth century.142 Feasts of the nobility, popular festivities, as well as important religious feasts often culminated in excessive eating and drinking.143 Clerics also drank a great deal, even if synods had prohibited drinking and the frequenting of taverns for ecclesiastics many times.144 The late medieval authorities were well aware that immoderate drinking often caused fights and brawls. The court registers actually show clearly that drinking parties in an inn often led to violent clashes.145 It is obvious that drinking was, at many times and in different places, used as a negative designation and as an instrument to stigmatise ‘others’, certain unpopular categories of society, or foreign nationalities.146 In late medieval France and Europe this propaganda was aimed not only at hangmen but also at such categories as criminals,147 messengers,148 jailers,149 gravediggers,150 peasants,151 mercenaries,152 Germans,153 and paradoxically, also at Saracens, those archenemies, whose religion actually prohibited drinking.154 Evidently, it is not possible or even necessary to examine in depth the foundation of these references to executioners’ heavy drinking. The representations and depictions of executioners as great wine lovers were in most cases connected with and motivated by various propaganda aims. All groups in society, high and low, could exploit this strategy when pursuing their aims. It seems, too, that this tactic was not only universal but long-lived, as well. Regardless of the drinking habits of actual hangmen, various ‘representers’ wanted to see and present these professionals as inclined to drink too much, just like many other reprobate categories. The figure of the drinking hangman served as a weapon of criticism that could be pointed towards excessive drinking in general and towards wine lovers in all classes of society. The message was that drinking was an extremely ugly, disgusting and sinful habit, not suitable for any virtuous and decent citizen.

142 Cohen 1996, 61. 143 Huizinga 2002, 244-5. Heers 1997, 98-9, 267. As Heers reminds us, medieval monasteries were important wine producers (and sellers, too). 144 Ibid., 40. 145 Muchembled 1987, 42; Cohen 1996, 64. 146 Turunen 1999, 23-35. 147 Bodel, Jeu de saint Nicolas. 148 Koopmans 1997, 104-9. 149 Desmaze 1866, 232. 150 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, IV, 357. 151 Verdon 2001, 45-6. 152 See Militaria (1522) and Militis et Cartvsiani (1523) in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 156, 318. 153 In the Sermon Joyeux de Tous les fous one can find a list of fools in different countries. Germans are fools because they drink too much (sont folz par force de boire). Koopmans 1988, 276. See also Diversoria (1523) in Erasmus, Colloqvia, 337. 154 Turunen 1999, 31.

290

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

Besides the sin of Gluttony, also greed for money, the sin of Avarice,155 was closely linked with the figure of the hangman in products of late medieval culture. This feature is central in the portrayal of hangmen in many mystery plays. Here, executioners are usually in need of money, precious coins they value so highly. Thus, acquiring money is depicted as one of their main concerns, just as Nadine Henrard has observed.156 In the execution scenes hangmen are always busy examining the convict’s clothing in order to find out its value. Clothes of high quality could be sold for a good price.157 In some plays, the unchecked lust for money leads an executioner into deceit. In an Old Testament play Micet, aide to the master hangman Gournay, tries to secretly snatch a convict’s habit in order to sell it and keep the money for himself. Eventually, Gournay finds out about this daring attempt and the two hangmen start quarrelling,158 a scene which was meant to be both amusing and edifying.159 Chroniclers, too, imagined or represented the lust for money as a feature of hangmen and, at the same time, directly condemned it as a lowly and disgusting trait. Philippe de Vigneulles describes in his work how the stingy executioner of Metz wanted to save on the wood for the stake (it was a hangman’s duty to provide materials for executions) in 1503, with very unfortunate consequences. The stake did not burn properly which caused great and unnecessary sufferings for the convict, a young mother who had been sentenced for murdering her own child. Vigneulles paints a scene for his readers with the stake burning so slowly that the convict’s feet burn down to the bone before the flames reach her arms and face; how the young woman twists in pain so that the ropes snap and her clothes are torn open and reveal her naked body.160 The chronicler tells that this sight shocked the spectators greatly and the authorities of Metz were very angry with the miserly executioner. The hangman kept his office but he was ordered to lose his salary.161 Of course, Vigneulles included this example in his text in order to underline the 155 Jean Gerson explained the meaning of this sin: ‘Avarice est trop penser es avoirs et es biens de ce monde.’ Avarice could manifest itself in many ways, for example, in playing different games and gambling: ‘jouer aux dés, aux tables ou aultres jeux pour gaing, car tel jeu et le gaing que on y fait sont reprouvés des sains, et viennent moult de maulx, et ne doit on pas détenir le gain que on y fait, mais le donner pour Dieu ou en faire par le conseil du bon confesseur.’ Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 303-4. 156 Henrard 1998, 390-1. In actual reality a hangman’s income was not good in the late Middle Ages, as is proved by the example of maistre Collinet, the official hangman of Metz. Collinet’s hand was cut off in 1483, because he could not pay the fine after having stabbed a man in a fight. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 104. The financial situation of professional executioners improved during the early modern period. Delarue 1979, 76. 157 In Jehan du Prier’s play, a disappointed executioner observes later that the convicts’ clothes were worthless, ‘ne vallent ung senglant estront’. Later, the master hangman and his aide quarrel about distributing the fee. Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 246, 542. See also Le mystère de saint Martin, 407, 409. The common practice was that the hangman could keep convicts’ clothes. One can also find a reference to this custom in Gréban’s text: the executioner Griffon notes that ‘c’est l’usage en toutes cites / que le bourreau a la despouille.’ Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 334. As noted before, there were no pockets in medieval habits. People carried their coins in a purse that could be fixed to the belt. The convict’s belt and its contents belonged to the jailer. 158 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 173-5. 159 See section 6.1. 160 ‘... souffrit biaulcopt, par la faulte et convoitise du bouriaulx, qui pansoit espergnier le boix: car la povre misérable olt les jambe et les piedz tout airs jusques aux os avent que le feu touchait en riens au visaige ny au bras. Par quoy, pour la détresse et soufferte qu’elle olt, se rompirent les corde; et se desjectait tellement que devant tout le peuple elle moustroit sa pouvreté.’ 161 ‘Dont les seigneurs juge furent merveilleusement courcé encontre le boureaulx; et en perdit ung mois sa prébande en l’Ospital.’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 26.

291

CHAPTER 7

virtue, severity and justness of his home town’s authorities. They carefully supervised every action of their servant, the official hangman, and punished him, if he did not carry out his duties properly. Avarice was the reason for the hangman’s lust for gambling in late medieval reasoning. Therefore, executioners were sometimes portrayed as gamblers, both in art and in drama. It was through these forums that the wider audience learned that the playing of certain games was vicious and no to be recommended. Spectators were also alerted to the fact that gaming often led to other sins, such as fights and brawls. In pictorial material one can find references to the hangman’s lust for gambling, particularly in crucifixion scenes, where anonymous soldier-executioners play dice in order to share their fee, Christ’s clothes.162 A fine example is Jean Fouquet’s miniature in a book of hours for Étienne Chevalier.163 Sometimes the gamblers are fighting as one can observe in Jan Provoost’s painting.164 This scene is also very typical in Italian and German art of the same period.165 We can find numerous references to the executioner’s lust for gambling in drama, both in works originating from Northern France as well as in Southern plays.166 In plays of Christ’s passion, we encounter the gambling scene depicted so often in the pictorial arts of this period: the executioners try to settle the dividing up of the fee, Christ’s robe, by throwing dice.167 In many mystery plays there is also an episode that makes clear the diabolical origin of the game of dice. After the crucifixion scene, one of executioners leaves Golgotha for town and meets Satan on his way there. The Devil teaches him a new game, dice, which the executioner teaches, in his turn, to his colleagues.168 At the same time, it was the fondness for gambling and playing in general that made executioners transform torture sessions into sadistic games in many plays.169 In drama, hangmen had much in common with criminals, who were also associated with a lust for gambling and tavern life. In an anonymous robber farce from the end of the fifteenth century, one of the two robbers in the main roles, Coquillon, asks of his companion, how they would spend their time if they had lots

162 The gospels mention that soldier-executioners parted Christ’s clothes by casting lots (mittentes sortem). See Mt 27.35; Mc 15.24; Jn 19.24. 163 Heures d’Étienne Chevalier: Jésus crucifié. 1452–1460. Musée Condé, Chantilly. See also Heures de Jean de Montauban. C. 1440. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 94r. The illuminator (probably a Breton who worked in a Parisian atelier) has also depicted dice amongst the instruments of the Passion in a marginal picture. See fol. 9r marg. 164 Provoost, Crucifixion. Early sixteenth century. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. See also the right hand panel in Memling (?). Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. C. 1515–1520. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. 165 One fine example is provided by Mantegna, Crucifixion. 1456–1459. Musée du Louvre, Paris; See also Mellinkoff I 1993, 131. 166 Henrard 1998, 301. See also DuBruck 1999, 365. According to DuBruck, this feature is also typical of late medieval German plays. 167 La passion d’Auvergne, 200-1; Le Mystère de la Passion Nostre Seigneur, 197-8. In La passion de Roman one of the executioners of Christ proposes to his colleagues: ‘Je vous diray que nous ferons: / Quatre daz aporter ferons, / Et celuy que mieulx giteray, / Certes la robe ganiera.’ La passion de Roman, 202. 168 Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 191-2; Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 335-6; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 412-4. 169 On torture scenes as parodies of games, see section 7.3.

292

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

of money. The other robber, with the telling name of Soudouvrer (or ‘Work shunner’) replies that they would spend it: A hanter les gens esbatans, Aux jeux de cartes, aux quilles, Aux jeux de dez, aux belles filles, A la taverne, jour et nuyt.170 At frequenting people in amusements, At playing cards, at playing pin, At playing dice, meeting beautiful girls, In a tavern, day and night. Being able to spend all his days in taverns gambling, drinking and courting prostitutes – this was the best pastime a robber could imagine. This same reply would have sounded equally well in the mouth of some hangman in mystery plays.171 Thus, avarice and gambling were viewed and depicted as essential features of the hangman in the late Middle Ages. In order to obtain a better understanding of the meaning of this feature for people of the past, one should examine the larger cultural context. Obviously, this particular trait served to mark hangmen as vicious and evil but at the same time, it was also employed to criticise all kinds of (compulsive) gamblers and the playing of games as a major pastime. It must be noted that in religious drama, this motif was, in addition, a metaphor for men on their way to perdition, wasting their lives in futile occupations, instead of doing works of charity and seeking the way to God. In everyday life, playing different kinds of games was a very popular pastime in all classes of society. Game playing attracted not only laymen but also clerics, even if this habit was forbidden for ecclesiastics by numerous synods.172 The sinfulness of gambling was one of the favourite topics of preachers and moralists.173 Chroniclers knew countless examples of the risks of gambling and the danger of this particular vice. A good example is, again, Philippe de Vigneulles, who was just quoted concerning the topic of the dangers of drinking. Vigneulles gives several 170 Farce des Maraux enchesnez, 328. In Jean Bodel’s Le Jeu de saint Nicolas from the thirteenth century we also find a tavern scene, where three robbers drink, play and quarrel. Bodel, Le Jeu de saint Nicolas, 30-69. 171 For example, in the Istorio de Sanct Ponz, the executioners dream about the joys of the tavern, wine and games, the company of harlots. Henrard 1998, 301. 172 Heers 1997, 40; Verdon 2001, 165. Oft-repeated prohibitions tell us about the popularity of playing games amongst ecclesiastics, too. Nicolas de Clamanges in his De novis celebritatibus non instituendis accused clerics of offering a bad example to the laity. Clamanges wrote that clergymen often passed nights playing dice and cursing. Huizinga 2002, 244. 173 In the Moriæ encomium (1509) Erasmus mocked the stupidity of gamblers. The lust for winning led them into bankruptcy and cheating. Erasmus notes that the game of dice often ended in quarrelling and fights. Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 80-2. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s text dice is described as a form of ‘the devel sacrifise’ and as the mother of fraud: ‘Hasard is verray mooder of lesynges, / And of deceite, and cursed forswerynges, / Blaspheme of Crist, manslaughtre, and wast also / Of catel and of tyme; and forhermo, / It is repreeve and contrarie of honour / For to be holde a commune hasardour. / And ever the hyer he is of estaat, / The moore is he yholden desolaat. / If that a prynce useth hasardrye, / In alle governaunce and policye / He is, as by commune opinioun, / Yholde the lasse in reputacioun.’ Chaucer, Cantebury Tales, 348, 351-2.

293

CHAPTER 7

examples about the risks of gambling in his work. The readers are told, for example, a story about a certain master Cottenet, a bow maker from Metz, and how this vicious pastime had pernicious consequences for him (1490): … le XVIIIe jour de décembre, ce trouvait en la taverne avec d’aultrez, à juer; et perdit son argent. Par quoy luy, furieulx et plain de raige, en renyent et maulgriant, print ung espieu, et avec celluy s’en vint contre ung ymaige qui estoit painte et pourtraitte en ung pappier à la parroy; et, avec celluy espieu, en despitant et blaffément Dieu et ses Saincts, fraippait tout permy la dite ymaige. Duquel cas Justice fut advertie. Par quoy il fut tantost prins, mis on pillory et trainés à Pont des Mors; et là olt la teste couppée.174 … on the eighteenth day of December, he was in a tavern playing with others; and he lost his money. For this reason he got infuriated and full of rage, and started to curse and blaspheme, took a weapon, and attacked with it an image that was painted and portrayed on paper near the church; and, with this weapon, insulting and blaspheming God and his saints, he hit the middle of the said picture. The court was told about this incident and he was soon captured, put on the pillory and dragged to the Pont des Mors; and there his head was chopped off. The example of master Cottenet showed, how gambling easily led an individual to other sins, cursing and blaspheming and finally to a deserved punishment. The same message is also included in another case reported by Vigneulles. The chronicler writes about a poor peddler of tin pots called Blan Trains. He had a habit of playing cards in a tavern called the Oste c’il Dure. In October 1512, he started to quarrel with his gaming partner. In a state of anger Blan Trains swore first by the name of God and then by the name of Devil that he would never again play with his companion.175 Nevertheless, Blan Trains soon started to play again with his friend. At first he played better than ever before and was winning all the time. Then, he suddenly collapsed on the ground and started to twist and make grimaces and shout loudly: ‘Ha! le diable m’enporte! le diable m’enporte’ (Ha! The Devil takes me! The Devil takes me!). After this attack Blan Trains was never able to speak properly.176 174 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 205. 175 ‘qu’il ce donnoit au dyable, et que diable luy turdist le col se jamaix plus avec luy juoit’ 176 La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 136-7. Vigneulles gives other examples of the dangers of the lust of gambling. In 1438, Jaicomin Coppechausse, sergeant of Metz, was executed by drowning. He had endangered the safety of the town (he had been ordered to watch the gate of Serpentoise) because his lust for playing dice (and drinking), and had lost a valuable silver dish he had borrowed from someone else. Vigneulles observes about the destiny of Coppechausse: ‘Et, par ce, apert que de bonne vie bonne fin.’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, II, 225. Sometimes the sinful habits of some people could harm the whole community. Vigneulles tells us that in 1441 the inhabitants of Metz had been collectively punished in the form of heavy rains and storms that ruined the vintage. Vigneulles believes that this was a deserved divine punishment because many persons had neglected the annual procession of Saint Stephen and had preferred to go to the tavern to play dice and swear: ‘Le premier jour des Rogacions, furent les vignes du Vault de Mets touttes tempestées et fouldroiées [...] Et fut dit que c’estoit pugnission de Dieu; car, ledit jour, quant les grant croix de Saint Estienne de Mets passoient par ce lieu, comme elle ont de coustume de tous les ans passer à tel jours, plusieurs d’icelle villes et

294

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

These two examples served to warn Vigneulles’ readers not only about gambling but also about the sin of cursing and blasphemy, a topic discussed in section 6.1. Playing games (particularly cards and dice) was not only a pastime often condemned by the Church and moralists but also by the secular authorities, who tried to restrict it by means of prohibitions and ordinances.177 Louis IX had added in 1254 dice to the list of prohibited games.178 In a royal statute given in Paris in 1256 it is ordered (in the tenth article) that: Item que la forge des dez soit deffenduë et devée par tout nostre Royaume, et tout homme qui sera trouvé joüant aux dez communement, ou par commune renommée, frequentant taverne, ou bordel, soit reputé pour infame, et debouté de tout temoignage de verité. Item that making of dice is forbidden and prohibited everywhere in our kingdom, and that every person who is found playing dice in public, or is known to visit taverns or brothels, will be declared infamous and prevented from giving testimony in a court of law. The prohibition concerning dice playing was renewed many times during the late Middle Ages. At the end of the fourteenth century Jacques d’Ableiges included in Le grand coutumier de France a royal ordinance from the year 1369: ‘avons deffendu et deffendons par ces présentes tous les jeus de dés, de tables, de paulme, de quilles, de pallet, de boulles, de billes et de tous aultres tells jeux […] sur peine de quarante sols parisis’.179 (we have prohibited and prohibit hereby all playing of dice, of table, of rocket, of pin, of bat, of shot, of balls and of all such games […] on the penalty of forty sous). The authorities had wanted to forbid not only the playing of dice but all kinds of games in the kingdom of France. However, after these examples, it must be stressed that not all games were condemned at all times in the Middle Ages. Chess, for example, was a muchappreciated game during the latter part of the medieval period.180 Saint Louis who detested the chess (and all games) was, in fact, an isolated case among kings and princes.181 Naturally, games of hazard (especially on Sundays) were the most disapproved and blamed category. For the Church, all the games of hazard were diabolic, especially dice. Dice was the most popular game and it was played every-

177 178 179 180

181

d’aultres estoient alors en la taverne, cheu ung nommés Auburtin Petit, juant au delz et malgréant Dieu et ces sainct [...] Parquoy ledit Auburtin en fut mis en la maison de la ville; et, avec ce, fut jugiez à cent florin d’amande.’ Ibid., 267. Ordonnances des roys de France, I, 74, 79. See also Ménagier de Paris, I, 46. Accusations of playing games are common in legal registers. The usual penalty was only a fine. Geremek 1987, 282-3. Ordonnances des roys de France, I, 65. Le grand coutumier de France, 173. Ecclesiastical condemnations and prohibitions concerning chess were numerous (but inefficacious) during the eleventh and the twelfth century but became less usual, later. In a general way, the thirteenth century witnessed a revaluation of games; from now on numerous games belonged to a courteous and knightly education. See Pastoureau 2004, 269-91. Numerous monarchs were passionate chess players, for example, Frederick II (d. 1250) and Alfonso X the Wise (d. 1284). Ibid., 275.

295

CHAPTER 7

where. Many lost all their possessions: money, clothes, horses, or house. It was a dangerous game; tricks were frequent and accordingly, the fights that sometimes provoked private wars.182 As Bronislaw Geremek has observed, the continuous repetition of prohibitions concerning the playing of dice and other games tells us about their inefficacy and about the importance of games in the everyday life of late medieval people. Playing games was the main pastime for ordinary people, especially in towns. Playing games was a way to be glad and have fun. Geremek notes that prohibitions directed to dice and other games were originally based on notions about public morals and on the Church’s commands but towards the end of the Middle Ages also on social motives. The authorities thought that playing meant neglecting work and slipping on to the path of crime. In an ordinance from the provost of Paris from 1397, this view is expressed clearly: artisans and ordinary people went to taverns to play games instead of working diligently. After having lost all their money in a game (or after having drunk it), many of them lapsed into theft, murder and all sorts of crimes. The document in question was based on the confessions of criminals who had admitted that playing games had led them to crime.183 Bronislaw Geremek considers games a basic element of criminal life in late medieval Paris. Gambling was not only a way to earn money but also a way to spend the booty as well as to have fun, a pastime. Gambling was a lifestyle for marginal groups, for those individuals who were not properly integrated into the structures of social and family life. Having more free time than other people was a typical trait of their existence.184 This feature associated, evidently, the hangman with the criminal elements of society in the late medieval thinking.185 At this point it can be concluded that it is not surprising that drinking and gambling were linked with the figure of the hangman in products of late medieval culture. These pastimes or vices defined and marked the executioner as a low and evil figure but at the same time the link served to hint at and suggest that these sinful activities were quite unsuitable for any decent person, who should instead be interested in pious works and the salvation of his or her soul. However, other types of vices could also be depicted as the hangman’s characteristics or inclinations. As shown in earlier chapters, artists frequently included in the hangman’s portrayals such signs that referred to a bad moral character and depravity in general: habit related signs, skin defects, pimples and boils, wrinkles, missing teeth, for example, could have numerous negative connotations and were employed to transmit warnings and unfavourable messages to larger audiences, in religious and secular contexts.186 Play writers, too, were inclined to associate hangmen with all kinds of vices and sins and thus represent them as the epitomes of sin – and as the opposite of 182 Ibid., 274. 183 Quotation from Delamare’s Traité de la police (tome I, p. 488) in Geremek 1987, 282-3. 184 Geremek notes that the upper classes liked games, too, even if they were rarely called to a court of law because of this hobby. As to the lower classes, the playing of games was not only considered an offence as such but also as a possible hint of belonging to criminal circles. Ibid., 282, 285-6. 185 On the other hand, in some places it was the official hangman’s duty to supervise gambling and gamblers. 186 See chapters 4 and 5.

296

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

Christ and the saints, who were seen as paragons of virtue. In mystery plays we can observe links with numerous sorts of mortal sins and vices in the hangman’s depictions. If we consider, for example, Pride, orgueil, the cardinal sin that ruined Lucifer at the beginning of time, we soon notice that this is actually quite a common fault applied to hangmen in religious drama. The hangman’s pride often manifests itself in the form of self-esteem and vanity,187 features that referred at the same time to a lack of judgement and pure stupidity. The hangmen of mystery plays typically have a very high opinion of their professional skills and merits. In many plays we can find a scene where an executioner boasts about his competence and his credits.188 Late medieval chroniclers could also stress, for purposes of propaganda or other reasons, the bad qualities of some hangmen, for example, an arrogant selfesteem. Jean Juvenal des Ursins portrayed the notorious Capeluche as a proud man and underlined his self-assurance and conceit, which were quite out of place considering his social position. Juvenal des Ursins writes that Capeluche behaved like some great lord, as if he were equal to the Duke of Burgundy.189 Capeluche even touched the Duke’s hand (when shaking hands with him the Duke did not yet know who Capeluche really was), which was considered to be shocking and unpardonable insolence from a person in the position of public executioner. The chronicler says that many people thought that this outrageous gesture was actually the most important reason for the death sentence Capeluche was given some time later.190 Some others claimed that he even had the audacity and insolence to call the Duke as his ‘stepbrother’.191 Typical elements in the depictions of the hangman’s viciousness in mystery plays are also envy, lust and sloth. The mortal sin of Envy192 made the executioner’s aide plot behind the back of his master in order to have his post and its many advantages, as happens, for example, in the Old Testament play.193 The sin of Lust made executioners admire and dream about expensive and fashionable or extravagant clothes and search out the company of disreputable women,194 for one evident and sinful purpose. In Christian thinking, the sin of Lust might manifest itself in many forms, for example, in the superfluity or neglect of clothing195 and not just in the form of 187 Jean Gerson explains in Le doctrinal aux simples gens various forms of the sin of Pride: ‘Orguil est cuider mieux valoir que les autres; soy orguillir pour richesse, pour lignage ou pour beaulté ou pour sens […] soy venter…’ Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 302-3. To Saint Augustine pride was the ‘perverted imitation of God’, for pride hated the idea of the equality of all men before God. Augustinus, City of God, 868-9. 188 See section 6.4. 189 ‘Et plusieurs fois venoit ledit Capeluche parler au duc de Bourgongne, accompagné de meschantes gens, aussi hardiment que si c’eust esté un seigneur’. 190 Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, 545. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that a hangman’s touch was considered polluting and so no-one wanted to shake hands with him. 191 Jean Chartier, for example, wrote that Capeluche ‘fut capitaine pour aucuns jours ou cartier des Halles et fut en si grant autorité avec un autre satellite nomme Caboche, qu’il appeloit le duc de Bourgogne […] son beaufrère’. Quoted in Geremek 1987, 297. 192 On the sin of envy, see for example Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 303. 193 Le mistére du Viel Testament, 76-177. See also Prier, Le mystère du roy Advenir, 542. 194 Henrard 1998, 301. 195 In Le compost et Kalendrier des biergiers we can learn that the sin of lust could manifest itself, for example, in the form of ‘Superfluite en vestements: En ioyaux, signetz, aneaux ou affiquetz; en preciosite de robes, sentures et autres abillemens; en la composicion ou facon nouvelle ou exquise.’ Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [62].

297

CHAPTER 7

fornication.196 The hangman was also connected with these particular vices in visual material, as shown earlier.197 The link between the hangman and Lust was also expressed and exploited in the popular proverb ‘Gaudy as the hangman’, analysed in section 4.3. In Christian thinking of the later Middle Ages the sin of Sloth referred to a lack of good works, both on a spiritual and a concrete level. Sloth made men neglect their devotional exercises, waste their time in futile occupations and idleness, do their job carelessly198 and not prevent other people from sinning.199 The hangman’s inclination to the sin of Sloth is made manifest in many ways in religious drama. Writers of mystery plays sometimes portrayed executioners as individuals with an easy job – not much work to do and easy tasks –200 that he often performed improperly. The hangman was only interested in sitting in a tavern drinking and gambling.201 It is not worthwhile to speculate about the foundation of these various unfavourable framings, especially in the case of such categories as pride and envy. Presumably, the references relating to the hangman’s lust, and particularly his interest in disreputable women, were found particularly well-suited because of the common practice of obliging the official executioner to supervise prostitutes and sometimes also to live in the same street with these women in medieval towns. Everybody knew that in reality, hangmen had difficulties to find spouses. In folksongs (French, German and Bohemian) a female death convict chose death rather than life as a hangman’s wife.202 When it comes to the motif of sloth – laziness and idleness – this prejudice was undoubtedly nourished by the fact that the hangman’s work was quite irregular compared to other occupations. At that time, idleness was a suspicious, much disliked feature in the lower classes.203 The authorities often classified all idle persons as

196 An important form of the sin of lust was expressly ‘Fornication avec toutes femmes non mariees ou vefues; avec fille qui encor estoit pucelle; avec celles communes ou corrompues.’ Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [61]. A pious Christian tried to suppress his sexual lust. Jacques Le Goff has reminded us that abstinence was understood as evidence of the highest prowess in warrior society. The learned believed that especially peasants, the poor and ignorant were over-sexed and enslaved by their flesh. It should be noted, too, that numerous persons thought that sexual lust originated from excessive eating and drinking. Le Goff 1988b, 98, 101. To Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages sexuality came into the world with the Fall of Man. Early Christian theorists tried to define the wrong, bestial kind of sexuality and the kind of sexuality suitable for men: the ideal was a coitus totally without passion. Lustful individuals were identified with animals, irrational creatures, which were thought to be much more lascivious than men were in general. Salisbury 1994, 77-9, 83-4. 197 See sections 4.3-4 and 5.1. 198 ‘Item non faire loialement sa journée quant on œuvre pour aultruy’. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 305-6. 199 ‘non retraire aultruy de péché ou de mal faire’. Ibid., 305-6. On the sin of Sloth, see also Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [52]. 200 ‘Je suis Micet qui point ne se travaille’, sings the hangman’s aide cheerfully in Le Mistére du Viel Testament, VI, 176. 201 One may guess that in actual life lesser people were sometimes quite vexed, because they thought that hangmen got a nice fee from a job which did not demand a lot of effort and because they had also many small privileges such as havage. 202 See section 3.1 and Spierenburg 1984, 19-20. 203 However, hard working was not as prized and appreciated in the Middle Ages as it was in later times, in the protestant and catholic (Jansenist) ethic.

298

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

dregs, criminal elements.204 It is not surprising that many people found it evident that many hangmen used their abundant free time in vicious occupations, mainly drinking and gambling, and that the place where he usually practised these vices was the tavern, of all places. Mystery plays reflected some popular beliefs and stereotypical notions about professional hangmen. At this point I must say some words about this ‘temple of the Devil’,205 the tavern, which was considered to be the most sinister fortress of vice and sin in the late Middle Ages.206 In proverbs this depraved place was closely connected with drinking (‘Pour neant est en taverne qui ne boit’207 – ‘Who does not drink is in a tavern in vain.’), whilst moralists and conservatives tirelessly reminded people about the dangers of tavern life. For preachers and moralists, the tavern was the antichurch (nef de la contre-Église), a cursed place that led men to sin and perdition. A Christian could hope to escape temptation and sin only by avoiding such dangerous places as inns and brothels, as well as too boisterous secular feasts, which gave a rhythm to collective life at that time.208 In the larger towns of the later Middle Ages the number of taverns was important. In Paris, for example, there were over 4 000 inns and every day they sold 700 barrels of wine. Parisian taverns were situated in the proximity of the city gates and in those areas frequented by the masses: the place of Grève, les Halles, rue Saint-Martin, rue Saint-Denis, rue de la Juiverie, rue Saint-Jacques, etc.209 François Villon mentions several Parisian taverns by name in his work: Gros Figuier, Pomme de Pin, Heaume, Cheval Blanc, Mule, Grand Godet, Barillet, Perrette.210 In Flanders (Ypres) the authorities tried to restrict the number of public houses so that there would be only one tavern for every eight households. Jean Verdon has remarked that especially in the countryside, the attraction of the tavern is quite understandable: Sundays were boring, because working was prohibited, neighbours were far away and the means of communication were restricted. In an inn one could meet people, drink some wine and be merry.211 People went to taverns not only to meet friends or drink,212 but also to play games, often late in the evening, regardless of all prohibitions. Inns were presumed 204 During the late medieval period the refusal to work (idleness, vagrancy) was defined as a crime. The penalty was usually forced labour or banishment. Geremek 1974, 347; Leguay 1984b, 177-8. See also Le grand coutumier de France, 651. ‘Si gens sont oiseux ou taverniers, la justice les doit prendre, et getter hors de la cité, car à la justice appartient de punir et nettoyer les cités de telles gens’. The poet Eustache Deschamps, who occupied the office of bailiff of Valois at the end of the fourteenth century, also had a very negative view of idlers: he recommended that the authorities should see that these were hanged together with other dregs and criminals. Deschamps, Œuvres complètes, 245. 205 ‘develes temple’. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 348. 206 In Le Roman de Renard contrefait tavern the was described as a haven of vices and outcasts: ‘c’est hostel de gloutonie, / Plain de trestoute ribaudie / Recept de larrons et houlliers, / De bourges, de faulx monnoiers’. Le Roman de Renard contrefait, II, 46. 207 Proverbes français antérieurs au XVe siècle, 61. 208 For criminals, homeless persons and vagrants, the inn provided a refuge: not lodgings but a place where they could spend time with their own kind of people. Geremek 1974, 344; Geremek 1987, 278. 209 Cohen 1996, 64. 210 Villon, Poésies complètes, passim. 211 Verdon 2001, 165. On taverns in the Southern French towns at the beginning of the fourteenth century, see Le Roy Ladurie 1982, passim. 212 People did not go to an inn to eat: there one could usually get only salted herrings, harengs salés, which provoked thirst. Cohen 1996, 64.

299

CHAPTER 7

to close their doors after couvre-feu, or curfew. As Pierre Champion has observed, one often comes across mention of nocturnal drinking parties and games interrupted by the night watch, le guet.213 It seems that the public authorities had very good reason to look askance at taverns; these were very often the scenes of violent quarrels and brawls. In fifteenth-century Artois, for example, the most usual scene for homicides was the public house. According to Robert Muchembled, 46 per cent of homicides (Muchembled has examined 3 198 cases) occurred in a tavern. Streets, roads and homes were far less usual scenes for fights and killings.214 In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the depictions relating to the hangman’s bad habits and wide-ranging viciousness, it should be observed that this figure furnished the late medieval artists and writers with a sort of living tree of vices,215 an effective teaching aid. In art and literature hangman was often depicted as the perfect incarnation of bad behaviour, mortal sins and vices, in the same way as the saints, kings and knights were frequently portrayed as perfect models, incarnations of virtue and exemplary behaviour. Some writers made these tactics or devices explicit in their text. Arnoul Gréban, for example, writes that his play (Le Mystère de la Passion) is a ‘pious mirror’, devost miroir. His personages are to be seen as good and bad examples, models and anti-models. If spectators watch carefully, they may discover themselves in the characters of his play.216 Moreover, in religious drama, the hangman frequently functioned not only as an anti-example but also as an allegory of mankind’s depravity, as explained earlier. Chroniclers and artists were also very conscious about didactical aims and could serve the hangman’s figure in the same purpose. One should never underestimate the central role of vices and virtue, bad and good behaviour and self-control in the thinking of late medieval people. Their life was permeated by religion in its every aspect and people’s preoccupations revolved around the question of the soul’s salvation. To be able to act in the right way every believer – great as well as small – should memorise the central ideas and teachings of Christian religion and the difference between bad and good thoughts and actions.217 213 See for example AN X2a 17, 2 mars 1416. 214 Muchembled 1987, 42. In late medieval Paris, too, taverns were the usual scenes for violent fights. Cohen 1996, 64. 215 In the later Middle Ages, vices and virtues as well as other phenomena and ideas were often depicted in the form of a tree to help memorise them. In Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers we can find two depictions of the tree of vices. The anonymous writer explains that this tree is ‘miroer des pecheurs a veoir & congnoistre leurs pesches […] fait & compose a fin que simples gens comme bergiers et autres y congnoissent leurs vices et peches pour mieulx les savoir par confession mectre hors de leurs consciences’. The top of the tree of vices is formed of the sins of the flesh, the root is pride, orgueil. We are told that each main branch represented one mortal sin, which gave birth to other sins: ‘Chacun peché mortel est divisé par plusieurs branches lesquelles divisees par rainceaux ou petites branchetes toutes sont pechés qui naissent et viennent les ungs des autres.’ Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [39-62, 95]. Geoffrey Chaucer also employed the tree metaphor in the Canterbury Tales (in The Parson’s Tale) and provides us with a detailed description of many manifestations of mortal sins and also of remedies for them. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 553-97. 216 Gréban uses a mirror analogy in a prologue of tierce journee in Le Mystère de la Passion. ‘Mirez vous, si serez bien sages; / chacun sa forme y entrevoit; / qui bien se mire, bien se voit.’ Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 261. 217 At the end of the Middle Ages, the learned were also familiar with Aristotle’s writings about virtue and vice. In The Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle stressed the importance of teaching and learning in the development of the virtue, and the importance of temperance (for the vice was either excess or lack of restraint in an individual’s

300

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

Theologians, preachers and moralists exhorted believers to constant selfexamination218 and self-control in order to avoid sin.219 Concrete examples were needed not only about ideal but also – and especially – about wrongful behaviour. It is obvious that the hangman’s figure offered a very handy instrument for this purpose of concretisation.220 As shown above, there was not a single sin or vice that could not be exemplified through the executioner’s character in art and religious drama.221 The framing of ideal and bad behaviour and the demand for self-examination and self-control was also connected with concerns other than eschatological ones. At the same time late medieval persons tried to distance themselves from the animal world, to mark the boundaries between human, civilised behaviour and the instinctual, lustful and impulsive behaviour considered characteristic of animals as well as many pagans, barbarians, and various uncivilised races. Within the society of Christians, these dividing lines were drawn between civilised (virtuous and courteous) society and the common people. ‘Ordinary’ folk were claimed to be much more inclined towards improper behaviour and excess than the ecclesiastical and secular upper classes. Above, I have suggested that the hangman’s figure was exploited as an instrument in efforts to concretise and crystallise teaching about improper and uncivilised behaviour, vices and sins, in various literary and visual products of late medieval culture. Like many other figures (demon, infidel, wildman, etc.), the executioner could be used as an example of those wrong forms of behaviour that led men to perdition and lowered them to near-animal status. In religious drama special em-

218

219

220

221

actions. Excess pointed to bestiality). Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics, 33-47, 72-3. For the artistic depiction of personified virtues and vices see, for example, miniatures in Aristotle’s Le Livre d’Ethiques (1441) translated by Nicholas Oresme (1325–1382). Oresme was bishop of Lisieux and one of the first translators of philosphical texts into French. BN ms. fr. 541, fols 23v, 38r, 64r, 108r, 122r. Jean Delumeau, who has examined the formation of the guilt mentality during the late medieval period, has observed that past people’s constant self-examination was a fear of the ‘self’, which was fundamentally the fear of Satan. The Church’s battle against Satan was not only directed at his supporters (sorcerers, heretics, infidels, etc.) but eventually at all Christians, because everyone could be recruited as a demonic agent if not careful. Delumeau 1978, 23. Jean Gerson has collected central advices and warnings in the A.B.C des simples gens, a book intended to help in the edification of common people. Here one finds the seven deadly sins (‘Les sept peschés mortels. – Orgueilh, envie, paresse, ire, auvarice, gloutonnie, luxure’) and virtues which can serve as a remedy for these (‘Les vertus contraires. – Humilité, aymer son prouchain, diligence, pacience, largesse, abstinence, chasteté’). All believers should know La Patenostre, L’ave Maria and Le Credo as well as the ten commandments of Moses’ law. A Christian should keep the seven cardinal virtues (‘foy, esperance, charité, prudence, attrempance, force, justice’) as his or her ideal. At the end of his A.B.C. guide, Gerson invites believers to stay on the narrow path by first describing the sweetness of the joys of Paradise and lastly the horrors of Hell: unbearable stench and darkness, endless tortures, awful noises and gnashing of teeth. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, VII, 154-7. As to the positive models, Charles Mazouer has stressed the role of the saints beside Christ: ‘Plus encore que le Christ, saints et saintes sont proches du peuple chrétien, à qui ils fournissent des modèles plus accesssibles.’ Mazouer 1998, 224. Jean Gerson writes, however, that the best model is Christ. He stresses that believers should always pursue virtues but especially in moments of misfortune. Believers should follow the example of the apostles and martyrs who suffered all their trials patiently and humbly, blessing their enemies and praising God. Then Gerson adds that Christ himself is an ‘exemple qui mieulx vault et plus nous doit esmouvoir’. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, IX, 297-8. On models and anti-models for sinners in passion plays, see also Bordier 1998, 257-364. In secular literature the best model for virtue and ideal behaviour was naturally the king. See for example L’arbre des batailles, 253-6. On knightly virtues in the Middle Ages, see also Taylor 1966, 537-73. The hangman truly was ‘l’âme damnée du mystère’, or the cursed soul of the mystery play, as Gustave Cohen has put it. Cohen 1951, 149.

301

CHAPTER 7

phasis was laid on the vices of drinking and gambling, those sins that were thought to attract and tempt all kinds of people, noblemen and women, bourgeois, monks but more particularly ordinary folk, peasants, servants, artisans and manual workers. Many of these negative features were associated with the hangman in the popular imagination during the late Middle Ages. They actually proved to be amazingly long-lived. It seems that it was virtually impossible for the professional hangmen of later periods to throw off their bad reputation as drunkards and great sinners.222 Even if many official executioners of the modern period led a very pious life, were literate and quite wealthy,223 their bad reputation as vicious men persisted once it had fossilised as a central feature in the collective imagery. 7.3 Defective Reason The mocking and scorning of defective reason, slow-wittedness or insanity, was common in France and the Burgundian territories in the later Middle Ages, as has been usual in Western Europe.224 Medieval writers and speakers often used the terms fol (fool) and folie to refer to many categories of imperfect wit,225 not only to the mentally ill and insane but also to idiocy and stupidity, to official fools (le fou de cour), to retarded persons and to all sorts of individuals that behaved stupidly.226 Late medieval people had many targets for their ridicule: Brabantians,227 common folk, women228 and all kinds of marginal people such as beggars and vagabonds229 were mocked as idiots. The idea of lack of wit was also linked closely with the figure of the hangman in various products of culture. This link has sometimes been noticed by scholars but it has been usually considered as a peculiarity and not discussed in detail. Christiane Raynaud, for example, has remarked briefly: ‘In the fifteenth century, more than the originality of the executioner, the striking thing is the number of 222 Thus, professional executioners were colleagues of fate with mendicant brothers, for example. 223 See Delarue 1979, 48, 64, 96; Spierenburg 1984, 40. 224 As Christie Davies has observed, in their everyday lives people continuously try to perceive and make out the difference between the rational and irrational. Defining other people as stupid or mad is an instrument for ridiculing and warning about the dangers of mental chaos. This strategy has always served to strengthen the ‘representer’s’ conceptions about his or her own intellect, position and value system. Davies 1988, 3. 225 Other usual terms were sot (for a stupid person) and enraigie. Nicolas de Baye has referred to the insanity of Charles VI by the expression ‘alienation of understanding’: ‘Cedit jour, le Roy estant malade en son hostel de Saint Pol à Paris de la maladie de l’alienation de son entendement, laquelle a duré dès l’an mil CCC IIIIxx et XIII, hors aucuns intervalles de resipiscence…’ Journal de Nicolas de Baye, I, 137. 226 Greimas 1989, 291; Martin 1996, 431; Verdon 2001, 97. On English terminology relating to folly, see Harper 2003, 11. As Johan Huizinga has observed, Erasmus, for example, did not make a clear distinction between the stupid and the insane in his writings. Huizinga 1953, 99. 227 The stupidity of Brabantians was proverbial in the later Middle Ages. Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 26. The fools in different towns and countries were listed, for example, in the Sermon Joyeux de Tous les fous. Koopmans 1988, 276-8. 228 Irrationality was linked, in theological and scientific thinking as well as in popular tradition, with the female sex, whilst rationality was connected with men. Bynum 1989, 175. However, as Régine Pernoud has stressed, the historian must not over-estimate the misogyny of the Middle Ages. In courteous society, many women held an important position. Even in the religious world women (for example, certain abesses) could have much influence. One must also bear in mind the cult of the Virgin Mary and the amazing career of Joan of Arc. In medieval towns women could carry out the most varied professions. It was only at the end of the sixteenth century that women were explicitly excluded form all functions of state in France. Pernoud 1997, 84-98. 229 Verdon 2001, 177, 203-12, 220.

302

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

traits that he borrows from the representation of folie. Through him violence is condemned as madness and insanity. The time is not far from Erasmus’ Praise of Folly.’230 I fully agree with Raynaud’s suggestion about the essential purpose of this particular motif in illuminated historical texts and chronicles: the condemnation of violence. At the same time, I feel that it is crucial to analyse more deeply this particular aspect of the hangman’s representations: how the motif of mental deviancy was exploited in depictions concerning the executioner and what was the logic of this choice. I examine these links in the larger contexts of late medieval culture. I shall try to determine what factors made these references particularly suitable for negative labelling; how discrediting the idea of defective wit was in a past culture; and finally, what aims this association could possibly serve.231 As explained in previous chapters, in medieval pictorial sources attributes with connotations of imperfect reason were typical of hangmen and could appear in their clothing as well as in their physical being. I refer here to such characteristic features of the hangman’s habit as missing pieces of some garment and disordered clothing, or certain colour combinations. Balding heads, grotesque facial expressions, obscene gestures and unbalanced bodily postures carried also this connotation and associated the hangman with simpletons and insane. Religious iconography spoke, essentially, about the heroism of Christ and his martyrs, how they had survived as victors the attacks of the forces chaos and evil. Through the executioners’ figures the brutal violence imposed on these innocent victims was powerfully condemned as unjust, pure madness. The message was evident to late medieval spectators. In secular contexts (miniatures in chronicles and historical texts) the bad justice of ‘others’, infidels or enemies, was ridiculed and condemned by accumulating signs of folly in the figure of the executioner. Moreover, the same weapon of criticism could also be turned towards the legitimate authority, towards sentences passed by the King of France that were considered too harsh. Alternatively, some hideous crimes and serious transgressions of law could be labelled as folly, by using the same signs and techniques.232 A hangman could also carry the signs of folly (for example, yellow and green dress) in paintings that decorated the courtrooms of city halls in Flemish towns, thereby serving as an instru230 ‘Au XVe siècle, plus que l’originalité du maître des hautes œuvres, ce qui frappe c’est le nombre de traits qu’il emprunte à la représentation de la folie. A travers lui, la violence est condamnée comme folie et déraison. Le temps n’est pas loin de l’Eloge de la folie d’Erasme.’ Raynaud 1990, 155. See also Mellinkoff I 1993; Koopmans 1997. 231 In my examination of this particular topic, I have found especially useful Jacques Heers’ (1997, orig. 1983) and Joyce E. Salisbury’s (1994) studies that deal with the themes of insanity and bestiality in late medieval culture. The volume of studies on the subject of the fool – ancient, medieval, and later – is enormous, as observed by Ruth Mellinkoff even in 1993. Mellinkoff I 1993, 243. A more recent study concerning these themes is Stephen Harper’s Insanity, Individuals, and Society in Late-Medieval English Literature (2003). The famous classic by Mihail Bahtin on medieval and early modern laughter can also be useful for any one interested in this topic. Bahtin (orig. 1965) 2002. 232 Scholars have remarked that in margins of legal manuscripts (for example, French and Italian), one can find a lot of figures of folly. Some have observed that many such pictures do not seem to have any relation with the text, thereby creating a strange contrast. Robert Jacob suggests that these figures signalled that breaking the law was foolish and that no form of folly could escape the law (‘la sortie du droit ne servait que folie et aucune forme même de folie ne pourrait échapper au droit.’). Jakob 2002, 225 For the pictures in margins, see also Schmitt 2002, 229-361.

303

CHAPTER 7

ment in the public authorities’ efforts to transmit messages about their values and views. These paintings defined the ideal by depicting its opposite; good justice stemmed from virtue and reason.233 It may be useful to take a closer look at the evidence offered by religious drama in order to discover sub-themes and variations in the theme of folly and its framings through and in the executioner’s figure. These plays reflected collective beliefs and opinions about different issues and topics and can help the historian to understand the reasoning of people in the past. In mystery plays hangmen could reveal their lack of intelligence by numerous ways, not just through their first names (such as Sans Raison and Daru)234 but also through their verbal expression, where the typical features are repetition, enumeration, incoherent monologues, bragging about merits that no one admires, shouting – all common traits of madmen, the possessed and dimwits.235 Besides the various methods related to verbal expression, late medieval playwrights had other effective techniques for associating the hangman with the idea of imperfect intellect or lack of wit. Writers of mystery plays sometimes depicted hangmen as self-destructive, suicidal individuals who ended their lives by their own hand. A good example is the play about Saint Sebastian. At the end of the piece is a curious chain reaction of suicides and killings. After the death of Sebastian, the evil emperor, ‘Imperator’, loses his mind and starts to call upon demons and finally commits suicide. The emperor’s faithful servant Maximianus, shocked by the death of his master, does not want to go on living either. He forces the executioner Machecotom to kill him by leaving him no other choice: ‘Tue moy ou je te tüerey’ (Kill me or I’ll kill you). Machecotom refuses at first but finally consents to Maximianus’ demand. When the companions of Machecotom – the executioners Tailliebodin, Rifflandoillie and Mal Feras – find out that he has actually killed Maximianus, they are furious and seek revenge. When threatened, Machecotom kills his friends one by one. After these killings Machecotom falls into despair. He bewails profusely his wretched destiny, admits his great, unpardonable sins, curses the day of his birth and calls on demons

233 See chapters 4 and 5. 234 See section 3.2. 235 See section 6.4. Bahtin stressed the similarity between the devil’s and the fool’s characters in late medieval mystery plays (Bahtin 2002, 238.) but has not remarked on the same closeness between the executioner and the fool, which was also very evident.

304

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

to fetch his soul to the eternal torments of Hell.236 After the suicide of Machecotom, devils eventually arrive to take his soul as well as those of his companions.237 Suicide is an ordinary theme in religious drama; it is a typical act not only of executioners but also of other evil personages, such as Herod238 and Judas, who first lose their mind and then kill them selves.239 At the symbolical level this motif obviously signalled mankind’s evil and the self-destructive aspect of all evil. The final goal of evil is – paradoxically – total annihilation. Presumably, some play writers were familiar with Boethius’ (480–524) work and his idea that evil and vicious individuals eventually end up in contradiction with themselves and with each other, for it is impossible for them to find concord.240 Boethius’ work was very popular in the Middle Ages. Dante, among others, quoted it often. Jean de Meun translated the Consolationis into French.241 It seems quite clear to me that the function of the theme of the hangman’s suicide was not only to mark the executioners as mad and evil persons but also to signal the folly and great sinfulness of suicide to a large audience. In late medieval society and culture suicide was not an unknown phenomenon: numerous persons, both men and women, killed themselves for various reasons. The most usual method of committing suicide was by hanging.242 In the medieval thinking suicide was connected with insanity and with sin, at the same time. Lunatics and madmen were often perceived as dangerous, not only to other persons, but also to themselves. Mental disturbances could easily lead a person to harm others or him or herself. Sometimes, however, quite sane individuals who had not had any evident psychotic problems suddenly went mad and committed suicide. Often this was believed to be Satan’s work. Therefore it was important to determine in each case whether the forces of evil had something to do with the suicide. One often meets discussions about the motives for suicide in 236 ‘De toute joye suis bannis / Puis qu’ay tüé mes compagnions. / J’ey fet de maulx plus grant foysons / Que homme qui soit sus la terre, / Et m’en voys tüer a grant erre. / Mourir veulx douloureusemant. / A tous les dyables me comant / Que m’emportent tout corps et ame, / Ausi mouray je a diffamme, / Je le scey bien. / A! tr[ic]tre larom, filz de chient / Que je suis, je meur de douleur / En despit soit du createur / Qui me creast dessus la terre. / Mauldit soit le pere et la mere / Que jamés me myrent au monde. / Tous les dyables, festes moy fondre / En abisme maintenant. / Venés a moy incontinant / Moy rompre en mille parties. / Treynés moy dedans les caudieres / D’enfert, car a vous je me donnes, / Corps et ame vous abandonne, / Car je suis mort. Il est conclus. / (nunc loquitur tortor)’. Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 298-9. In this long monologue, the audience is told how they should interpret the suicide of the executioner. All is there: motifs and the final result, the eternal tortures of Hell. This monologue closely resembles La Complainte de Judas in a passion of Burgundian origin from the fifteenth century (La passion de Roman, 187-8.), as well as in La passion provençale from the fourteenth century. La passion provençale, 51-2. 237 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 300. One can also find a suicide scene of executioners in Le mystère de Saint Laurent. The executioners Bruslecosté and Fieramort fall in desperation after all their bad deeds and start to call upon demons to fetch their souls (‘Haro! Et que je suis dolans! / Dyables, venez moy secourir; / Com enragé me fault morir’); Burslecosté hangs himself and Fieramort stabs himself with a dagger. Le mystère de Saint Laurent, 168. 238 On Herod’s rage and suicide, see for example La mystère de la Passion (d’Arras) from the first half of the fifteenth century. La mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 62-4. 239 On Judas’ suicide, see for example Le Mystère de la Passion Nostre Seigneur, 161; on the suicides of both Herod and Judas, see Gréban, Le mystère de la Passion, 103, 288; Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 373. See also Le livre de la passion, 33. 240 Boethius, Philosophiae Consolationis, 350. 241 Grafton 1988, 778-9; Bossuat, Pichard & Raynaud de Lage 1992, 817. 242 On suicide in medieval culture, see Schmitt 1976.

305

CHAPTER 7

chronicles and journals: was the deed the result of a temporary attack of madness or rather despair, désespéracion, and temptation by the Devil, ‘la tanctation du diauble’.243 The question of the motive for suicide also interested the public authorities. If committed in total understanding, suicide was considered a crime to be punished: it was homicide. Mental disorder was considered a mitigating circumstance in criminal law. It was thought that an act could be defined as criminal only if it was done on purpose and of one’s own free will.244 The anonymous writer of Le coutumier bourguignon glosé from the end of the fourteenth century explains the custom of punishing suicides and its foundation as follows: Coustume est en Bourgoingne, se aucun [se] occis ou tue par desesperance, le sire en quel justice il est trouvé en doit faire justice ainssi comme s’il avoit tué un autre. La cause est, car il est homicidez de lui mesmes. Tous ses biens sont confisquiéz au seigneur dessoubz qui il sont.245 In Burgundy it is customary that if someone kills himself out of despair, the judge of the locality has to sentence him as if he had killed some other person. The reason for this is that he has murdered himself. All his property is subject to confiscation by the local lord. Suicide was defined as homicide and thus the suicide's corpse had to be publicly punished and his property confiscated. The usual penalty for men was dragging and hanging, women were ‘drowned’ (the corpse was thrown into a river).246 Because of the common practice of confiscating the suicide’s property, the deceased’s relatives often tried to prove that the suicide had been committed in a temporary state of insanity.247 The Church’s attitude towards suicide was very negative. In Christian thinking suicide was an extreme sin, because it excluded repentance. Saint Augustine had already stressed that suicide was not permitted for Christians in any circum243 Philippe de Vigneulles writes, for example, about a certain Jehan Robert, an ancient messenger, who was about 65 years old and who hanged himself in his garret in 1484. Vigneulles observes: ‘Et estoit celluy riche homme, à qui ne failloit riens, ne ne solt on jamais la cause qui à ce l’esmeust à ce destruire, si non l’Annemis qui le tanta.’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 110. On madness and attempted suicide, see also Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 161. 244 The mentally deranged ‘ne peut faire injure, car injure ne se peut faire sans volonté et sans franc arbitre. Mais tout ce qu’il fait lui procede par force de rage et de celle fureur. Dont se il tuoit mille hommes il n’en seroit ja pugny.’ L’arbre des batailles, 197-8. 245 Le coutumier bourguignon glosé, 88. 246 See, for example, BN ms. fr. 21731, fol. 70r. A woman who hanged herself in Metz in 1485 was put in a barrel and thrown in the river: ‘Cy fut celle femme, par l’ordonnance de Justice, prince par le bouriaulx; et fut mise en ung tonniaulz, bien cloz, et fut boutées en la ripvier de Mezelle. Et dessus ledit tonniaulz estoit escript, en allemans et en wallon: “Bouttés à vaulx: laissés aller, car c’est par Justice.” In Strasbourg a bishop who had committed suicide received the same punishment in 1484. A soldier called Hodinet who drowned himself in 1516 in the river Moselle was later dragged on a grid and hanged by the official hangman: “par quoy, quant il fut trouvés, fut prins et traynés par le bouriaulx jusques Entre deux Pont, auprès des rues; et là, en ce lieu, fut mis et pandus à une potence’. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 111, 113, IV, 226. See also La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, I, 72, IV, 180, 226, 293, 300; Journal de Jean de Roye, I, 45; BN ms. fr. 7645, fol. 70r. 247 Spierenburg 1991, 177.

306

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

stances.248 Suicide meant doubt of one’s possibilities of gaining salvation as well as of God’s mercy. The most hideous example was naturally Judas,249 who was at the same time the prototype of a bad Jew in late medieval culture. The link between suicide and such figures as Judas and the executioner served to underline the blasphemous and criminal quality of this action to all believers. In religious drama this motif served to stigmatise the hangman and to emphasise the meanness and sinfulness of suicide, which lead to eternal perdition. One way to link the hangman with the idea of defective reason was to stress his closeness with the animal kingdom. In medieval culture it was a common tendency to identify stupid, vicious or evil persons with animals. Learned writers often employed bestial comparisons, whilst in popular speech it was habitual to use animal names as insults. Animals were, after all, considered as lower beings par excellence at that time. In iconography the hangman was linked to bestiality by means of missing or disordered clothes (shameful exposure of his body) and ugly facial features: noses that resembled beaks, muzzle-like features, round eyes, grimaces, etc.250 In religious drama, the executioner’s first names often referred to a bestial appetite and a great lust for meat (Grandent, Friant, Picolardon, etc.).251 In addition, the playwrights made executioners identify themselves explicitly with certain categories of animals and more particularly with dogs, wolves and wild boars. One can find numerous references to the hangman’s similarity with dogs in mystery plays. A good example is Le mystère de saint Laurent. In one scene, the executioner Malengrongne compares himself to a furious dog: ‘Je suis achenné comme ung chien/ A couper bras, jambes et testes; / A tous les jours…’252 (I am eager like a dog / To cut arms, legs and heads; / Every day…) The executioner Bruslecosté also uses the dog comparison in one reply in the same play: … je suis orgueilleux mastin, Un meurdrier, un coupeur de testes Je les meurdris es haultes festes, Je les escorche et metz a fin.253 … I am a proud mastiff, a murderer, a cutter off of heads I kill them with great enjoyment, I flay them and put them to death.

248 Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, 21. See also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66, 49-57. 249 In Gréban’s work it is Lucifer’s dear daughter ‘Desesperance’, who tempts Judas to commit suicide. Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 285-8. 250 See chapters 4 and 5. 251 See section 3.2. 252 Le mystère de saint Laurent, 157. 253 Le mystère de saint Laurent, 158. In Old French, the word mastin referred to a big dog or to a servant according to J.-A. Greimas: Mastin 1. Gros chien; 2. Domestique, valet. Greimas 1989, 398. See also Le mystère de saint Laurent, 129.

307

CHAPTER 7

In Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, the executioners boast about their competence, fury and eagerness to kill and maim by declaring: ‘Je puisse enrager comme chiens’ (I can rage like a dog) and ‘Je veulx enragier comme ung chient’ (I want to rage like a dog).254 Other personages in mystery plays also compare executioners with dogs in an insulting sense. In an Old Testament play (III) the mothers of the martyred children of Egypt insult the executioners by calling them by such expressions as ‘larron infame, bourreau, / Pire que ung chien, trop es villain! / Infame, tirant, inhumain’, ‘infame chien […] faulx tirant’).255 (‘infamous robber, executioner, / worse than a dog, you are too vile! / Infamous, tyrant, inhuman’, ‘infamous dog […] false tyrant’). In Arnoul Gréban’s work, the soldier-executioners serving Herod are called ‘traitor dogs’ by the mothers of the martyred infants of Bethlehem.256 The dog – the first animal domesticated by man – was a very popular pet during the medieval period. Many kinds of dogs existed: herd-dogs, watchdogs and several kinds of hunting dogs. The nobility used dogs mostly for hunting sports, the chasing of deer and wild boar.257 Why, then, did dramatists like to identify the executioner particularly with this animal? Actually, the dog was quite frequently employed as a negative metaphor (for impurity, greed, sexual lust) in late medieval art and literature.258 In bestiaries and fabliaux dogs were depicted as faithful, but slavish servants.259 In works of art dogs often appear in execution scenes, sometimes liking blood.260 The bloodthirsty dog referred to a traitor’s shameful death at the hands of a public executioner. Presumably, one can see here, at the same time, a reference to the everyday realities observed by artists. It is evident, however, that the negative symbolical meaning of this motif was quite essential. It must be noticed that dogs, too, were ambivalent signs in medieval culture and could symbolise 254 Le mystère de saint Sébastien, 70, 171, 274. In a suicide scene the executioner Machecotom calls himself ‘traitorous thief’ and ‘son of a bitch’: ‘A! tr[ic]tre larom, filz de chient / qu je suis’. Le mystère de saint Sébastien, 299. On linking the executioner with the dog in visual material, see for example, Bosch, Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns). C. 1490–1500. National Gallery, London. In Bosch’s painting one of Christ’s tormentors wears a dog’s collar. 255 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 226, 232, 234. 256 Gréban, Le Mystère de la Passion, 99. Rachel shouts to the executioners Narinart, Achopart and Agripart: ‘Ha! faulx chiens et felons tirans, / ha! cueurs de meurtriers desloyaux, / gens infames, villains bourreaux…’ See also Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, I, 356. It should be noted that executioners themselves often use the term ‘dog’ when insulting their victims in late medieval drama, in addition to other insults that were discussed in section 6.1. In Le mystère de saint Laurent, Concorde is called a ‘rebellious bitch’ (‘chienne rebelle’), whilst the executioner Maulevault tells an anonymous Christian woman, ‘La femme’ just before her execution that he will beat her like a dog (‘Je te housserau comme une chienne’). Le mystère de saint Laurent, 158. In Le mystère de saint Sébastien one can also find a scene where the executioner Riflandoillie suggests to his colleagues that they should beat their victim, Saint Sebastian, like a dog: ‘Frappons comme dessus ung chient’. Le mystère de saint Sébastien, 286. In an Old testament play (V:XL. De Senacherib et de Thobie) the executioners Abisay and Abiron promise to beat their victims like dogs: ‘Ilz seront batus comme chiens / Et mys a dure mort ameré.’ Le Mistére du Viel Testament, V, 57. 257 Salisbury 1994, 18, 49. 258 Chevalier & Gheerbrant 1982, 239-45. See also Delort 1993, 459-60. Robert Delort’s study (Les Animaux ont une histoire, orig. 1984) is an important work on the history of animals from antiquity to our modern times. 259 Erasmus mocked flattering as a dog-like feature in the Moriae encomium. Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 92. ‘Quid enim cane adulantius?’ As mentioned in section 7.1., in late medieval drama, the executioners are often depicted as slavish and willing to please, ‘just like dogs’. They assure us over and over that all they want is to obey. 260 See, for example, the miniatures in manuscripts of Jean Froissart’s chronicle. BN ms. fr. 2644, fol. 1r; ms. fr. 2645, fol. 238v; ms. fr. 2646, fol. 40v.

308

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

several positive ideas, such as devotion, or the refinement of the nobility, or positive figures, for example, Saint Roch.261 Thus, man’s best friend was closely associated with many very unpleasant ideas in medieval imagery. Numerous persons saw the dog as a low domestic animal without the dignity of wild beasts.262 It has been suggested that the fear of rabies was one important reason for negative opinions and attitudes. This factor would also explain the dread of wandering dogs; this dread sometimes transformed into panic and led to mass slaughter of the dogs.263 The link between the executioner and the dog was also obvious at the level of everyday urban reality; in many medieval towns it was the public executioner’s task to catch wandering dogs and to exterminate them.264 According to Joyce E. Salisbury, the term ‘dog’ was a very popular insult in medieval culture because it was a category so close to man. Generally, the level of the offence was greater, the nearer the beast in question was to human beings. It was much worse to be called ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ than ‘lion’. Medieval people had a greater need to be differentiated from those animals that threatened most the boundary between the two groupings, man and beast.265 Even if it was the most usual, the dog was not the only animal category of identification typical of the figure of the hangman. In literary material and especially in drama, the executioner is sometimes connected with wolves and wild boars. In the Old Testament play, the executioners describe themselves as ‘hungry as wolves’ regarding their occupations: ‘Affamez sommes comme loups’.266 In Le mystère de saint Sébastien the executioner Machecotom associates himself and his companions with wild boars and wolves: ‘Ne sommes nous pas yci tous / plus actis que sanglers et loups / a tout mal feyre.’267 (Aren’t we all here / more active than wild boars and wolves / in all kinds of evil exploits.) These hangmen are in constant readiness to engage in any sort of violent action. It is not surprising that the hangman was also associated with the wolf. The wolf was a greatly feared and hated beast in the medieval period. It was considered the most evil and destructive of all animals; in various cultural products the wolf was the incarnation of sin, death and evil par excellence. 268 The wolf represented the Devil’s hate of the mankind. The Prince of Darkness lurked always ready for any 261 Le Bestiaire, 79-85; Gonthier 1998, 154; Carr-Gomb 2003, 212. Creatures of fidelity and loyalty, dogs were depicted on medieval tombs lying at the feet of their masters. In portraits they symbolised similar qualities. Black and white dogs in Dominican scenes are, in a pun on the order’s name, depicted as Hounds of the Lord (Domini Canes); they may be pursuing wolves, which represent heretics. See also Memling, St Ursula shrine. Before 1489. Memling Museum, Bruges. The white dog in the panel depicting the martyrdom of Saint Ursula has a positive meaning. De Vos has attributed this shrine to Memling but admits that some scholars disagree. De Vos 1994, 296-303. Cf. Haskell 2003, 14. See also Jean-Claude Schmitt’s study on Guinefort, a greyhound venerated in the manner of a saint. Schmitt 1983. 262 Salisbury 1994, 133. 263 Delort 1993, 460. On problems relating to wandering dogs (noise pollution, barking, etc.) in medieval towns, see also Leguay 1999, 23. 264 See section 3.1. 265 Salisbury 1994, 68. 266 Le Mistére du Viel Testament, III, 226. 267 Le mystère de saint Sébastien, 166. 268 Delort 1993, 342-4.

309

CHAPTER 7

occasion to deceive faithful souls.269 In medieval literature, the wolf was not only depicted as a fundamentally evil animal but it was further stigmatised by providing it with features that turned it hideous, repulsive and ridiculous. Thus, Isengrin of Le Roman de Renard, written in the thirteenth century, was not only a coward attacking the weakest but also lazy, stupid, greedy and deceitful.270 One factor that explains the great fear of wolves is that during the Middle Ages they actually ate not only domestic animals but also people, both living and dead.271 In Europe there was practically no other beast that would have threatened people in order to eat them. Wolves were actively hunted everywhere, until they disappeared from the central areas of Europe at the end of medieval period. Fear of the wolf was, however, fossilised in folklore and in the popular imagery: wolves were seen as dangerous man-eaters.272 It is no accident that the depictions of Hell’s mouth in medieval pictorial material often resemble the black or dark brown head of a giant wolf.273 One important reason for medieval people’s great dread of wolves was their belief in the existence of werewolves (loup-garou). These were cursed human beings in the form of wolves. Robert Delort suggests that this alliance with a demon was evident to all contemporaries. A person could turn into a were-wolf because of a spell or as punishment for a mortal sin. Sometimes a cursed soul was constrained to purge his sins by staying seven years on earth in the form of a werewolf.274 In the later Middle Ages the belief in the possibility of metamorphoses gained more ground. Joyce E. Salisbury writes: ‘One could never be sure the late medieval world was what it seemed’. The strengthening of the belief in potential transmutations was linked with the phenomenon of the increasing blurring of the boundaries between man and animal.275 It should be noted, too, that numerous persons believed that demons particularly favoured the wolf’s form (in addition to that of a dragon, snake and monkey). The Devil could take whatever form he wanted: human, animal, or monstrous. The Devil was the ‘chief of the shape shifters’ and werewolves, vampires and witches imitated their master in this quality in order to do his will.276 Philippe de 269 ‘Le loup est rapace et avide de sang […] Le loup symbolise le Diable qui, depuis le commencement des temps, nourrit pour la race humaine une haine tenace et qui rôde autour du bercail des fidèles afin de désoler et de ruiner leurs âmes.’ Le Bestiaire, 78. On the comparison of cruel and violent individuals (or robbers, murderers and highwaymen) with wolves, see for example Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 176, 322; Molinet, Chroniques, II, 205 and passim. Famous theologians and preachers such as Jean Gerson and Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) often used animal comparisons and spoke, for example, about demons as ‘wolves of Hell’, ‘enraged dogs’, etc. Mourin 1952, 226, 481-3; Mormando 1999, 122. 270 Le Roman de Renart. I-VI, passim. 271 Delort 1993, 327; Leguay 1999, 24. See also Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, 170, 172, 187, 202, 390. The anonymous writer’s text reflects the great fear of wolves. He tells about the hungry beasts that haunted France in 1421: ‘Item, en ce temps étaient les loups si affamés qu’ils entraient de nuit ès bonnes villes et faisaient moult de divers dommages, et souvent passaient la rivière de Seine et plusieurs autres à nage; et aux cimetières qui étaient aux champs, ausitôt qu’on avait enterré les corps, ils venaient par nuit et les déterrainet et les mangeaient; et les jambes qu’on pendait aux portes, mangèrent-ils en saillant, et les femmes et enfants en plusieurs lieux.’ 272 Salisbury 1994, 69-70. 273 See, for example, Heures de Jean de Montauban. BN ms. lat. 18026, fol. 105r marg. 274 Delort 1993, 345-6. 275 Salisbury 1994, 142-3, 163. 276 Russell 1984, 68, 79. See also Mormando 1999, 134.

310

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

Vigneulles described in his chronicle how wolves haunted the region of Metz in 1482 and killed several children. One of these murderous beasts evoked particularly great terror, because it succeeded in escaping from traps several times. Vigneulles writes that it was commonly believed that this beast was either a demon or a possessed animal.277 As to the link between the executioner and the wild boar, this association was quite logical, too. The wild boar was considered to be a very impressive animal because of its aggressiveness. Hunting wild boar was a dangerous sport, for these beasts were strong and when enraged, they attacked without regard for their own safety.278 During the first part of the Middle Ages the wild boar was a much appreciated game animal. From the twelfth century on, however, it lost its popularity, especially in the princely milieu. It has been suggested that reasons for this shift were essentially symbolical.279 Like many other beasts, the wild boar evoked both negative and positive associations. During the high Middle Ages, it often represented power, invincibility and fearlessness and could appear in literature as a mark of these qualities. It also represented male sexuality.280 In personifications of vices, the wild boar was linked with the sin of Wrath, both in the pictorial arts as well as in literature. In the Dieta Salutis, attributed to Saint Bonaventure (1217–1275) readers are informed that a furious person resembles a wild boar in his blind anger and murderous rage.281 Bartholomew Anglicus, in his De proprietatibus rerum (from the mid-thirteenth century), stresses the rudeness and cruelty, force and fearlessness of this animal.282 During the later part of the medieval period, the wild boar more and more often represented various negative qualities: blind and murderous violence, ugliness, and evil; filthiness, gluttony, intemperance, lechery, and sloth (the latter qualities previously linked with the domestic pig).283 Thus, there evidently existed several features that connected the hangman and the wild boar in late medieval imagery. In fact, not only the hangman but also the wild boar could be associated with all categories of vices and sins.284 In a general way, the linking of certain animals with the hangman could serve to stigmatise these categories, the dog as a lower and more impure animal than others and the wolf and the wild boar as more dangerous and evil. On these occasions the 277 ‘... c’estoit ung esperit malin, ou qu’il avoit dyable au corps.’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, III, 93-5. 278 Salisbury 1994, 51; Pastoureau 2004, 69-70. 279 See Salisbury 1994, 51; Pastoureau 2004, 65, 68, 70-1. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the deer was the favourite game animal of princes; the boar was hunted mainly by professional hunters. 280 Salisbury 1994, 51-2. 281 ‘... de même que le sanglier furieux donne des coups de boutoir et s’élance sur l’épée, de même l’homme possédé par colère frappe aveuglement et tue’. Mâle 1995, 331-2. In the anonymous Bestiaire (early 13th c.) we are explained that the name of wild boar (sanglier), aper, ‘vient de feritas, cruauté, la lettre F étant supprimée et remplacée par P. Aussi, chez les Grecs, est-il appelé suagros, c’est-à-dire “cruel”, car tout ce qui est cruel et sauvage est appelé abusivement agreste.’ Le Bestiaire, 86. 282 ‘Le sanglier est si fier qu’il ne redoute pas la mort; au contraire, il affronte sans peur le fer du chasseur et, lorsqu’il en est atteint, il se bat avec courage jusqu’à la mort.’ Le livre des propriétés des choses, 275. 283 Pastoureau 2004, 73. 284 Ibid., 74. Previously, vices and sins had been shared between the domestic pig and the wild boar. For the domestic pig, see also section 3.1.

311

CHAPTER 7

message was that one should always doubt these particular species, because these could be especially impure, malicious and dangerous. To fully understand the use of animal comparisons as a means of degradation it should be noted that medieval people were not always kind to animals, because they thought that animals belonged to an inferior class. Joyce E. Salisbury has written that a typical feature of medieval man’s attitude to beasts was a more or less strong contempt or deprecation. Positive opinions were connected mainly with the materials animals could offer (food, wool, leather), work and status. Salisbury says that even if animals were important metaphors and guides to metaphysical truths in art and literature, they were usually never fully sympathetic; at least they were stupid.285 I would like, however, to draw attention to the fact that even if animals were special outsiders, ‘others’, to the society of humans, some persons could feel compassion and great attachment to them.286 Moreover, as already explained, animals frequently symbolised positive figures and ideas,287 too, not only negative ones. One must also bear in mind that animals, collectively and individually, meant different things to different socio-intellectual groups.288 The Middle Ages had inherited from Judaeo-Christian antiquity a view that man, who was made in the image of God, had been given power over the animal kingdom.289 Thomas Aquinas had crystallised common notions in his Summa in a chapter entitled Quæstio LXIV. De homicidio. He explained that nature has an observable hierarchy and that man’s position at the top of this scale automatically gives him mastery of all that is below. Imperfect creatures are created for the perfect: plants exist for animals and both these categories exist for men.290 Aquinas writes that the killing of animals is acceptable because God himself has ordered it so. God has given all plants and animals to serve as food for men. And if God preserves the life of animals, it is not for them selves, but for man. The crucial point is that animals do not have a rational mind or a reasonable soul to guide their actions (and which could give them a place in Paradise at the end of time)291 but 285 Salisbury 1994, 16-17, 104, 131. 286 See, for example, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 1100-1, 1109, 1113, 1116. Leonardo was the most famous vegetarian of his time (from purely ethical grounds). On the multiplicity of attitudes towards animals in late medieval culture, see also Cohen 1993, 100-33; Alexandre-Bidon 1998, 268-72. It would be a serious mistake to overestimate animals’ position in our modern world. Torturing and misusing of beasts is, still, a usual phenomenon. Delort 1993, 184. 287 The lion and the unicorn, for example, were usual symbols of Christ. In fact, as Michel Pastoureau has written, in medieval symbolism most animals were attributes and could refer as well to the bestiary of the Devil as that of Christ. Pastoureau 2002, 97. For the symbolism of the lion, Pastoureau 2004, 49-64. See also Le Bestiaire, 568, 61-2. 288 Esther Cohen observes that whilst clerical culture tried to distance the human from the animal, employing the latter to symbolise abstract concept and characteristics, both courtly and lay culture regularly attributed to animals human traits, actions, modes of thought and of feeling rather than symbolic values. Cohen 1993, 109. 289 Delort 1993, 178-80; Salisbury 1994, 166. 290 ‘In rerum autem ordine imperfectiora sunt propter perfectiora […] ita etiam ea quæ tantum vivunt, ut plantæ, sunt communiter propter animalia; et animalia sunt propter hominem. Et ideo si homo utatur plantis ad utulitatem animalium, et animalibus ad utilitatem hominum, non est illictum.’ Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66, 34-5. 291 Aquinas explains that animals as creatures without intelligence or a reasonable soul do not have the prequisite for incorruptibility and will not take part in the resurrection at the end of time. Aquinas, Summa theolgiae, Suppl., Q87-99, 151, 153-4. However, some medieval persons supported quite a different view and referred, instead, to St Paul’s words: ‘quia et ipsa creatura liberabitur a servitute corruptionis in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei.’ (Rm 8.21) See also Pastoureau 2004, 31-2.

312

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

they are always governed by their natural instincts. This is a sign of the fact that their natural condition is servile and they are appropriate for use by other beings.292 It has been suggested that this clear distinction between man and animals started to become blurred in the later Middle Ages and men began to examine and fear the animal in themselves.293 This tendency is visible, for example, in chronicle writers’ texts. Chroniclers never overlook mentioning the birth of monstrous babies (human or animal). Philippe de Vigneulles, for example, tells about a peasant woman who gave birth to a baby with a normal body but a monkey’s head in 1521 in Metz. He describes the hideous head carefully294 and says that all the witnesses were very scared (bien esbays). To the ‘great joy’ and relief of the new parents, however, this abominable creature died the same day.295 Chroniclers’ pronounced interest in monstrous or unnatural births arose not only from convictions and fears related to mankind’s advancing degradation but also from the old belief that these births were divine signs that should be considered as serious warnings of accidents, disasters and catastrophes.296 In addition to outward appearance, an imperfect intellect was a feature that made some individuals similar to animals in the eyes of medieval people.297 Simpletons and insane individuals were often associated with animals. It was thought that idiots and madmen resembled animals because they could not control their sensuality and behave like rational and virtuous men.298 Criminals and most serious crimes, as well as vicious persons and depraved manners were also bestialised.299 Boethius, whose Philosophiæ Consolationis enjoyed great popularity in the late Middle Ages, had stressed that evil and viciousness turned a man into an animal.300 Aggressiveness, the inability to control one’s instincts, lack of reason – these were all characteristic features of animals, idiots and depraved persons, as they were typical of the hangman’s mental image and its expression in various sources. Thus, medieval people reduced the hangman to something between the categories of hu-

292 ‘… ex ordinatione divina conservatur vita animalium et plantarum non propter seipsam, sed propter hominem […] animalia bruta et plantæ non habent vitam rationalem, per quam a seipsis agantur, sed semper aguntur qausi ab alio, naturali quodam impulsu. Ed hoc est signum quod sunt naturaliter serva, et aliorum usibus accomodata.’ Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66, 36. 293 Salisbury 1994, 136. 294 ‘... la teste et le visaige estoit proprement tout ainssy et ne plus que ne moins que la teste d’ung singe, avec le groing, les yeulx enfondus en la teste et des haulte sorcille avec le poil par dessus, puis avoit les oireille jointe contre la teste…’ La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, IV, 362. 295 ‘Et morut cest anffans pour le meisme jour; dont ce fut grant joie pour le perre et pour la merre’. Ibid., 362. See also Molinet, Chroniques, II, 447, 525-8. 296 Claude Lecouteux has examined in detail medieval theories about monstrous births and races. Lecouteux 1999. On monstrous births and monsters, see also section 3.2. 297 Pieter Spierenburg has reminded us that the association of insanity with animal behaviour is a very old custom. Spierenburg 1991, 172. 298 Salisbury 1994, 152-3. 299 Late medieval writers bestialised most serious crimes, for example, by referring to them by the term inhumain. See, for example, Molinet, Chroniques, II, 375; Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, Chronique, I, 330, 338. Honoré Bovet stresses that a good ruler is capable of behaving well and controlling the instincts of his body, which are called bestial because they are inclined to resist all virtues. L’arbre des batailles, 253. 300 Boethius, Philosophiæ Consolationis, 318-20. Boethius observes that violent men and robbers are often compared to wolves, fierce men to hounds and lustful men to swine. A man who loses his goodness ceases to be a man and turns into a beast.

313

CHAPTER 7

man and animal.301 It is also significant that the term inhumain often appears in connection with the hangman in late medieval literary material. As we have seen, legal expert Josse de Damhouder assured that many hangmen were cruel, they even had a name (bourreau) that pointed to inhumanity.302 Hangmen were seen and defined as inhuman, both from the point of view of their excessive cruelty and aggressiveness, as well as in the sense of bestial sensuality and irrationality.303 The executioner was perceived and depicted as being diametrically opposite to such figures as the saint, the perfect knight, or the king, who epitomised the ideal of ‘human’. In medieval thinking, the hangman was situated at the negative end of the ontological chain of beings, which started from God and his angels and ended with Lucifer. His logical place in this chain was near the animal world and the various categories of otherness and monstrous.304 After having examined the topics of hangmen’s self-destructiveness and of their similarity to animals, it is time to say a few words about the motif of immaturity. As some scholars have remarked, in late medieval religious drama it is common to meet executioners who are portrayed as behaving in a fairly childish manner, especially in torture scenes.305 It was a usual habit of play writers to refer to executioners’ defective intellect by letting them transform torture scenes into sorts of parodies of children’s plays, sadistic games. In many plays about Christ’s passion, the executioners bind their saintly victim’s eyes and hands and tell him to guess who is hitting him.306 Sometimes they compete in a flagellation scene to see who can give the hardest blows; in the crucifixion scene they compete in pulling Christ’s limbs to the nail holes, which are

301 As already explained, the most important difference between a man and an animal was the lack of reason. Concepts about an animal’s defective wit had an effect on medieval people’s ways of interpreting animal behaviour. It was thought that even if animal actions sometimes seemed rational, they were instinctual. Apparently, it was easier to assume the existence of a sixth sense than to assume logical thinking. Salisbury 1994, 5-6. 302 See Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 365-6. In an Old Testament play, in a scene depicting Solomon’s famous judgement we encounter two executioners (le premier tirant, le second tirant), whom the wise king describes as follows: ‘Je congnois qu’ilz sont inhumains, / Rebelles, despis, oultrageux, / Sans espargner povres humains; / Memoire n’est qu’ilz soient piteux.’ Le Mistére du Viel Testament, IV, 326. Thus, bad morals are an essential feature of these hangmen who serve the good justice of Solomon. For a visual presentation of the same scene, see for example, Plate with the Judgment of Solomon. Painted by Master Gonela. Italian (Faenza), c. 1515. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. 303 In the Middle Ages aggressiveness and cruelty were perceived as characteristics typical of beasts. It was thought that ferocity and savagery take their names from a likeness to wild animals. Brutal and cruel people belonged to the category of the bestial. It was thought that man’s aggressiveness could be understandable if it had the right motives and aims. Ideally, it was logical violence, whereas animal violence was always irrational. See section 7.1. See also Salisbury 1994, 5. 304 J.B. Russell has explained the relations between monsters and demons in medieval thinking by situating them in an ontological chain starting from God and reality and ending at Lucifer: God, angels, human rulers, human subjects, barbarians, monsters, demons, Anti-Christ, Lucifer. Russell 1984, 79. One can think that in this chain, the hangman’s place would be in the proximity of barbarians and demons. As Russell has observed, the idea of monstrosity culminated in the Devil. This notion explains the Devil’s usual, strongly bestial features (paws, claws, hairiness, and goat legs) in late medieval pictorial material. Ibid., 209-12. 305 Wadsworth 1970, 503; Henrard 1998, 392-3. 306 See, for example, Le Mystère de la Passion Nostre Seigneur, 155-8, 175-6; Le mystère de la Passion (d’Arras), 169-72. This game was based on Lc 22.64. ‘Et velaverunt eum et percutiebant faciem eius et interrogabant eum dicentes prophetiza quis est qui te percussit’.

314

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

too far apart, and about who is going to drive the nails into the cross.307 One also meets similar sadistic games in numerous saints’ plays, for example, in Le mystère de Saint Sébastien.308 Executioners usually refer to their own actions by using such terms as jeu and esbatement, or ‘play’ and ‘entertainment’.309 This method is central in Arnoul Gréban’s famous play. R.L. Wadsworth thinks that Gréban’s message was that these executioners had no idea of the fundamental meaning of their actions. They seem to have no knowledge whatsoever beyond the orders they have been given and often they have great difficulty in understanding these correctly. In torture scenes where executioners play their sadistic games, they also have problems in understanding their own rules.310 It is as if the writers of mystery plays wanted to offer a dramatic illustration, a kind of a mimetic analogy, to the biblical phrase: ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Lc 23.34.), Wadsworth observes.311 One encounters executioners manifesting the same kind of thoughtless cruelty in numerous other plays on Christ’s passion and on the martyrdom of Christian saints: torture scenes are transformed into sadistic games. The message of playwrights was that executioners were similar to small children: intellectually immature. Most often the executioners of mystery plays have nothing in common with Maliferas of La Passion d’Auvergne, who furnishes us with a rare idealisation of the hangman. Unlike most of his colleagues, the executioner of John the Baptist is depicted as compassionate and fully capable of understanding and assessing the meaning and consequences of his actions.312 To entirely understand the stigmatising power of the motif of defective reason in products of medieval culture it is important to take into consideration how highly valued reason was at that time. As Nancy G. Siraisi has underlined, the reason was understood as man’s most important quality. The reason was the feature that differrentiated man from animals and associated him with angels and God.313 Unlike animals, man had been given a rational soul that would help him to control his actions, instincts and emotions, to obtain information about God and possibly to gain immortality. Aristotelian theories had great influence in late medieval thinking relating to the soul. In the Middle Ages the ‘soul’ was more or less equivalent to ‘the principle of life’. It was thought that three kinds of souls – vegetative, sensitive and rational – existed. The vegetative soul was responsible for all the subconscious processes such as nutrition, growing, reproduction and all forms of organic life possessed this power. Animals also had, in addition to a vege307 Gréban, Le mystère de la Passion, 256-9, 273-5. See also Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes, 742-9; Michel, Le Mystère de la Passion, 309-12, 325-9. 308 Le mystère de Saint Sébastien, 191-8, 228-33, 274-5. 309 In Old French esbatement signified divertissement. Greimas 1989, 239. 310 Wadsworth 1970, 508-9. As Jean Verdon has observed, misunderstandings were a usual form of comedy and ridicule in the medieval theatre. Verdon 2001, 227-9. 311 For quite an opposite interpretation of scourging scenes, see Enders 2002b, 101-4. Enders thinks that the purpose of these sadistic games was to attribute a positive valence to violence. ‘The vicious ébats of the French Passion plays offer a particularly striking testimonial to the desire for and the desirability of violence.’ 312 Passion d’Auvergne, 100-9. 313 Siraisi 1990, 108. See also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a, Q90-102, 96. On Aquinas’ definitions concerning divine wisdom and human reason, see Copleton 1972, 196-7.

315

CHAPTER 7

tative soul, a sensitive one, which helped them to perceive and evaluate objects in the exterior world. The sensitive soul possessed ten powers: exterior ones, which corresponded to the five senses, and internal ones, which were memory, estimation, imagination, fantasy and common wit. The rational soul was sometimes simply called Reason, Raison, whilst the sensitive soul was called Sensuality, Sensualité. The rational soul had two powers, intellectus and ratio. Intellectus had to do with the direct understanding of truth, which was a normal activity for angels but rare to men. Ratio referred to the progressive process during which truth was revealed.314 In children and in stupid or insane persons, the rational soul functioned imperfectly. – For this reason they were often also vicious, cruel or evil. – Stupid persons resembled animals. Like irrational beasts they were led by the inferior powers of the souls (vegetative and sensitive). They were incapable of having information about God, who was the highest form of reason. They were under the tyranny of their passions and emotions. Persons with perfect reason, for their part, were not governed by emotions.315 Undoubtedly, it is not by accident that in Josse de Damhouder’s text the hangman’s cruelty was defined as originating from sensuality, from a lack of reason and virtue. Damhouder stresses that ideally the hangman functions as an aide to justice and servant of God and not of Sensualité.316 However, he also claims that in reality many executioners treat convicts brutally and cruelly and that when doing so they ‘servissent plus a leur sensualité, que la raison et iustice’ (use more their sensuality than reason and justice). Obviously, Damhouder wanted to display his wide learning to his readers; i.e. that he was familiar with ancient authorities texts (besides Saint Paul he quotes Cicero).317 No doubt, Damhouder was also familiar with theories about how souls functioned and therefore reasoned and meant, here, that many hangmen acted mainly on the basis of their sensitive souls and did not (could not) use any higher capacities. It seems evident to me that the well-known and widely supported theory of man’s four temperaments may also have affected the ways to perceive the hangman in late medieval culture. Scholars examined and developed this old doctrine enthusiastically, whilst popular practical manuals and encyclopaedias, such as Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, made it familiar to ordinary people. According to this theory, men could be divided in four basic character types: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic. Choleric, for example, was described as being covetous, irascible, hasty and emotive, frenzied, mad, generous, malicious, deceitful, and subtle minded. Physically, a choleric is usually thin and frail, and when he has drunk a lot, he wants

314 Bottomley 1979, 130-2; Bynum 1986; Park 1988, 464-78; Siraisi 1990, 82; Pastoureau 2004, 45. See also Augustinus, Confessiones, 222-5; Boethius, Philosophiæ Consolationis, 370, 394; Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a, Q7583, 162-76; Le livre des propriétés des choses, 93-9. 315 Augustine wrote that passions do not move perfectly rational creatures, God or angels. Hence, for example, the expression God’s ‘wrath’ should be understood metaphorically: it meant only that God wreaked vengeance. As to demons, their mind is subdued under the oppressive tyranny of vicious passions. For men, passions are not only a harmful thing: for Christians they offer a possibility to practice virtues. Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, 254-5. See also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Suppl, Q87-99, 244-9. 316 ‘Tout ce qui faict, faict par cherge de la iustice, et en ce est il serviteur, et ministre de la iustice, voires (selon Saint Pol) le serviteur et ministre de Dieu, et pas de la sensualité.’ Damhouder, La practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles, 363. 317 Ibid., 363, 365.

316

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

to quarrel and fight.318 It was thought that following his natural category a person was inclined to various virtues or vices, emotions and passions, as well as different health problems at various ages. When it came to intellectual capacities and especially learning, all basic types were rather good, except for phlegmatic: this type’s inborn tendency to laziness was a hindrance to intellectual exercises. Man’s mind structure or temperament type was prescribed by his horoscope and revealed by numerous exterior signs. An individual’s whole being and its natural inclinations were under the influence of the celestial bodies and their movements. However, because of man’s free will, a wise person could and would resist (by means of his reason) the negative effects of the heavenly bodies, the tyranny of emotions and his innate bad inclinations.319 It is not farfetched to think that the hangman often appeared as an example of a ‘bad’ (the worst sort of) choleric to people in the past. Nonetheless, he could also be connected with the three other types of temperaments and particularly with the worst qualities in these. As to general attitudes towards stupidity and madness, a closer examination of the late medieval climate of reflection reveals that these were more and more negative towards the end of the fifteenth century, a development which was reflected in the representations of the hangman and other marginal figures. Idiocy was considered to be a very serious defect, not only in learned thinking but also amongst the uneducated: positive attitudes were in an evident minority. It has been suggested that even if people could feel some compassion and pity towards the simple-minded and insane, the more usual emotions were disgust, repulsion, scorn and fear.320 Negative attitudes stemmed from the view that insane persons were generally dangerous, because they were excessively brutal and violent. At the same time, it was thought that they were extremely vicious and particularly very lascivious, like beasts.321 These popular views explain the link between the hangman and mental insanity in works of art and literature. In medieval culture, the incomplete functioning of intelligence had been often linked with sin and evil.322 Jacques Heers has written that defective reason was many times interpreted as divine punishment resulting not from some individual sin, but from the sins of all people. A mentally deviant person incarnated the Fall, he

318 Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [146]. ‘Le collerique a nature de feu chault et sec naturellement est maigre et graisle, convoiteux, ireux, hatif et mouvant, escervele, fol, large, malicieux, decevant, subtil, ou il applique son sens. A vin de lyon cest adire quant a bien beu veult tanser, noiser, batre et voulentiers ayme estre vestu de moyenne couleur comme de draps gris.’ 319 See Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers, [136-43, 146]; Joutsivuo 1995a, 33-4, 38-43. The doctrine of the four temperaments was linked to a larger medical theory concerning health and sickness inherited from antiquity. Galen’s (c. 131–201) Ars parva and Avincenna’s (980–1036) Canon were the most influential texts in this field. There also existed another system of classification based on four complexions or body types: hot and moist, dry and hot, cold and dry, cold and moist. This system did not contradict the theory of the four temperaments. 320 Heers 1997, 142. 321 Ibid., 144. 322 In antiquity madness had not been considered a state of illness. According to Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 377 B.C.) it resulted from an excessive amount of bile. Later Galen explained that a person’s temperament was determined by the combination of his bodily fluids. If the fluids were balanced, the result was a healthy mind in a healthy body; an imbalance of fluids led to illness or insanity. In the Middle Ages supernatural explanations permeated in the Galenic system. Spierenburg 1991, 168-70.

317

CHAPTER 7

carried the punishment directed to all, he was the Devil’s own.323 It was thought that divine or demonic forces could have an effect on an individual’s character and behaviour and certain forms of mental aberration were caused by demons.324 Biological and religious explanations were not considered mutually exclusive. A state of mental disorder could simultaneously result from disturbances in one’s bodily fluids and the influence of the Devil.325 It was a vicious circle: the weaker a person’s mind, the easier it was for Satan to affect the individual’s mind and make him commit sins. Many reasoned that the greater the sinner, the weaker the mind. And numerous persons believed that in Hell, sinners were tortured by bouts of insanity.326 I wish to observe, however, that a defective wit was perceived, rather, as an ambivalent feature and in fact, a multitude of explanations could be found for it – also those without any moral judgment, as medieval medical literature and thaumaturgic miracles show us.327 The link between lack of wit and sin explains why simpletons and madmen were not always treated sympathetically in the Middle Ages but they became the targets of mocking, scorn and shunning. Because insanity and idiocy were quite often connected with sin and the Devil and seen as supernatural punishment, it is not surprising that the first treatment for the mentally ill was religious (for example, pilgrimages), whilst the use of physical force was fairly common, too. Flogging was a sort of exorcism. Sometimes insane individuals were simply banished from the community. From the second half of the fourteenth century special institutes were founded for the mentally ill in different corners of Europe, first in Germany, then the Netherlands and Spain.328 Whilst medieval men were quite afraid of aggressive lunatics, harmless idiots were often considered very amusing. Accordingly, they could serve as fools, mascots and entertainers for princes.329 The purpose of this section was to provide enlightenment on the link between the hangman and the idea of mental deviancy in late medieval culture, a connection that has been considered as somewhat peculiar in previous research or else has not been 323 Heers 1997, 143. 324 The imperfection of the intellect originated from the Fall. After it, man could not fully understand the difference between good and evil. Jean Gerson often spoke in his sermons about the negative influence of original sin on the control of the human soul. Mourin 1952, 230. 325 Spierenburg 1991, 168-70. Stephen Harper has suggested that insanity, unlike idiocy, was thought to be acquired rather than congenital. This difference was particularly important in legal contexts, since the property of madmen was not forfeited to the crown. Harper 2003, 30-3. See also Katajala-Peltomaa 2004, 89. 326 In Heaven, on the other hand, the intellect of the blessed will obtain the infallible knowledge of truth. Mormando 1999, 125. 327 Stephen Harper writes that whilst the theology tended to reduce the explanation of madness to the presence of sin, medical and literary texts stressed the diversity of the instrumental causes. As Harper suggests, the best guide to medical ideas is Bartholomew Anglicus’ De Proprietaribus Rerum. He was the most widely read authority on madness during the later Middle Ages. His ideas mostly derive from classical medical authorities. Harper 2003, 34-8, 43-60. For the various causes for the mental troubles and maladies of the head, see a fourteenth century translation of Anglicus’ work, Le livre des propriétés des choses, 125. 328 Heers 1997, 145-8, see also Spierenburg 1991, 181-4; Calmette 2001, 233; Harper 2003, 64-72. 329 Heers 1997, 153-7, 229; Spierenburg 1991, 173-4; Verdon 2001, 96-106. Jacques Heers has reminded us that in the various fêtes des fous (Fête des Innocents, des Enfants, de l’Ane, des Diacres) of medieval popular tradition the purpose was not to praise stupidity or madness, but these feasts (with an ecclesiastical origin) aimed at giving reason to the poor and humble, at praising lesser people. Heers 1997, 107-8, 187-8, 297-300. See also Bahtin 2002, 68-73 and passim.

318

MENTAL EQUIPMENT OF THE EXECUTIONER

properly examined. I have argued that one is dealing here with a perfectly logical association from the point of view of past people’s patterns of thinking and patterns of viewing the world. A lack of reason was a serious defect in medieval thinking, a feature that was often associated with sin, evil, and meanness. Cruel aggressiveness and rude viciousness, which characterised the representation and depictions of the hangman, were the logical consequences and manifestations of an imperfect intellect. It is quite understandable that contemporaries not only emphasised cruelty and bad moral character but also the lack of wit when exploiting the hangman’s figure in various purposes. The first two features originated from the last one. In secular contexts the hangman obviously provided a useful tool criticising violence considered wrongful (violence of ‘others’). The executioner was used as a vehicle for various messages about the judicial authorities’ values and views concerning the consequences of crime, good and bad justice, or power relations in society and among men of law. It is clear that his representations and framings, here, did not have any close connections with reality and actual facts.330 In religious art and literature the important function of the executioner’s figure was to symbolise mankind’s depravity and evil. This evil, which was basically only a lack of goodness, as Saint Augustine had stressed,331 had come into the world with the Fall. It is widely known that the theme of folly or the madness of mankind, occupied many people living in the turbulent period of the late Middle Ages. Numerous moralists and preachers assured their audiences that depraved mankind was on its way to destruction.332 Sebastian Brant wanted to show in his famous work on this topic, Das Narrenschiff (1495), that universal folly was not a joyful thing: foolishness and error could be the cause of eternal damnation. In Brant’s work, individuals from different categories of society sail in a ship captained by a fool. The fools represent here the follies, hence the vices.333 Some years later Hieronymus Bosch chose the ship of fools as the subject of his painting that is today on view in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.334 In 1509, Erasmus wrote his Moriæ Encomium, where he examined numerous forms of stupidity in late medieval society. Erasmus’ work 330 Needless to say, lunatics or idiots were not especially recruited as official hangmen in the later Middle Ages. But the public executioner’s job and the social origin and criminal background of some office holders, were sufficient reasons for some persons to doubt these professional’s moral and intellectual capacities, a fate shared by many marginal categories in contemporary society. In those rare chronicle texts that more extensively and neutrally comment upon the executioners of urban reality, the issue of folly is by no means central. In Vigneulles’ and Roye’s works, for example, where these professionals are given more space than was customary, the hangman often appears, with this respect, as quite a ‘normal’ person, a skilled artisan who performs his duties under the criminal justice. I refer here, for example, to Henri Cousin and Jehan Cousin at Paris or to Waulter l’Allemant in the town of Metz. See section 3.3. 331 Augustinus, Confessiones, 45. 332 Eustache Deschamps (c. 1346–1406/7), a poet celebrated by his contemporaries, returned to this very fashionable theme in several poems: the world had become old, foolish and decadent; its end was drawing near. See, for example, Deschamps, Œuvres complètes, I, 113, 203. The renowned Franciscan reformer Bernardino of Siena also regularly stressed in his sermons that the word was in its penultimate stage. Sin, strife, heresy and sedition were rife, foretelling the approach of the end. Mormando 1999, 119. 333 Brant, Das Narrenschiff. A French poet Pierre Rivière made a paraphrase entitled La Nef des folz du monde of Brant’s work. Rivière’s text was first printed in 1497 and it had wide circulation in France. For the connections between fools, folly and the idea of death in both works, see Dubruck 1964, 95-7. 334 Bosch, Ship of Fools. C. 1500. Musée du Louvre, Paris. For the motif of ship of fools in the later Middle Ages, see also Heers 1997, 148-53.

319

CHAPTER 7

evoked both praise and criticism amongst his contemporaries. Conservative circles disapproved of those parts of the Moriæ where Erasmus ridiculed ecclesiastical offices and organisations. Erasmus did his best to make his critics understand that his only aim had been to guide people to the path of virtue and wisdom.335 One form of folly that Erasmus loathed particularly strongly was violence and especially the roaring of war, an attitude that is also visible in the Moriæ as it is in his other writings.336 For Erasmus, the lowest of all human beings was a mercenary – a man ‘worse than a hangman’.337 In products of late medieval culture the executioner was stigmatised in a serious way through the close link with the idea of lack of reason. This motif served to criticise, not only the hangman’s brutality but also the unrestricted aggressiveness, imprudence and lack of consideration in general – an irrational behaviour manifested in all categories of contemporary society. The unchecked aggressiveness of the insane and of some beasts often evoked strong feelings of disgust and fear amongst people in the past. In medieval culture, hangmen were conceived of as repulsive and revolting individuals; they appeared deviant and animal-like in their stupidity and irrationality. Executioners were identified with the insane and beasts that were sensual, aggressive and incapable of rational thinking, they drifted from one vice to another, guided only by base instinct and sensuality. Various ‘representers’ made use of the complex system of metaphors and symbols to define hangmen as a caste beyond that of other people, outsiders to civilised society. Same features were connected with executioners in religious and secular contexts. The figure of the hangman provided a handy instrument in making distinctions between human and bestial, good and evil, an efficient intellectual tool in examinations and criticism concerning the unfavourable instinctual features visible in all kinds of people. Framing and portraying the hangman as stupid or mad signalled disapproval of the kind of violence some professional executioners (and most men) actually employed. This differed from the rational and virtuous use of physical power wielded only by exceptional figures such as warrior-saints and perfect knights. The essential and fundamental message was that man’s violence is usually a form of madness, for man is a depraved creature with imperfect intellect and judgement.

335 As Johan Huizinga has observed, on some occasions Erasmus’ satire sidetracks, for example, when ‘Stultitia’ starts to mock – instead of praising – certain features that the writer himself disliked and despised such as a naive belief in miracles or lust for gambling. Huizinga 1953, 97. See also Harper 2003, 10-11. 336 Erasmus, Éloge de la Folie, 44. 337 Erasmus, Colloqvia, 534.

320

CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION The observations and arguments set forth in the present work seem to contradict the ideas and the theory about the civilising process made famous by Norbert Elias, a theory that is still very fashionable in the field of historical and sociological studies.1 Elias’ ideas have had an important impact on the thinking of many scholars, whilst at the same time being both greatly praised and severely criticised. Obviously, great minds and their works deserve to be examined, read and also criticised more often and more carefully than others. I have maintained that late medieval men did not appreciate of brutality as much as Elias thought and that their disapproval found its clear expression in the figure of the hangman, his negative representations and depictions, which stigmatised not only unchecked aggressiveness but also all sorts of uncivilised behaviour. All the basic elements of a civilising movement were already very visible French and Burgundian society and culture in the fifteenth century.2 At that time the state in its different forms, through the authorities and the leading classes, already tried to tame individuals and persuade them to control themselves physically and mentally. I will now review the basic thrust of Elias’ theory before explaining how, in my view, the representations of the hangman might be related to it. The model elaborated by Norbert Elias suggests that the emergence of stronger central power launches a process that leads members of societies to impose more and more strict self-control (which includes not only the repression of one’s aggressive impulses but also control over all kind of behaviour arising from instincts and bodily needs) whilst novel influences generally trickle down from leading circles (even if the leading circles may also adopt influences from below). Growing specialisation takes place in the social and productive distribution of charges, which leads to a more and more rapid development of science and technology. The magical-religious worldview loses its force when men become more and more capable of shaping and influencing their surrounding world. The personality structure of man changes in the course of all these developments. Individuals become more and more capable of

1

2

Elias, The Civilizing Process I-II, orig. 1939. I have used the 1983 edition. The theory of the civilising process is not actually so novel as one might imagine. One can already find its basic elements in the writings of Germaine de Staël (1766–1817), the leading feminine mind of her time. J. Christopher Herold observes that Staël was one of the first thinkers who rejected the idea that the Middle Ages was a period of darkness and stagnation. She saw it very virile, for example, intellectually, and thought that the Middle Ages was ‘dark’ only to people of her time who knew so little about it. See Herold 1959, 252, 255. Naturally, similar suggestions have been made already earlier. Jean-Claude Schmitt, for example, has shown in his famous study on gestures that the civilisation des moeurs was well advanced in certain cloisters in the twelfth century. See Schmitt 1990. For a critique of Elias’ ideas concerning the process of civilization and physical selfcontrol, see also Cohen 2000, 67.

321

CHAPTER 8

controlling their impulses and more and more sensitive to ‘uncivilised’ behaviour: a threshold of shame arises. In the course of this process of civilising death, violence and base bodily functions are hidden from public life. Not only the spectacle of death but also that of birth and sickness are hidden behind the walls of hospitals. Unchecked, impulsive behaviour is tamed and stripped away. Violence is criminalised. Spitting, urinating and defecating and various practices related to bodily functions became so repulsive that they can no longer even be mentioned or put into words. Individuals learn from early childhood to control these ‘shameful’ needs and inclinations. All these things have to be eradicated from public life and individual practices, because they represent nature in man, the opposite of civilisation and culture, enemy and threat. The emergence of the institution of the official hangman and unfavourable views about executioners in general, were not mutually exclusive or contradictory phenomena but formed an inseparable and essential part of a larger process that aimed, and aims fundamentally and in the long run, at the pacification of society, at the exclusion of violence, pain and death from the everyday experiences of ordinary people and at the automatic adaptation and increase of individual self-control. In the first phase of this process it was crucial to erase violence from the actions of ordinary citizens by transmitting it to the representative of the state, the official hangman, who was a professional of violence. At the same time, the use of physical force was forcefully stigmatised through the executioner’s figures in the representations fashioned and transmitted by leading groups and eventually, by nonprivileged classes as well. This was done by stressing ideas of cruelty and depravity, inferiority, inhumanity and bestiality. The figure of the hangman served not only to denounce violence but also unchecked impulsive behaviour in general. It was defined as unsuitable for respectable, civilised persons, who were virtuous, controlled and rational. At a much later stage, violence, which had obtained a severe criminal stigma,3 was stricken from the hangman and from the whole penal system (during the formation of the modern state) and was substituted by the prison system in many places.4 In brief: during this long process of cultural self-indoctrination the use of capital sentences, physical punishment and torture as well as the official hangman that first incarnated the concept of necessary evil became to epitomize the idea of unnecessary evil in the West. The problem with the theory of civilising is that it easily leads to a severe underestimation of people in the past, not only of late medieval people but also 3

4

322

On the process of the criminalisation of violence during the modern period, see for example Muchembled 1987. In the eighteenth century, the book by a Milanese marquis Cesare Beccaria, Dei Delitti e delle pene (1764), had a considerable influence on attitudes toward physical punishment and torture. It was quickly translated into several languages, and evoked both great interest as well as resistance. Beccaria maintained that the contempt of the hangman was related to the negative views about the death sentence. He strongly disapproved of torture and argued that the penalty of death was inhuman, unethical and useless since history showed that it had never succeeded in preventing crime. He also criticised the inequality in the use of death penalties and torture in his time. Naturally, judicial violence does not always imply state violence. Until the nineteenth century it was mostly local in Europe. In history most diverse groupings of men have often employed physical penalties as a means to deal with those who break the community’s norms and laws. In addition, the essential function of punishing has often been other than violence as such, or provoking pain. As shown by Esther Cohen, in the late Middle Ages judicial punitive rituals had an important instructive function in the communication between the authorities and the masses; here, violence and pain were not central goals but corollaries. Cohen 1989, 409-10.

CONCLUSION

those of earlier times.5 Norbert Elias has himself actually admitted that one can perceive similar processes even before the early modern period. Evidently, history does not progress in steady steps but in different tempos amongst various sociocultural groups. Elias has also written that in the course of the civilising process phases of recession occur. One might actually think that we are witnessing one of those moments in these times. Our present reality and general cultural trends should prevent modern people being overoptimistic as regards the degree of civility in our contemporary world and also about developments in the near future. In spite of the development of the prison system, the death penalty is still a common legal practice in numerous ‘civilised’ countries.6 When it comes to contemporary cultural trends and the question of cruelty, surely, it does not always seem particularly evident that modern ‘developed’ persons dislike or hate witnessing other people’s suffering. The masses are extremely avid for crime shows, television series, videos and movies with violent scenes, bloodshed and pain: presumably, these elements are found most intriguing and entertaining.7 There are, of course, numerous persons who denounce TV violence as disgusting and subverting.8 Would these persons, then, be more ‘developed’ modern individuals; more sympathetic and more capable of inter-human identification? Or is it rather that the sight of cruelty and pain is unbearable to many of them because suffering does not have any positive significance in their worldview, because they do not and cannot believe in the hereafter (in the manner of people in the past) and in compensation for sufferings borne patiently and humbly

5

6

7

8

It seems to me that things have not much changed since 1977 when Régine Pernoud wrote the Pour en finir avec le Moyen Age. Pernoud observed that ‘Moyen Age signifie toujours: époque d’ignorance, d’abrutissement, de sous-développement généralisé, même si ce fut une époque de sous-développement pendant laquelle on ait bâti des cathédrales! Cela parce que les recherches d’érudition faites depuis cent cinquante ans et davantage n’ont pas encore, dans l’ensemble, atteint le grand public.’ Pernoud 1977, 13. See also Tuomas Heikkilä’s comments in Heikkilä 2003, 301, 305. According to Amnesty International, state officials employed torture during the year 1999 in more than 150 countries, 25 of which were European countries and some also members of the European Union. Corporal punishment, such as cutting off limbs, burning with a hot iron and flagellation were common legal practices in 31 countries. Torture is still a serious problem in our modern world, in spite of the fact that it has been forbidden (as infringing human rights) in several international agreements, the most important of which being the general agreement of the United Nations from 1984. (Kidutus ongelma myös Euroopassa. Turun Sanomat 19.10.2000.) In 2003, illegal executions were carried out in 47 countries and legal ones in 23. The annual report of Amnesty International indicates a positive development: since the mid-90’s, the number of countries employing capital penalties continuously decreased so that by 2004 with 115 abolishing or ceasing to use them. (Annual Report of Amnesty International 26.5.2004. http://www.amnesty.fi.) However, in 2004 there occurred an important increase (at least 3 797 capital executions). Death Penalty: New report shows world executions at second highest level in 25 years. http://amnesty.org.uk/news/press/16034.shtml. Medieval stage violence (its purpose or reception), and especially extensive torture scenes typical of fifteenth century mystery plays, is not a phenomenon really comparable to modern TV violence the central function of which is to entertain. Not only has the cultural meaning of violence and pain changed but the major goals of medieval writers were quite different. The essential purpose of violent elements was to teach, to give negative value to brutal violence and evoke compassion. Both writers and their audiences were well aware of these aspects. For sure, it would be a great mistake to underestimate the alterity of the Middle Ages in this particular context. Several scholars and laymen question to what extent various products of popular culture depicting the scenes of homicide, rape, death, etc., legitimise murderous violence and stimulate aggressive tendencies in modern spectators. Many studies suggest that a relationship exists between the rising level of violence and crime in everyday life, especially violence committed by young persons, and the scenes of violence shown on TV and video (and simulated acts of violence in video and computer games). See, for example, Kytömäki & Paananen (eds.) 1988; Day 1991; Carlson & Feilitzen (eds.) 1998.

323

CHAPTER 8

in this earthly life? Could it be that they often are more motivated by egocentric fears and anxieties than any altruistic feelings, profound sympathy and compassion? Undoubtedly, one can perceive the kind of development Norbert Elias has described occurring in the West over the latest 800 years. There is also good reason to presume that this model could repeat itself in societies with the same kinds of structural changes. It is essential to remember, nonetheless, the great vulnerability of the overall construction, as well as that of the ‘civilised and developed’ modern man, which, for the most part, is an illusion. It is quite evident that if the structures of our civilised world broke down under the impact of some exterior factor, there would soon be a rapid return to the starting positions. Culture and civilisation would give way to ‘natural’ anarchy, the animal in man would raise its head, the evil executioner, who hides in every soul, would step forward. The goal of the present work was to analyse the major signs in representations of the hangman in late medieval France and the Burgundian Netherlands and examine, from this angle, past people’s ways of perceiving, constructing and framing their world. The focus was, on the one hand, on the principal characteristics of the executioner and, on the other hand, on the deep structures and mental equipment in the background, as well as on the interaction between these two levels of culture. My aim was to investigate those techniques and strategies that served to classify and define the executioner and to figure out why hangmen were linked with specific contexts and what quarters and ends this might serve. In previous research the central signs of the executioner had been discussed only very concisely. The hangman has appeared only in a subsidiary role in studies by other scholars, merely as one small subcategory of the vast marginal world or among numerous agents of violence. No one has analysed extensively and in depth his signs, mental images and larger context in the background, that is, those circumstances and factors that explain and make understandable the special characteristics of the hangman’s representations in the culture of the past. The present study cast light on the low esteem and ambiguous attitudes related to professional executioners in late medieval society, which have been noticed and considered peculiar or paradoxical in historical studies concerning the institution of the hangman. It is evident that exploring the executioner’s representations, analysing their constitutive elements and what these can tell us about the basis for past people’s contradictory attitudes towards the hangman (– what ideas this figure could represent in their imagery) is the only reliable way to solve the dilemma, to find explanations for past concepts, opinions and feelings. As the present study belongs to the field of cultural history, the other important goal of this work, besides that of investigating the notions and opinions related to executioners, actual or fictitious, was to examine past people’s ways of seeing, experiencing and perceiving their world in general. From this point of view, the most essential outcome of my study is linked to some fresh insights I have been able to open into ways of framing the boundaries of marginal, the ‘other’, as well as those of acceptable violence, which were narrower than has often been thought. At the same time, the exploration of the signs associated with hangmen brought new

324

CONCLUSION

light to various tactics for resisting or supporting different modes of behaviour considered desirable or undesirable in late medieval society and culture. The figure of the executioner was considered to be a most useful instrument of defining and showing contrasts between good and evil, with the obvious purpose of influencing. Medieval image-making techniques (with metaphorical, stimulating, edifying, propagandistic, or ritualistic aspects and aims) were much more developed and complex than later times have often realised. In previous historical research, the attitudes related to the institution of the hangman have been examined merely to the extent they found their manifestation at the level of everyday practices and gestures and were made visible in archive material. However, unconventional literary source material, for example drama, can provide very fruitful evidence for the historian, not only when the aim is to study ways of giving meaning to the hangman but also the larger context of late medieval culture, common practices and dominant ideas. In fifteenth-century France, drama was one of the most important forums where the executioner’s image was framed, defined and transmitted to a large audience. In this dramatic material one can also find glimpses of the ordinary people’s notions and opinions. The testimony of drama material is very rewarding, because in numerous plays, executioners occupied central roles. Since torturers of Christian martyrs were always strongly contemporised, they can offer us important clues to the ways of how actual professional executioners in urban reality were perceived, besides permitting one to study the ways the category of the hangman was defined in general. In my work a central role was given to the testimony offered by visual material, different types of images (panel paintings, miniatures, etc.) aimed at differrent publics. It is evident to me that pictorial sources can help the historian to form a much fuller picture of the ways the hangman was seen and classified in the Middle Ages, and of past people’s ways of perceiving their world on the whole. Pictures, just as mystery plays, were employed and perceived as critical mirrors of society. Both contained and expressed medieval ‘representers’’ statements, praises, accusations and reproaches concerning contemporary figures, whether actual hangmen or other persons, commenting on their character, behaviour and habits. Ignoring the testimony offered by pictorial material has, sadly, been very common in much of the historical research focusing on topics related to violence, law and the penal system in the later Middle Ages, regardless of the fact that at that time, pictures were essential propaganda instruments, used by both the lay authorities and the Church. Not only secular pictorial material but also religious art can offer very valuable evidence about beliefs, notions and opinions relating to the various agents of violence in late medieval culture. Usually, the executioners of Christian saints did not appear to medieval people (artists, patrons, wider audiences) as important and powerful mythical personages but merely as the anonymous henchmen or instruments of Evil, wicked individuals exemplifying the many deplorable faults of humankind. Executioners of saintly figures were depicted as kindred or identical to hangmen in secular pictures, as caricatured contemporary types. Obviously, contemporising the executioner made him a much more powerful instrument for educating

325

CHAPTER 8

and influencing; it facilitated and intensified the processes of identification and assimilation with innocent victims. Exploring the signs connected to hangmen can provide much important information for historical research in the examination of textual as well as pictorial source material. Through closer analysis, the many words and expressions related to the executioner can give the most valuable clues to past attitudes and ways of thinking and reasoning. The same is true of any detailed investigation of visual signs in the abundant pictorial testimony from the medieval period. Similar methods can be applied to different source materials. When the aim is to unravel and decode the meanings of signs in various products of culture, one has essentially to map the semantic field of every motif, verbal or visual, and to examine their larger cultural background.9 Naturally, one should never forget that in the later Middle Ages, the language of iconography had its own conventions and rules, sometimes quite different from the various traditions of verbal or literary expression and everyday practices. When examining representations, in general, I consider it worthwhile to investigate their complex relationship with past reality. In the present study, my method was to compare the representations related to hangmen with historical facts and details as extensively as possible (– not much is known about actual professional executioners, more is known about issues and phenomena the hangman epitomised or reflected in late medieval culture –) and to examine various intersections, those points where mental images and their written or artistic expressions coincided, or, alternatively, clearly differed or contradicted actuality. It is evident that during the late Middle Ages, representations and depictions of the hangman continuously served to nurture history and vice versa. The present study resulted in several intriguing observations and conclusions. A close examination of the terminology of the hangman suggested that particular words and expressions played an important role and function in the processes of classification and framing relating to the executioner. Opinions and attitudes concerning the official hangman were efficiently expressed and signalled through the choice of professional names. The terminology favoured in official language transmitted messages indicating scorn and rejection: even if he was an aide to justice, a hangman had neither honour nor unreserved approval and support. In popular language the strategies of stigmatisation were very diverse. A wide range of ambiguous nicknames and expressions existed, which often had grimly humorous connotations. The abundant popular terminology used of the hangman tells us about very negative concepts and opinions, strong feelings of antipathy, as well as eager efforts to control fears and anxieties relating to this sinister figure. In literary works the executioner’s ambiguous image was also expressed and produced by means of fictitious names. In religious drama, for example, torturers of martyrs were actively linked to such ideas as brutal violence and cruelty, marginality and penury, defective reason and sin. Many fictitious names made hangmen appear 9

326

It is indispensable to take into consideration not only the attribution but also assignment and adoption of particular characteristics or pointers.

CONCLUSION

both hideous and ridiculous at the same time. Some writers made use of the first names of famous executioners from day-to-day reality and linked these to negative contexts and unpleasant associations. For a cultural historian silences are often as important clues to past attitudes as ideas and opinions expressed verbally. Thus, certain contexts where mention of the hangman was systematically avoided are also most revealing. The best example is perhaps offered by late medieval legal experts, who regularly ignored the hangman in their texts dealing with the functions, rights and duties of the various agents of justice. The namelessness in the known context of the executioner was a very efficient way to signal his rejection and exclusion. One can truly speak about a ‘conspiracy of silence’ in this particular context. A detailed examination of various aspects of the hangman’s visual image revealed many intriguing observations. The executioner’s outfit and the notions and opinions expressed through it had a noteworthy significance for people in the past. The messages transmitted by this particular means were efficient because of the essential importance of clothing as an indicator of social taxonomy and moral character in late medieval society and culture. The executioner’s habit had several attributes that served to point to an inferior social status and bad character, such as its striped pattern, negative colour combinations, incompleteness of outfit, and extravagant accessories. Illuminators had a simple and efficient way to ensure the negative reading of chosen attributes by spectators. It sufficed to systematically depict, in one and the same manuscript, certain elements connected with all sorts of low and evil individuals, unpleasant ideas and stigmatic motifs. Obviously, the various signs related to clothing supported each other’s message when appearing together. In the later Middle Ages, this technique of stereotyping, based on dress codes, was a powerful instrument for framing and establishing social hierarchies and transmitting more general moral judgments. In religious iconography the multicoloured, indecent habit of the executioner also functioned as a symbol for the depravity of mankind. Physical features also had an important significance in efforts to give a meaning to the executioner or comment on other topics via his figure. Therefore, it was by no means trivial to focus on a detailed examination of such typical attributes of the visual portrayals of hangmen as facial features and expressions, hair and beard, gestures and postures. At the end of the Middle Ages, physical appearance and bodily impression were considered very essential clues to a person’s intellectual capacities and morality. People of the past understood an individual’s outer looks as a manifestation and reflection of his or her inner being, ‘self’ or soul. Hence, it is not particularly surprising that the executioner usually carried, in his physical appearance, the message of a wretched moral character and an imperfect intellect. The ways of seeing the executioners’ bodily aspects revealed themselves as very negative when examined both in the context of iconographical conventions as well as in the literary tradition of the popular science of physiognomy. The negative framings both expressed and strengthened the prevailing unfavourable concepts and opinions about the moral character of executioners as well as about physical deviancy in general. It is worth noting that there was no essential difference in the depictions of

327

CHAPTER 8

the executioner’s physical being in religious and secular art; the same typical attributes appeared in both forums, on hangmen serving the bad justice of infidels or on those carrying out sentences ordered by legitimate Christian authorities. In religious art, the hangman's figure was often employed to point to ideas of sin and perdition, to the wickedness of humankind. In profane art the executioner’s physical appearance also reminded spectators of vice and death. It strongly emphasised the concept of fundamental otherness; a hangman was often marked as an outsider to courteous, civilised society. An investigation of the connotations relating to the hangman’s verbal expression also proved to be quite rewarding. In religious drama, features typical of the executioner’s language were swearing, coarse jokes, repetitions, and vociferousness, etc. These categories of verbal expression carried very unfavourable associations and were exploited to express, construct and enforce the image of the executioner’s bad character and defective wit. In late medieval society and culture, language provided an important basis for identifying and classifying people. Preachers and writers of conduct books and moral treatises taught that one should follow the ideal of moderation, not only in bodily gestures but also in words and conversation. It was frequently underlined that a wise and virtuous person only talked a little and used beautiful and controlled language. The representations of the hangman’s language were diametrically opposite to this ideal. Dramatists, for example, made an efficient use of numerous and complex verbal codes in their efforts to denounce pitiless executioners of Christian saints and, at the same time, all of depraved mankind on its way to perdition. As all signs closely linked to the images of hangmen’s outward features carried a message of their imperfect mental equipment and moral flaws, it was crucial to examine this theme in depth and from several angles. In representations concerning the executioner’s temperament and inner being, cruelty was the most prominent feature. The kind of cruelty the hangman often exemplified was considered a serious defect. Later times, however, have often had difficulty in fully understanding this aspect of late medieval culture. In fact, sensitivity to cruelty increased a lot during the late Middle Ages. Cruelty became a major cultural issue and this concept was more and more often manipulated for political, ideological and religious ends. The figure of the executioner served, for numerous groups, as an instrument of classification and influence, a device that permitted ‘representers’ to mark their distance from cruelty and affirm their own charity and justness. In representations relating to hangmen’s inward qualities and inclinations, general viciousness, and particularly a lust for drinking and gambling, was also an essential trait. In late medieval society, tavern life and its usual forms, drinking and gambling, were understood as a source of many kinds of depravity. These features were particularly closely linked to the lifestyle of marginal categories. The authorities and moralists tried to stave off the impact of these pastimes by means of legislation, sermons and warnings but with rather meagre results. The close linking of drinking and gambling to executioner figures not only served to define them as evil individuals but also to mark these activities as base, sinful, and quite unsuitable for all decent persons and believers interested in the salvation of their soul. A hangman

328

CONCLUSION

might also be associated with numerous other negative tendencies, vices and sins in the products of culture. Obviously, in religious art and literature, the important function of the executioner was to incarnate vice, to serve as an anti-model, i.e. an example of inclinations and habits to be avoided, in the same manner as saintly figures served as symbols and models of virtue and ideal behaviour. The idea of defective wit was also central to representations of the hangman. This emphasis was connected with many unfavourable opinions about stupidity and insanity, folie, in late medieval culture. At that time, wit was greatly appreciated and admired, whilst deficient reason was often associated with servility, sin and the animal kingdom even if the negative framing was not totally systematic. More positive or sympathetic opinions and explanations also existed. Whilst stupidity was frequently despised or ridiculed in the Middle Ages, insanity was not only mocked but also often feared, because to the medieval mind lunatics appeared dangerously brutal and violent. An imperfect intellect was a feature that made a person similar to madmen, children and beasts in both learned and popular imagery. These views explain the close link between the executioner and mental disorders in the products of past culture. A hangman’s cruelty and coarse viciousness were seen as the natural consequences of his lack of reason. Like the insane and beasts, executioners were often perceived and represented as incapable of controlling their instincts and impulses. Linking the hangman with the idea of mental insanity served to define uncontrolled aggressiveness and cruelty as inhuman (bestial) behaviour and a form of madness. The figure of the executioner provided a tool for examining and establishing the contrast between the rational and irrational, human and bestial, right and wrong, good and evil. In researching this study I also have tried to pay some attention to the hangman figures in products from other European cultures in the period of the later Middle Ages. The terminology of the executioner in different countries and languages had many similar features. The lower classes had a wide range of nicknames referring to the hangman that had quite negative connotations. It is a question of a habit that became a universal and long-term European phenomenon. Regarding literary evidence and the topics of the hangman’s verbal expression and character, drama material from late medieval English culture, for example, shows that the basic tone was as rude and vulgar as in French plays. Here bloodthirsty torturers injure and slander in a fairly analogous manner to their French colleagues. Numerous examples from Italian, Spanish, German, and Scandinavian pictorial material show us that visual portrayals of the executioner did not differ greatly from one country and region to another. Only minor divergences can be discovered, whilst the rudimentary elements are the same, as regards the hangman’s outfit or his physical appearance – pattern and shape of clothing, facial features, bodily expression, etc. The language of iconography was definitely an international idiom in late medieval Europe – much more universal than any spoken language. These brief remarks about the similarities between European cultures are not particularly surprising. Earlier scholars have noticed that hostility towards the hangman was a general European phenomenon and found numerous manifestations at the level of everyday practices. The system of values and attitudes and opinions

329

CHAPTER 8

relating to violence and cruelty, as well as to other aspects of the executioner’s figure (such as indecency in dress, bodily imperfection, uncivil gestures and manners) evidently did not totally vary in the different corners of Christian Europe. Needless to say, the tactics of giving verbal or visual form to diverse notions and opinions also had a lot in common. Nevertheless, a closer examination of various interpretations of the hangman and their cultural differences, even if slight, could offer material for further discussion on the topic of cultural transmission in late medieval Europe.10 My observations suggest that the hostile attitude towards official hangmen at the level of everyday reality in the period of late Middle Ages was not a paradoxical phenomenon, as many scholars have maintained, but quite a logical and unavoidable reaction from the point of view of medieval people’s ways of reasoning and ways of perceiving the world, as well as the general social, political and cultural standpoints and developments of their day. The era during which the institution of the official hangman became established was a phase of active image-making in France and the Low Countries. The executioner’s representations were forcefully moulded and defined in many forums of cultural production. This intensive activity arose from a need to frame, crystallise and establish the content of the new professional category in criminal justice, to define the official executioner’s place in the social hierarchy and to mark out the boundaries of acceptable violence in the period of state formation and monopolisation of violence, of great mortality and obsessive fear of pain. At the same time the hangman was considered to be a most useful instrument for thinking and general influencing, of examining most various topical questions by writers and painters (especially, by their commissioners and patrons). Through this clear symbolic figure central values might be expressed in a forceful way.11 Thus, the executioner’s representations functioned as important tools for classifying and framing, which pointed on the one hand, towards actual executioners and, on the other, to the rest of the society of men. It is evident that, from a very early stage, the executioner was not only perceived but also actively categorised and constructed as an lower class and an incarnation of various negative ideas, such as the wrong kind of aggressiveness, vice and sin. This technique served to support, enforce and renew prevailing social hierarchies, ideological structures and value systems, in the period where these were felt to need such support. Categories that crystallised the ideal were the good ruler, the perfect knight and the saint. Through the hangman’s figures, individual or collective ‘representers’ could condemn as dishonourable and vile all use of physical power practised by people other than the honourable, the wise and the virtuous, i.e. 10 All the hangman’s signs appearing in different textual (documentary or literary) and pictorial sources could profit from quantitative studies. They should be examined systematically in order to acquire exact numerical data that could help one to notice possible sub-themes and variations under major categories of the signs connected to executioners, shifts in trends, in the use of attributes, indicating possible changes in value systems. 11 Executioners were often placed in central positions in paintings and pictures but their role in the act was essentially instrumental. The principal issue was vested in other persons and acts. The same was true for literary products; in narratives, the hangman was regularly employed as a ‘mediator’ about general moral values and ideas.

330

CONCLUSION

mainly Christian knights and soldier-saints. From the perspective of the authorities, the negative representation of the hangman often served to make the monarch and other agents of justice appear in a more favourable light, not to mention its evident function as a warning to all potential malefactors to eschew the path of crime.12 The lower classes could, for their part, use the negative representation of the hangman as a weapon against these new, loathed professionals and also against leading groups. For example, by using the pejorative terminology, lesser people could express their opposition (that concerned, fundamentally, capital executions and severe penalties of mutilation); the powerless servant of criminal justice became a focus of ‘displaced abjection’.13 The stigmatic representation of the executioner could be useful not only in reviling the wrong kind of violence but also in resisting many features and inclinations considered to be unpleasant and undesirable in society. The hangman’s figure was employed to define those features and modes of behaviour considered normal, acceptable and good by creating contrasts (his function was to enforce the positive view about the main theme of the ‘representer’). The executioner helped the people in the past to examine their own virtuousness or viciousness, their own humanity, which seemed threatened or at least blurred and uncertain at a time of increasing anxieties. The hangman could be used as a projection for various repressed desires or fears: people could project on to him all those qualities and features that they disliked in themselves and that they tried to repress. The executioner served as a scapegoat for men’s own faults and as a most handy instrument for all kinds of speculation. The hangman was one icon or intellectual tool among many others in late medieval culture. One similar omnipresent negative figure was, for example, ‘the monster’ in its various human and animal forms (wildman, giant, dragon, etc.), investigated by Claude Lecouteux (3. ed. 1999) or ‘the marginal’ (sorcerers, heretics, fools) examined by Jelle Koopmans (1997),14 or Judas studied by Michel Pastoureau (2004).15 Numerous evil, monstrous or marginal figures could be used in very similar functions and goals and usually they shared many attributes (physical, moral) in medieval imagery and various products of culture. It is quite evident that an important context to be taken into account when attempting to study and explain attitudes towards the hangman and these other disliked categories, professions or social groupings is the birth of the guilt mentality and fiction of the ‘other’ it generated in the period of the later Middle Ages. Jean Delumeau has very convincingly examined the genesis of this besetting mentality in his famous works.16 The obsession with guilt arose from the shock impact of a series of crises and of the great need to find explanations for these. The medieval mind found the true reason for all misfortunes in the guilt and sinfulness of man. Leading theologians explained that the roots of this blackness of soul went back to the Fall. Numerous persons, 12 Just as the Devil’s omnipresent figure warned all believers about the consequences of sinning. 13 A common process whereby lower social groups turned their power (figurative or actual) instead of those in authority against their servant. See Camille 2003, 260. 14 For the figure of the wild-man in late medieval culture, see also Schwam-Baird 2002. 15 See Pastoureau 2004, 197-209; see also Pastoureau’s analyses about the ways to view the woodcutter, the charcoal maker and the dyer in medieval culture. Pastoureau 2004, 87, 173-95. 16 Delumeau 1978; Delumeau 1983.

331

CHAPTER 8

learned and unlearned, were convinced that the whole society of men was depraved and deserved be punished. As a result of this growing obsession, late medieval culture actively started to produce a ‘fiction of the other’. The various henchmen of Evil, who were thought to threaten society both from inside and out, became targets of more and more intense description and definition. Thus, the official hangman was closely associated with other suspicious marginal categories of society. One may think that in this the aim was not one of total rejection, as was the case with such groups as heretics and sorcerers, but that the question was more about efforts at control and reintegration through the practices and processes of exclusion. Unlike these other groups, the official executioner was perceived as a perfect incarnation for the concept of necessary evil. Negative image-making regarding the hangman was not self-contradictory but a quite inevitable and consistent development. It also had an unfavourable impact on beliefs and attitudes concerning actual professional executioners; scorn and hostility prevailed, which strengthened these opinions. This factor also had a significant effect on attitudes relating to professional hangmen in the perspective of the longue durée. Once the image of the depraved and cruel executioner was fossilised in general imagery, it continued to nurture suspicion and common rejection. Lastly, it should be observed that not only has the edifying and propagandist function of hangman figures, which stressed their grotesque and violent features, sometimes been ignored or misunderstood by scholars but also their function as instruments of divine invocation: the negative image and portrayal of the executioner was often a message aimed also at the Almighty, an assurance of the community’s Christian values and ideals. It is essential to note that late medieval people always took the ‘other dimension’ into consideration in all their preoccupations. All my observations suggest, in total, that the executioner was stigmatised by means of numerous procedures and techniques in late medieval culture. People in the past – various speakers, writers and artists, rich and poor, learned and common people – made use of very varied and complex verbal and visual signs in their efforts to form and express unfavourable representations. These signs often appeared in texts and pictures in series or thematic groups (in connection with several negative figures or ideas), tactics that served to strengthen the ‘representer’s’ message. Thereby signs achieved their full meaning and impact just through their context and not as individual objects. My evidence supports the conclusions of those scholars who have maintained that later times have underestimated the intellectual capacities and potential of late medieval people.17 The important reason for this misunderstanding is that communication methods and ways of transmitting ideas and opinions have changed and so modern people are often quite incapable of decoding evidence from the past, unable to see the deeper levels of significance in medieval texts and images, which means that one’s overall impression remains much less rich and less complex than it actually was in past reality. Hopefully, my study of the representations of executioners, ubiquitous epitomes of evil in late medieval culture, has succeeded in offering some useful 17 See for example Wirth 1989, 33; Martin 1996, 180.

332

CONCLUSION

points for scholarly debate concerning the value of pictorial and literary materials in historical research: what kind of methodological or epistemological challenges the historian must face when using unconventional sources in his or her research work. Above all, I have aspired to provide a model or paradigm about ways to unravel views, insights and attitudes related to two inextricably linked spheres in the mental universe of the past, namely the realms of good and evil. Omnia quae visibiliter fiunt in hoc mundo, possunt fieri per daemones.18

18 A quotation epitomising general fears in the late medieval period. Huizinga 2002, 373.

333

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 Manuscript Sources Archives nationales, Paris (AN) Série Y (Châtelet de Paris) Livres de couleur: Y2 Livre Rouge vieil. Y3 Livre Rouge. Y4 Livre Vert Vieil. Y5 Livre Jaune petit. Y61 Livre Vert neuf. Y62 Livre Bleu. Y63 Livre Gris. Y64 Livre Rouge neuf. Bibliothèque nationale, Arsenal, Paris (BN Arsenal) 1186 Psautier latin, dit de Saint Louis (or madame Blanche, mère de S. Louis) C. 1230. Miniatures. 1189 Heures à l’usage de Reims. Fifteenth century. Miniatures. Bibliothèque nationale, Paris (BN) French manuscripts (ms. fr.): 30 Le Rommans de Titus Livius (Ab urbe condita). Transl. by Pierre Bersuire. Paris, first quarter of the fourteenth century. Miniatures by Maître d’Egerton. 50 Miroir historial de Vincent de Beauvais (Speculum historiale). Transl. by Jean de Vignay. Paris, 1463. Miniatures by a French artist. 53 Mansel, Jean. La Fleur des histoires. C. 1500. Miniatures. Copied and painted in the atelier of Jean Colombe. 127 Boccace, Jean. Des cas des nobles homes et femmes (De casibus). Transl. by Laurent du Premierfait. Third quarter of the fifteenth century. Miniatures. 201-2 Boutillier, Jehan. Somme rural. Prologue par Jehan Paradis qui transcrivit l’ouvrage en 1471 pour le sire de la Gruthuyse. Bruges, 1471. Miniatures by Loyset Liédet. 299 Mansel, Jean. La Fleur des histoires. Belgium, second part of the fifteenth century. Miniatures. 541 Le livre d’Ethiques d’Aristote. Transl. by Nicholas Oresme. 1441. Miniatures. 874 Les epistres d’Ovide (Heroides). Transl. by Octovien de Saint-Gelais. Paris, 1496–1498. Miniatures. 1023 Le Grant, Jacques. De Bonnes meurs. Fifteenth century. Miniatures.

335

2090-2 Yves, moine de Saint-Denis. La vie de St Denis (Vita et passio beati Dionysii). 1317. Miniatures made in an atelier active in Paris c. 1315–1320. 2643-6 Froissart, Jean. Chroniques. (Livres I-IV.) Bruges, 1470–1475. Miniatures by Loyset Liédet (atelier). 2813 Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V. Paris, c. 1380. Miniatures by numerous artists active at the Parisian court, including a number from the atelier of the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy. 5278 Etablissement le roi de France selon usage de Chastelet de Paris. Thirteenth century. Miniatures. 5337 Coutumes de Normandie. Fourteenth century. Drawings (dessins à plume). 6448 Voragine, Jacopus da. Légende Dorée. Fifteenth century. Miniatures. 6465 Chroniques de Saint-Denis (Grandes Chroniques de France). Tours, c. 1459. Miniatures by Jean Fouquet. 7645 Affaires criminelles. 1391–1762. 9186 Romain, Henri. Abrégé de Tite-Live, Compendium historial, et autres textes de divers auteurs. C. 1470. Miniatures by Master François. 12536 Mystère. Valenciennes, c. 1547. Watercolours by Hubert Caillaux, 1577. 20313 Titus Livius. Histoires. Fifteenth century. Miniatures. 20352-3 Grandes Chroniques de France. I-II. Fifteenth century. Miniatures. 21731 Affaires criminelles. Collection N. De Lamare. T. VII. 22542 Mézières, Philippe de. Songe du vieil pelerin. 1452–1473. 154 919 920 924 1023 1052 4915

7432 9471 9474

336

Italian manuscripts (ms. ital.): Manual of the brotherhood of death in Bologna. Sixteenth century. Latin manuscripts (ms. lat.): Grandes Heures du duc de Berry (Horae ad usum Parisiensem). 1409. Miniatures sometimes attributed to Jacquemart de Hesdin. Heures de Louis de Laval (Horae ad usum romanum). Minatures started c. 1470 by a painter belonging to the circle of Fouquet and completed c. 1485 by Jean Colombe. Horae ad usum Trecensem. Fifteenth century. Miniatures. Bréviaire de Philippe le Bel (Breviarium Parisiense). Paris, c. 1296. Miniatures by Master Honoré. Bréviaire de Charles V (Breviarium Parisiense). 1364–1370. Miniatures by Jean Le Noir. Colonna, Giovanni. Mare historiarum. C. 1447–1455. Miniatures by André d’Ypres (known as the Master of Jouvenel des Ursins), Colin d’Amiens (known as the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio), Boethius Master and others. Astrologia Judiciaria & aliae Artes divinatrices. Before 1488. Miniatures. Grandes Heures de Rohan (Horae ad usum Parisiensem). 1430–1435. Miniatures by the Rohan master (a Parisian atelier). Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne (Horae ad usum romanum). Tours, c. 1503– 1508. Miniatures by Jean Bourdichon.

10484 Bréviaire de Belleville (Breviarium ad usum fratrum predicatorum). Paris, 1323–1326. Miniatures by Jean Pucelle and his workshop. 18014 Petites Heures de Jean de Berry. C. 1372–1390 in several stages. Miniatures by Jean Le Noir, Jacquemart de Hesdin, Pseudo-Jacquemart, another anonymous artist and the Limbourgs (1 miniature). 18026 Heures de Jean de Montauban. Paris, c. 1440. Miniatures by a Breton artist. n. a. lat. 3093 Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry. Paris, Bourges ( ?), c. 1380–1412. Miniatures by Master of the Parement de Narbonne (Jean d’Orléans?), Master of the Holy Ghost, Master of John the Baptist. 3

Dutch manuscripts (ms. néerlandais) Bible. Flanders, fifteenth century. Miniatures.

British Library, London (BL) Add. Ms. 18850 The Bedford Hours. Paris, c. 1423. Minitures by Bedford Master and workshop including the Master of the Golden Legend of Munich. 2 Printed Sources Aquinas (Saint Thomas d’Aquin). Summa theologiae, 1a, Q75-83. L’âme humaine. Somme théologique. 61 vols. Transl. by J. Wébert. Desclée & Cie: Paris 1949. ——— Summa theologiae, 1a, Q90-102. Les origines de l’homme. Somme théologique. 61 vols. Transl. by A. Patfoort. Desclée & Cie: Paris 1963. ——— Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q63-66. La justice. Somme théologique. Les péchés d’injustice. I. 61 vols. Transl. by. C. Spicq. Desclée & Cie: Paris 1934. ——— Summa theologiae, 2a-2æ, Q155-170. La tempérance. Somme théologique. 61 vols. Transl. by P. Vergriete. Desclée & Cie: Paris 1970. ——— Summa theologiae, Suppl., Q87-99. Le monde des ressuscités. Somme théologique. 61 vols. Transl. by Réginald-Omez. Desclée & Cie: Paris 1961. L'arbre des batailles d'Honoré Bonet. Ed. by Ernst Nys. C. Muquardt: Bruxelles 1883. Aristotle. The Nichomachean Ethics. Transl. by Harris Rackham. Wordsworth: Ware 1996. Augustine (Augustinus). Confessiones. Ed. by H. Juergens & W. Schaub. B.G. Teubner: Stuttgart 1969. ——— De civitate Dei libri I-XXII. Corpvs Christianorvm. Series Latina XLVIII. Avrelii Avgvstini Opera Pars XIV, 1-2. Brepols: Tvrnholti MCMLV. Auton, Jean d'. Chroniques de Louis XII. I-IV. Ed. by R. de Maulde la Clavière. Paris 1889–1895. Basin, Thomas. Histoire de Louis XI. II. Ed. by Charles Samaran. Belles Lettres: Paris 1966. Beaumanoir, Philippe de. Les Coutumes du Beauvoisis. I-II. Ed. by Comte de Beugnot. Jules Renouard: Paris 1842. Le Bestiaire. Texte intégral traduit en français moderne par Marie-France Dupuis et Sylvain Louis. Reproduction en fac-similé des miniatures du manuscrit du Bestiaire Ashmole 1511 de la Bodleian Library d’Oxford. Présentation et 337

commentaires de Xénia Muratova et Daniel Poirion. Philippe Lebaud: Paris 1988. Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem. Adiuvantibus B. Fischer, I. Gribomont, H.F.D. Sparks & W. Thiele. Recensuit et brevi apparatu critico instruxit R. Weber. Editionem quartam emendatam cum sociis B. Fischer, H. I. Frede, H.F.D. Sparks & W. Thiele. Praeparavit R. Gryson. Deutsche Bibelgesell-schaft: Stuttgart 1994. Bodel, Jean, trouvère artésien du XIIe siècle. Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas. Ed. by Alfred Jeanroy. Champion: Paris 1925. Boethius. Philosophiae consolationis. The Theological Tractates & The Consolation of Philosophy. With the English translation. Harvard UP: Cambridge, MA MCMLIII. Boileau, Etienne. Le livre des métiers du XIIIe siècle. Ed. by René de Lespinasse et François Bonnardot. Slatkine: Genève 1980. ——— Reglements sur les arts et métiers de Paris, sédigés au XIIIe siècle. Ed. by G.-B. Depping. Paris 1837. Brant, Sebastian. Das Narrenschiff. Ed. by Karl Goedeke & Julius Tittmann. J.U. Brockhaus: Leipzig 1872. Cagny, Perceval de. Chroniques. Ed. by H. de Moranvillé. SHF: Paris 1902. Canterbury, Anselm of (Anselme de Cantorbéry). Cur Deus homo. Pourquoi Dieu s’est fait homme. Texte latin. Introduction, bibliographie, traduction et notes de René Roques. Sources chrétiennes No 91. Cerf: Paris 1963. Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. Ed. by Franklin P. Sweetser. Droz: Genève 1966. Chartier, Jean. Chronique de Charles VII, Roi de France. I-II. Ed. by Auguste Vallet de Viriville. P. Jannet: Paris 1858. Chastellain, Georges. Œuvres. I-VIII. Ed. by Kervyn de Lettenhove. Bruxelles 1863– 1866. Chaucer, Geoffrey. Canterbury Tales. Ed. by A.C. Cawley. Everyman’s Library: London 1958. La Chesnaye, Nicolas de. La Condamnation de Banquet. Edition critique par Jelle Koopmans & Paul Verhuyck. Droz: Genève 1991. La Chirurgie de maître Henri de Mondeville. Traduction contemporaire de l'auteur. I-II. Ed. by A. Bos. Firmin Didot: Paris 1897–1898. Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin par Cuvelier [trouvère du XIVe siècle]. II. Ed. by E. Charrière. Paris 1839. Chronique de Jean le Bel. I-II. Ed. by Jules Viard & Eugène Déprez. Champion: Paris 1977. Chronique de Mathieu d'Escouchy. I. Ed. by G. du Fresne de Beaucourt. Jules Renouard: Paris 1863. La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles. I-IV. Ed. by Charles Bruneau. Société d'histoire et d'archéologique de la Lorraine: Metz 1927–1933. Chronique du religieux de Saint Denys, contenant le règne de Charles VI, de 1380 à 1422, publiée en latin pour la première fois et traduite par M.L. Bellaguet. Vols. IVI. Paris 1839–1852. Chronique et annales de Gilles le Muisit. Ed. by H. Lemaître. SHF: Paris 1906.

338

Chronique normande du XIVe siècle. Ed. by Auguste et Emile Molinier. SHF: Paris 1882. Chronique parisienne anonyme du XIVe siècle. Ed. by A. Hellot. Nogent-le-Rotrou 1884. Coinci, Gautier de. Histoire du larron pendu que Notre Dame soutint pendant deux jours. Miracles et mystères: la littérature religieuse au nord de la France. Press du Limonasse 1989. 27-28. Commynes, Philippe de. Mémoires. I-II. Ed. by Joseph Calmette. Champion: Paris 1924. Le compost et Kalendrier des bergiers. Reproduction en fac-simile de l'édition de Guy Marchant (Paris, 1493). Champion: Paris 1926. Confessions et jugements de criminels au parlement de Paris (1319–1350). Ed. by Monique Langlois et Yvonne Lanhers. Paris 1971. Coquillart, Guillaume. Œuvres. II. Ed. by Charles d’Héricault. Bibliothèque elzevirienne: Paris 1857. La Court de Paradis. Poème anonyme du XIIIe siècle. Édition critique d’après tous les manuscrits connus par Eva Vilamo-Pentti. Annales Academiæ Scientiarum Fenniæ. Ser. B. Tom. 79,1. Helsinki 1953. Le coutumier bourguignon glosé (Fin du XIVe siècle). Ed. by Michel Petitjean, MarieLouise Marchand & Josette Metman. CNRS: Paris 1982. Damhouder, Josse [De]. [La] practique et enchiridion des causes criminelles. Estienne Vauters & Iehan Bathen: Leuven 1555. Dante (Dante Alighieri). La Divina Commedia. Ed. by Dino Provenzal. A. Mondadori: Milano 1942. De l’imitation de Jésus-Christ. Transl. by André Beaunier. Bernard Grasset: Paris 1926. Deschamps, Eustache. Œuvres complètes. Ed. by Marquis Queux de Saint-Hilaire & Gaston Raynaud. SATF: Paris 1878–1904. English Mystery Plays. A selection. Ed. by Peter Happé. Penguin: Hammondsworth, Middlesex 1975. Erasmus (Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami). Colloqvia. Opera Omnia. I:3. Ed. by L.-E. Halkin, F. Bierlaire & R. Hoven. North-Holland Publishing Company: Amsterdam 1972. ——— Éloge de la Folie. Suivi de la Lettre d’Érasme à Dorpius. Transl. by Pierre de Nolhac. Garnier: Paris 1936. ——— De Civilitate morum puerilum. Cum interprætatione Danica. Hafniæ 1626. Farce des Maraux enchesnez a trois personnages. Recueil de farces françaises inédites du XVe siècle. Ed. by Gustave Cohen. Cambridge, MA 1949. 327-32. Gerson, Jean. Œuvres complètes. I-X. Ed. by Mgr. Glorieux. Desclée & Cie: Paris 1960–1973. Le grand coutumier de France. Ed. by Edouard Laboulaye & Rodolphe Dareste. (1868) Aalen 1969. Gréban, Arnoul. Le mystère de la Passion. Ed. by Gaston Paris & Gaston Raynaud. Genève 1970. The Hunting Book of Gaston Phébus. Manuscrit français 616, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale. Introduction by Marcel Thomas and François Avril, commentary by Wilhelm Schlag. Harvey Miller: London 1998.

339

Joinville, Jean de. Vie de Saint Louis. Texte établi, traduit, présente et annoté avec variantes par Jacques Monfrin. Garnier: Paris 1995. Journal de Clément de Faquembergue, greffier du parlement de Paris 1417–1435. I-III. Ed. by Alexandre Tuetey. Paris 1903–1915. Journal de Jean de Roye connu sous le nom de Chronique scandaleuse. I-II. Ed. by Bernard de Mandrot. Renouard: Paris 1894–1896. Journal de Nicolas de Baye, greffier du Parlement de Paris. (1400–1417). I. Ed. by Alexandre Tuetey. Renouard: Paris 1885-1888. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449. Ed. by Colette Beaune. Lettres gothiques: Paris 1990. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Premier. (1515–1536). Ed. by. Ludovic Lalanne. Jules Renouard: Paris 1864. Juvenal des Ursins, Jean. Histoire de Charles VI, Roy de France. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France. II. Ed. by Michaud et Poujolat. Paris 1836. 339-569. La Sale, Antoine de. Le Reconfort de Madame de Fresne. D’après les mss. 10748 et II 7827 de la Bibliothèque Royale de Bruxelles. Ed. by Ian Hill. University of Exeter 1979. Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, Jean. Chronique. I-II. Ed. by François Morand. SHF: Paris 1876–1881. Le livre du chevalier de La Tour Landry pour enseignement de ses filles. Publié d’après les manuscrits de Paris et de Londres par M. Anatole de Montaiglon. P. Jannet: Paris MDCCCLIV. Le livre de conduite du régisseur et le compte des dépenses pour le Mystère de la passion joué à Mons en 1501. Ed. by Gustave Cohen. Slatkine: Genève 1974. Le livre de la passion. Poème narratif du XIVe siècle. CFMA. Vol. 64. Ed. by Grace Frank. Champion: Paris 1930. Le Livre des propriétés des choses. Une encyclopédie au XIVe siècle. Ed. by Bernard Ribémont. Stock/ Moyen Âge: Paris 1999. Lorris, Guillaume de & Jean de Meun. Roman de la Rose. I-V. Ed. by Ernest Langlois. Champion: Paris 1914–1924. Maistre Pierre Pathelin. Farce du XVe siècle. Ed. by Richard T. Holbrook. Champion: Paris 1937. Le Martyre de S. Denis et de ses compaignons. Mystères inédits du quinzième siècle. Publ. Achille Jubinal (d'après le mss. unique de la Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève). T. I. (1837). Slatkine: Paris 1977. Le Martyre de S. Étienne. Mystères inédits du quinzième siècle. Publ. Achille Jubinal (d'après le mss. unique de la Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève). T. I. (1837). Slatkine: Paris 1977. 9-24. Le Martyre de S. Pierre et de S. Paul. Mystères inédits du quinzième siècle. Publ. Achille Jubinal (d'après le mss. unique de la Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève). T. I. (1837). Slatkine: Paris 1977. Maupoint, Jean, prieur de La Couture. Journal parisien (1437–1469). Ed. by Gustave Fagniez. Champion: Paris 1878. Les mélancolies de Jean Dupin. Ed. by Lauri Lindgren. Turun yliopisto: Turku 1965.

340

Mémoires de Jacques du Clercq, escuier, sier de Beauvoir en Ternois, commençant en 1448, et finissant 1467. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France. II. Ed. by Michaud et Poujolat. Paris 1836. 607-40. Mémoires de Pierre de Fenin. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France. II. Ed. by Michaud et Poujolat. Paris 1836. 575-628. Le Menagier de Paris. Ed. by Georgine E. Brereton and Janet M. Ferrier. Clarendon: Oxford 1981. Michel, Jean. Le Mystère de la Passion (Angers 1486). Ed. by Omer Jodogne. Duculot: Gembloux 1959. Le Mistere du siege d’Orleans. Ed. by V.L. Hamblin. Droz: Genève 2002. Le Mistére du Viel Testament. I-VI. Ed. by James de Rothschild. Firmin Didot: Paris 1878–1891. Molinet, Jean. Chroniques. I-III. Ed. by Georges Doutrepont & Omer Jodogne. Palais des Académies: Bruxelles 1935–1937. Monstrelet, Enguerrand de. La Chronique. I-IV. Ed. by L. Douët d'Arcq. SHF: Paris 1857–1862. More, Thomas. Utopia. Transl. by Paul Turner. Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex 1965. Le Mystère de la Passion. Texte du manuscrit 697 de la Bibliothèque d'Arras. Ed. by JulesMarie Richard. Arras 1891. Le Mystère de la Passion Nostre Seigneur du manuscrit 1131 de la Bibliothèque SainteGeneviève. Ed. by Graham A. Runnalls. Droz: Genève 1974. Le Mystère de la Passion de Troyes: Mistere de la passion Nostre Seigneur. Troyes XVe siécle. I-II. Ed. by Jean-Claude Bibolet. Droz: Genève 1987. Le mystère de saint Christofle. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Réserve Yf 1606). Texte établi et présenté par Graham A. Runnalls. University of Exeter 1973. Le mystère de saint Laurent. Publié d’apès la seule édition gothique par W. Söderhjelm & A. Wallensköld. Imprimerie de la Société de Littérature Finnoise: Helsingfors 1890. Le mystère de saint Martin. In Duplat, Andre, Le mystère de saint Martin d’Andrieu de la Vigne (1496) d'après le manuscrit 24 332. (Thèse). Université de Lille: Lille 1980. Le mystère de saint Sébastien. Ed. by Léonard R. Mills. Droz: Genève 1965. Nesson, Pierre de. Vigiles des Morts. Pierre de Nesson et ses œuvres. Ed. by A. Piaget & E. Droz: Paris 1923. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Transl. & ed. by Edward MacCurdy. George Braziller: New York 1956. The N-Town Play Cotton MS Vespasian D.8. I-II. Ed. by Stephen Spector. Oxford UP: Oxford 1991. Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisième race. I-XIV. Ed. by De Laurière & al. Paris 1723–1849. La passion d’Auvergne. Une édition du manuscrit nouvelle acquisation française 426 de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. Ed. by Graham A. Runnalls. Droz: Genève 1982. La passion de Biard. La passion d'Autun. Ed. by Grace Frank. SATF: Paris 1934.

341

La passion du Palatinus. Mystère du XIVe siècle. CFMA. Vol. 30. Ed. by Grace Frank. Paris 1922. La passion provençale du manuscrit Didot. Mystère du XIVe siècle. Ed. by William P. Shepard. Champion: Paris 1928. La passion de Roman. La passion d'Autun. Ed. by Grace Frank. SATF: Paris 1934. Pisan, Christine de. Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V. I. Ed. by S. Solente. Champion: Paris 1936. Prier, Jehan du, dit Le Prieur. Le mystère du roy Advenir. Ed. by A. Meiller. Droz: Genève 1970. Proverbes français antérieurs au XVe siècle. Ed. by Joseph Morawski. Champion: Paris 1925. Les .XV. joies de mariage. Ed. by Jean Rychner. Droz: Genève 1967. Recueil de Farces 1450–1550. I-XIII. Ed. by André Tissier. Droz: Genève 1986–2000. Recueil des sermons joyeux. Ed. by Jelle Koopmans. Droz: Genève 1988. Registre criminel de Sainte-Geneviève. In Tanon, Louis, Histoire des justices des anciennes églises et communautés monastiques de Paris. L. Larose & Forcel: Paris 1883. 347-412. Registre criminel de Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In Tanon, Louis, Histoire des justices des anciennes églises et communautés monastiques de Paris. L. Larose & Forcel: Paris 1883. 413-54. Registre criminel de Saint-Martin-des-Champs. In Tanon, Louis, Histoire des justices des anciennes églises et communautés monastiques de Paris. L. Larose & Forcel: Paris 1883. 455-556. Registre de Saint-Denis. In Tanon, Louis, Histoire des justices des anciennes églises et communautés monastiques de Paris. L. Larose & Forcel: Paris 1883. 557-61. Le Roman de Renart. I-VI. Ed. by Mario Roques. Champion: Paris 1948–1963. Le Roman de Renard contrefait. II. Ed. by G. Raynaud & H. Lemaitre. Champion: Paris 1914. Suetonius (Suétone). De vita caesarum libri VIII. Vie des douze césars. I-III. Ed. & transl. by Henri Ailloud. Belles Lettres: Paris 1954–1957. Testaments enregistrés au Parlement de Paris sous le règne de Charles VI. Ed. by Alexandre Tuetey. Paris 1880. The Townley Plays. Re-edited from the unique MS by George England. Oxford UP: London 1952. Villon, François. Ballades en jargon (y compris celles du ms de Stockholm). Texte accompagnée d’une traduction, de notes et d’un glossaire par André Lanly. Champion: Paris 1971. ——— Poésies complètes. Ed. by Claude Thiry. Librairie Générale Française: Paris 1991. La Vision de Tondale (Tnudgal). Textes français, anglo-normand et irlandais. Ed. by V.H. Friedel & Kuno Meyer. Champion: Paris 1907. Voragine, Jacques de. La légende dorée. Ed. by Michel Léturmy. Paris 1956.

342

3 Pictorial Sources For the miniature material from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library, see section 1 Manuscript Sources. Cathédrale de Notre-Dame, Paris Tympan du Jugement Dernier. Central doorway of the West portal. After 1200. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem Memling, Hans (?). Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. C. 1515–1520. Central panel 96 x 76 cm, wings 99,5 x 34,5 cm. Van Heemskerk, Maerten. Jesus Crowned with Thorns. C. 1550. Canvas on panel. Galleria Borghese, Rome Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi). La flagellazione di Cristo. 1527. Oil on panel. 71 x 40 cm. Piombo, Sebastiano del (Sebastiano Luciani). Flagellazione di Cristo. C. 1517. 50 x 39 cm. Solario, Andrea. Cristo Portacroce. C. 1511. Tempera and oil on panel. 58 x 67 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome Metsys, Quentin (1466–1530). Moneylenders. Groeninge Museum, Bruges David, Gerard. Judgment of Cambyses. 1498. Justice diptych for the Council Chamber of Bruges Town Hall. 182,3 x 159,2 cm left panel, 182,2 x 159,4 cm right panel. Master of the Ursula Legend. Legend of St Ursula. Before 1482. 47,5 x 30 cm. Provoost, Jan. Crucifixion. Early sixteenth century. 117 x 172,5 cm. Van Eyck, Jan. Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele. 1436. 122,1 x 157,8 cm. Historical Museum (Historiska Muséet), Stockholm Altarpiece with scenes cut of St Birgitta’s life. Swedish work, second half of the fifteenth century. Törnevalla Church, Östergotland. Historisch Museum, Amsterdam Mount Calvary. C. 1500. Mauritzhuis, The Haag Master of the Legend of St Barbara. Sacrifice to a heathen god. C. 1488. Oil on panel, 97 x 69 cm. Van der Weyden, Rogier. The lamentation of Christ. C. 1450. Oil on panel, 80,7 x 130,1 cm.

343

Medeltidsmuséet, Stockholm Reproductions of hangman figures in the Codex Aboensis. C. 1430. (B 172, Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm) Memling Museum (St John’s Hospital), Bruges Memling, Hans. Madonna on the Throne with Child and Four Saints. 1474–1479. Central panel of the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. 173,5 x 173,5 cm. ——— Martyrdom of John the Baptist. 1474–1479. Left-hand panel of the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. 176 x 79 cm. ——— St Ursula Shrine. Before 1489. Mainly oak, gilded and painted carvings, painted panels, 91,5 x 99 x 41,5 cm. Musée de Cluny (Musée nationale du Moyen Âge), Paris Cercle du peintre Colyn de Coter (patrons). Scènes de la légende de Saint Étienne: 4. Saint Étienne mené au lieu du supplice: son martyre. Choir hanging. Brussels, c. 1500. Wool and silk. Grande Châsse de Sainte Fauste. Beginning of the thirteenth century. Portement de croix. Stained glass window. Chapel of Hôtel de Cluny. Paris, c. 1500. Rétable de la Passion. Antwerp, beginning of the sixteenth century. Scenes of Passion. Germany, end of the fifteenth century. Scènes de la Passion. Altrapiece. Ile-de-France, c. 1350–1360. Abbey of Saint-Denis(?). Stone, polychromatic and gilded. Musée Condé, Chantilly École Italienne de la 1er moitie du XV e siècle. Deux flagellants. Heures d’Étienne Chevalier. Tours, 1452–1460. Miniatures by Jean Fouquet. Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Ms. 65. 1411–1416 and 1485–1489. Miniatures by the Limbourgs (Paul, Jean & Herman), later additions possibly by Barthlélemy d’Eyck and Jean Colombe. (Electronic facsimile.) Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris Bazzi, Giovanni Antonio (dit Le Sodoma. 1477–1549). Il martiro di S. Sebastiano. Mantegna, Andrea (1434–1506). Ecce homo. Musée du Louvre, Paris Bellechose, Henri. Le Retable de Saint Denis. 1415–1416. 162 x 211 cm. Bosch, Hieronymus. Ship of Fools. C. 1500. 57,9 x 32,6 cm. Bouts, Dirk. Hell. 1470. Right wing of the Triptych of the Last Judgement. 116 x 71 cm. Clouet, Jean. François I. C. 1525. 96 x 74 cm. Dürer, Albrecht. Adam and Eve. 1504. Bunn. No 26. Salle 20, Dep. des Arts graphiques. Flagellation. Medallion. Paris (?), beginning of the fifteenth century. Enamel on gold. MR 2604.

344

La flagellation de Christ. Wing of an altarpiece. Thuringe, beginning of the fifteenth century. Hesdin, Jacquemart de. Le Portement de croix. Miniature painted on vellum, fixed on canvas. Probably cut from the Grandes Heures de Duc de Berry (1409). Huguet, Jaime. Flagellation. 1450–1460. 106 x 210 cm. Maître L. Cz., active in Bamberg c. 1490–1500. Flagellation. Mantegna, Andrea. Crucifixion. 1456–1459. 71 x 95 cm. ——— St Sebastian. C. 1480. 255 x 140 cm. ——— Flagellation. No 12. Salle 20, Dep. des Arts graphiques. Martorell, Bernardo. Flagellation of St George. C. 1435. 107 x 53 cm. Memling, Hans. Martyrdom of St Sebastian. C. 1490. Left wing of the Triptych of the Resurrection. Central panel 62 x 44 cm; wings 62 x 18 cm. Miracle de saint Quentin. Northern France (?), second half of the fifteenth century. Tapestry: wool, silk and gilded silver. Le parement de Narbonne, Paris, c. 1375. Altar ornament (black ink on silk) utilised during Lenten period in the Cathedral of Narbonne. 77,5 x 286 cm. Le Portement de croix dans un grand paysage. Attributed to Pseudo-Movaerni. Limoges, end of the fifteenth century. Le Retable du Parlement de Paris. Paris, c. 1455. Painted for the Grand Chambre in Parliament of Paris (probably commanded in 1452). 226,5 x 270 cm. Scènes de la Passion. Left wing of a diptych. Paris, first quarter of the fourteenth century. Ivory. LP 2714. Schumgauer, Martin (Colmar 1445/50–Brisach 1491). Carrying of the Cross. No 18. Salle 20, Dep. des Arts graphiques. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris Les Enluminures. Collection Wildenstein. Manuscript illuminations, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Musei Vaticani, Rome Andrea, Alesso d’. Crocefissione e storie della Passione. C. 1345. Cione, Jacopo di. Storie di S. Pietro. 1370–1371. Cozzarelli, Guidoccio. Episodi della vita di S. Barbara. Second half of the fifteenth century. Daddi, Bernando. Storie di S. Stefano. C. 1345. Giotto. Il redentore in cattedrale e il mart: dei Ss. Pietro e Paolo. (‘Stefaneschi Triptych’) C. 1315. Giovanni d’Ambrogio, Pietro di. Il martiro di S. Vittorino. First half of the fifteenth century. Maestro dell’Osservanza. La Flagellazione di Cristo. 1435–1440. Nardo, Mariotto di. S. Nicola salva tre uomini innocenti. C. 1380. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Bouts, Dirk (or his circle). Saint John Writing the Gospel. 69,8 x 65 cm.

345

Cozzarelli, Guidoccio (active in Siena 1450–1516). The Martyrdom of St Simon the Zealot and St Jude Thaddeus. 22 x 48 cm. Domenico Ghirlandaio’s atelier (or Sebastiano Mainardi, 1460–1513). The Nativity. 27 x 65,5 cm. Foppa, Vincenzo (Brescia, c. 1427–1515/6). Saint Sebastian. 72 x 47 cm. Master of Alkmaar. The Seven Works of Mercy. 1504. Oil on panel, outer panels 101 x 54 cm, the others 101 x 55,5 cm. (On loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.) Master of Haarlem (?). Christ before Pilate. Second half of the fifteenth century. 38,8 x 26,5 cm. Master of St John altar (active in Gouda?). Elizabeth fleeing with her son. C. 1500. 132 x 95 cm. Mostaert, Jan (or the circle of Geerten tot Sint Jans). The Three of Jesse. C. 1500. Oil on panel, 88,5 x 59,5 cm. (On loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.) Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht Christ with the two thieves. Triptych. Oil on panel. Northern Netherlands, c. 1525. The flagellation. Sculpture no. 46. Oak wood. Last quarter of the fifteenth century. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent Bosch, Hieronymus. Christ Carrying the Cross. C. 1510–1516. Oil on panel, 76,7 x 83,5 cm. Provoost, Jan. Crucifixion. C. 1515–1520. 102 x 79,5 cm. National Gallery, London Bosch, Hieronymus. Christ mocked (The Crowning with Thorns). C. 1490–1500. Oil on oak, 74 x 59 cm. NG 4744 David, Gerard. Crucifixion. C. 1480. Oil on oak, 48,3 x 94 cm. NG 3067 Master of Cappenberg (Jan Baegert). Christ before Pilate. C. 1520. NG 2145 Master of Delft. Scenes from the Passion of Christ. C. 1510. Oil on oak, central panel 98 x 105 cm, wings 102 x 50 cm. NG 2922.1-3 Metsys, Quentin (?). A Grotesque Old Woman. C. 1525. Oil on oak, 64 x 46 cm. NG 5769 Pollaiuolo, Antonio & Piero. The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. 1475. Oil on poplar. 292 x 203 cm. NG 292. Sesto, Cesare da. Salome. C. 1510–1520. Oil on poplar. NG 2485 National Museum of Finland (Suomen Kansallismuseo), Helsinki Master Francke. Martyrdom of Saint Barbara. Panel from the St Barbara altarpiece. 1410– 1415. Palazzo Barberini, Rome Anonymous master of the late fifteenth century. S. Sebastiano e S. Caterina. 1480– 1490. Oil on canvas, 249 x 156 cm.

346

Lieferinxe, Josse. Pilgrims at the Tomb of St Sebastian. C. 1497. Oil on panel, 82 x 55 cm. Palazzo Venezia, Rome Pesaro, Giovanni Antonio da (c. 1415–c. 1477). Martirio di S. Biagio. Tempera on panel. Lorenzo, Bicci di (1373–1452). Martirio di Santa Caterina d’Alessandria. (fragment of predella) Tempera on panel. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp Metsys, Quentin. Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. 1508–1511. Right-hand panel of the Triptych of the Ebenists’ Guild. 260 x 120 cm (central panel 260 x 263 cm). Provoost, Jan (c. 1465–1529). Execution of St Catherine. Right-hand panel of a triptych. 94 x 68 cm. Van der Weyden, Goossen. Triptych of Antonius Tsgrooten. 1507. Central panel 33,7 x 25,2 cm, wings 34 x 11 cm. Master of 1518. Execution of St John the Baptist. 89 x 57 cm. Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Musée d’Art Ancien), Brussels Bouts, Dirk. Judgment of Emperor Otho. Wrongful Execution of the Count and Ordeal of the Countess. C. 1470. Oil on wood, 324 x 182 cm each panel. Master of the Legend of St Madeleine. St Mary of Egypt. End of the fifteenth century. Right-hand panel of the Triptych of the Quesnay-Van der Tanney. Sainte-Chapelle, Paris Scènes du martyre. Stained glass windows and mural paintings, 1242–1248. St Olof (Pyhän Olavin kirkko), Kalanti, Finland Henriksson, Petrus. Martyrdom of St Erasmus. 1470–1471. Mural painting, 215 x 210 cm. St Peter, Louvain Bouts, Dirk. Martyrdom of St Erasmus. Saint Hieronymus and Bernard of Clairvaux. C. 1458. Oil on panel. Central panel 82 x 80,5 cm, wings 82 x 34,2 cm. St Saviour’s Cathedral, Brugge Bouts, Dirk. Martyrdom of St Hippolytus. C. 1470–1474. Middle and right wing by Dirk Bouts, left wing by Hugo van der Goes. Victoria & Albert Museum, London Christ carrying the cross. Walnut, painted and gilded. South Netherlandish, c. 1490. A. 3-1921 Dürer, Albrecht. The Large Passion: The Flagellation. C. 1496–1497. E. 705-1940 Plate, with the Judgment of Solomon. Tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica) painted by Master Gonela. Italian (Faenza), c. 1515. Car. No. 270

347

Wallace Collection, London Crivelli, Carlo, (1430/5–1495). Saint Roch. P527 Diptych with scenes from the Passion. Ivory. French, late thirteenth century. S246 Published Picture Material Bosch, Hieronymus. Crowning with Thorns. Oil on panel. El Escorial, Madrid. Picture published in Linfert, Carl, Hieronymus Bosch. Harry N. Abrams INC: New York s.a., 65. ——— Last Judgment. Oil on panel, 23 5/8 x 44 7/8”. Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Picture published in Linfert, Carl, Hieronymus Bosch. Transl. by Robert Erich Wolf. Harry N. Abrahams INC: New York s.a., 44. The burning of the Templars. A 14th-century illumination from the Chronicle of France or of St Denis. British Library. Picture published in Read, Piers Paul, The Templars. Phoenix: London 2003, p. 14 of the pictorial appendix. Les conspirateurs et meurtriers de César sont decapités en presence d’Auguste. In Jean Mansel, La Fleur des histoires, Pays-Bas du Sud, 1447–1460, Bibliothèque royale, Bruxelles. Picture published in Prevenier, Walter (dir.), Le prince et le peuple. Images de la Société du temps des ducs de Bourgogne 1384–1530. Fonds Mercator: Anvers 1998, 111. Cranach the Elder, Lucas. The Martyrdom of St Catherine. C. 1508. 112 x 85 cm. Ráday Collection of the Reformed Church, Budapest. Picture published in Hagen, Rose-Marie & Rainer Hagen, What Great Paintings Say. Vol. 2. Taschen: Köln 2003, 112. Dürer, Albrecht. Auto-portrait. C. 1498. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Picture published in Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), La Pittura Rinascimentale. La gloria dell’arte europea. Electa: Milano 2000, 236. L’écorchement. Miniature de Loyset Liédet in Antoine de la Sale, la Sale. Pays-Bas du Sud. 1461. Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale. Ms. 9287-88, fol. 132r. Picture published in Prevenier, Walter (dir.), Le prince et le peuple. Images de la Société du temps des ducs de Bourgogne 1384–1530. Fonds Mercator: Anvers 1998, 106. L’exécution d’Hugonet, le chancelier de Marie de Bourgogne à Gand en 1477. Miniature attribuée au Maître de Marie de Bourgogne. Wells-next-the-Sea, Holkham Estate Trustees, Ms. 659, fol. 78v. Picture published in Prevenier, Walter (dir.), Le prince et le peuple. Images de la Société du temps des ducs de Bourgogne 1384–1530. Fonds Mercator: Anvers 1998, 99. Flagellation. Beginning of the fourteenth century. Stained glass window, Church of Saint-Fargeau, Yonne. Musée d’art et histoire, Geneve. Picture published in Maalaustaiteen historia. Goottilainen maalaustaide I. Transl. by Yrjö Tiura. Rencontre: Lausanne 1971, 28. Flagellation of Christ. Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, Central portal. C. 1150. Picture published in http://vcroll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/france/-st/gilles Flandes, Juan de. Christ Carrying the Cross. C. 1510. Cathedral of Palencia. Picture published in Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), La Pittura Rinascimentale. La gloria dell’arte europe. Electa: Milano 2000, 211.

348

——— Decapitation of St John the Baptist. 1496–1499. Picture published in Patoul, Birgitte de & Roger Van Schoute (dir.), Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps. Le Renaissance du Livre: Tournai 1998, 576. Francesca, Piero della. Flagellazione. 1450–1460. 59 x 81,5 cm. Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino. Picture published in Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), La Pittura Rinascimentale. La gloria dell’arte europe. Electa: Milano 2000, 119. Funhof, Hinrik. Ein Henker. C. 1483. Picture published in Boockmann, H., Die Städt im späten Mittlealter. München 1987, 159. Gallego, Fernando. Flagellation. C. 1506. Paint on wood, 104 x 76 cm. Museo Diocesano, Salamanca. Picture published in Toman, Rolf (ed.), The Art of Gothic. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting. (1998) Könemann: Cologne 1999, 459. Giotto. L’Ingiustizia. 1305. Scrovegni Chapel, Padova. Picture published in Robert, Christian Nils, [Une allégorie parfaite] La Justice. Vertu, courtisane et bourreau. Georg: Gèneve 1993, 66. Leiden School. Mount Calvary. C. 1520. Oil on panel, 172,5 x 119 cm. Picture published in Van Os, Henk, Jan Piet Filedt Kok, Ger Luijten & Frits Scholten, Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400–1600. Waanders: Amsterdam 2000, 125. Master of Antwerp, Execution of St John the Baptist. 1480–1490. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg. Picture published in Puppi, L., Les supplices dans l'art. Cérémonial des exécutions capitales et iconographie du martyre du XIIe au XIXe siécle. Larousse: Paris 1991, 104. Le mauvais gouvernement: tyrannie, oligarchie, démocratie. In Aristotle, Politiques, Coll. part., fol. 3v. Picture published in La librarie de Charles V. BNF 1968, pl. 22. Mazerolles, Philippe de. Flagellation. The Sforza Book of Hours. 1467. Workshop of the Master Anthony of Burgundy. Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. Fol. 60v. Picture published in Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain, Gothic Art. Transl. by I. Mark Paris. (1983) Harry N. Abrams, Inc.: New York 1989, 465. Memling, Hans. Turin Passion. C. 1480. Oil on wood, 56 x 92 cm. Galleria Sabauda, Turin. Picture published in Toman, Rolf (ed.), The Art of Gothic. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting. (1998) Könemann: Cologne 1999, 421. Metsys, Quentin. Ecce Homo. 1526. Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Picture published in Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), La Pittura Rinascimentale. La gloria dell’arte europea. Electa: Milano 2000, 302. ——— Mocking of Christ. C. 1510. Oil painting, 160 x 120 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Picture published in Ragghianti, Ludovico (ed.), Maailman taideaarteita 5. Prado Madrid. WSOY: Helsinki 1969, 128. Perrugete, Pedro. Autodafé presieduto da San Domenico di Guzmán. C. 1495. Tempera and oil on panel, 154 x 92 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Picture published in Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), La Pittura Rinascimentale. La gloria dell’arte europea. Electa: Milano 2000, 205. Pictures from the Crime Museum. Volume VIII of the publications of the Medieval Crime Museum, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1985. Pisanello. Hanged men. Picture published in Plumb, J.H., Renessanssi. Orig.: The Horizon Book of Renaissance. (1961) Otava: Helsinki 1962, 82.

349

Portement de croix. Stained-glass window in the Church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Troyes. C. 1500. Picture published in Pastoureau, Michel, Rayures. Une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés. Seuil: Paris 1995, 23. Portrait équestre du roi d’Aragon in Le Grand Armorial de la Toison d’or. 1435. BN Arsénal, ms. 4790. Picture published in Pastoureau, Michel, Rayures. Une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés. Seuil: Paris 1995, 33. Scenes from the Passion of Christ. C. 1470. Haarlem (?), 106,5 x 73,5 cm. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. Picture published in Koers, Niels, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. A Selection of the Finest Works. Transl. by Diederik van Werven. Ludion: Gent 2000, 25. Scenes from the Saint Erasmus’ legend. Twelve-chequered Schwabian woodcut. 1455–1465. Picture published in Tuhkanen, Tuija, Helige Erasmus I Kalands kyrka. ICO- Iconographisk Post. 3 (1996), 4. Schilling, Diebold. Execution by wheel, fol. 280r, 17,6 x 18,6 cm, and Setting up the wheel, fol. 218v, 20 x 12,6 cm from the Luzerner Chronik (1509–1513). Zentralbibliothek, Lucerne. Pictures published in Merback, Mitchell B., The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel. Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Reaktion: London 1999, 111. Spiering, Nicolas. Christ Nailed to the Cross. Miniature from the Hours of Mary of Burgundy. C. 1480. Austrian National Library, Vienna. Ms. 1857, fol. 43v. Picture published in Toman, Ralf (ed.), The Art of Gothic. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting. (1998) Könemann: Cologne 1999, 454. Torment of the Metals. Illustrations from the Book of the Holy Trinity (Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit, 1415–1419) attributed to Ulmannus and from S. Trismosin, Splendor solis, London, sixteenth century. Pictures published in Roob, Alexander, The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy and Mysticism. Taschen: Köln 2005, 208, 209, 211. Van der Weyden, Rogier. Justice of Trajan. Copy of the original (1439), tapestry from the mid-fifteenth century. Musée historique de Berne. Picture published in Jacob, R., Image de la justice. Essai sur l'iconographie judiciaire du Moyen Age à l'âge classique. Le Léopard d’Or: Paris 1994, 69. ——— Martyrdom of St John. C. 1454. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. Mixed media on wood, 77 x 48 cm. Staatliche Museen-Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Picture published in Toman, Rolf (ed.), The Art of Gothic. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting. (1998) Könemann: Cologne 1999, 414. La vie d’Esther. In Jean Mansel, La Fleur des Histoires. C. 1450. Bibliothèque royale, Bruxelles. Ms. 9231, fol. 90v. Picture published in Prevenier, Walter (dir.), Le prince et le peuple. Images de la Société du temps des ducs de Bourgogne 1384–1530. Fonds Mercator: Anvers 1998, 101. 4 Secondary Sources Adolf, Helen. On Mediaeval Laughter. Speculum. A Journal of Mediaeval Studies. XXII (1947). 251-3.

350

Alexandre-Bidon, Danièle. La Mort au Moyen Age. XIIIe–XVIe siècle. Hachette: Paris 1998. Allen, Robert (ed.). The New Penguin English Dictionary. Penguin: London 2001. Ariès, Philippe. L'homme devant la mort. I-II. Seuil: Paris 1977. Asad, Talal. Notes on body pain and truth in medieval Christian ritual. Economy and Society. 12 (1983). 286-327. Auerbach, Erich. Mimésis. La représentation de la réalité dans la littérature occidentale. Orig.: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur. Transl. by Cornélius Heim. (1946) Gallimard: Paris 1968. Avril, François. L’enluminure à l’époque gothique 1200–1420. Bibliothèque de l’Image: Paris 1995. ——— Jean Fouquet au confluent de deux cultures. Chroniques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. 22 (2003). 2-3. Avril, François (dir.). Jean Fouquet. Peintre et enlumineur du XVe siècle. BNF: Paris 2003. Avril, François, Marie-Thèrese Gousset & Bernard Guenée. Les Grandes Chroniques de France. Manuscrit français 6465 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris. Philippe Lebaud: Paris 1987. Avril, François & Sylvie Lisiecki. Le livre d’heures de Jacques II de Châtillon. Chroniques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. 17 (2002). 7-10. Avril, François & Nicole Reynaud. Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440–1520. Flammarion-Bibliothèque Nationale. Paris 1993. Bahtin, Mihail. François Rabelais – Keskiajan ja renessanssin nauru. Orig.: Tvoršestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaja kultura srednevekovja i renessansa. Transl. by Tapani Laine & Paula Nieminen. (1965) Like: Helsinki 2002. Baraz, Daniel. Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Cornell UP: Ithaca 2003. Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood. A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 2003. Barber, Malcolm & Keith Bate. The Templars. Selected sources. Manchester UP: Manchester 2002. Baschet, Jérôme. Les conceptions de l’enfer en France au XIVe siècle: imaginaire et pouvoir. Annales: ESC. 40:1 (1985). 185-207. ——— Les justices de l'au-delà: les représentations de l'enfer en France et en Italie (XIIe–XVe siècles). Ecole française de Rome: Rome 1993. Bassein, Beth Ann. Women and Death. Linkages in Western Thought and Literature. Greenwood P.: Westport, Conn. 1984. Bauman, Richard A. Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome. Routledge: London 1996. Baxandal, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. A Primer in the Social History of Picctorial Style. Clarendon Press: Oxford 1972. Beccaria, Cesare. Rikoksesta ja rangaistuksesta. Orig.: Dei delitti e delle pene. Transl. by Kai Heikkilä. Edita: Helsinki 1998. Bée, Michel. Le bourreau et la société d'Ancien Régime. Justice et répression de 1610 à nos jours. Actes du 107e congrès national des Sociétés savantes. Brest 1982. C.T.H.S.: Paris 1984. 61-73.

351

——— Le spectacle de l'exécution dans la France d'Ancien régime. Annales ESC. 38 (1983). 843-62. Berliinin raatotaide kiehtoo ja inhottaa. Turun Sanomat, Extra 9.6.2001. Berthelot, Anne. Sang et lèpre, sang et feu. Le Sang au Moyen Âge. Actes du quatrième colloque international de Monpellier Université Paul-Valéry (27-29 novembre 1997). Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 1999. 25-37. Biedermann, Hans. Suuri symbolikirja. Orig.: Knaurs Lexikon der Symbole. Transl. and ed. by Pentti Lempiäinen. WSOY: Helsinki 1993. Binski, Paul. Medieval Death. Ritual and Representation. British Museum Press: London 1996. Blanc, Odile. Vêtement féminin, vêtement masculin à la fin du moyen âge. Le point de vue des moralistes. Le vêtement. Histoire, archéologie et symbolique vestimentaires au Moyen Age. Le Léopard d'Or: Paris 1989. 243-53. Bloch, Marc. Les rois thaumaturges. Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre. (1924) A. Colin: Paris 1961. Blockmans, Wim. The Feeling of Being One Self. Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse. Brepols: Turnhout 1999. 1-16. Blockmans, Wim & Tess Neijzen. Functions of Fiction: Fighting Spouses around 1500. Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse. Brepols: Turnhout 1999. 26576. Blockmans, Wim & Robert Stein. Manipulation de l’élite et des masses. Le prince et le peuple. Images de la société du temps des ducs de Bourgogne 1384–1530. Dir. Walter Prevenier. Transl. by Marnix Vincent. Fonds Mercator: Anvers 1998. 32141. Bonsdorff, Carl v. Åbo stads historia under sjuttonde seklet. J. Simelius: Helsingfors 1894. Bordier, Jean-Pierre. Le Jeu de la Passion. Le message chrétien et le théâtre français (XIIIe– XVIe s.). Champion: Paris 1998. Bosing, Walter. Bosch. The Complet Paintings. Taschen: Köln 2000. Bossuat, Robert, Louis Pichard & Guy Raynaud de Lage. Dictionnaire des lettres françaises. Le Moyen Age. Ed. by Geneviève Hasenohr & Michel Zink. (1964) Fayard: Paris 1992. Bottomley, Frank. Attitudes to the Body in Western Christendom. Lepers Books: London 1979. Braun, Pierre. Variations sur la potence et le bourreau. A propos d’un adversaire de la peine de mort en 1361. Histoire du droit social. Mélanges en hommage à Jean Imbert. Dir. Jean-Louis Harouel. PUF: Paris 1989. 95-124. Burger, André. La dure prison de Meung. Studi in onore di Italo Siciliano. Leo S. Olschki: Firenze 1966. 149-54. Burke, Peter. Annales-skolan. En introduktion. Orig.: The French Historical Revolution; The Annales School 1929–1989. Transl. by Gustav Gimdal & Rickard Gimdal. (1990) Daidalos: Göteborg 1996.

352

——— Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge UP: New York 2004. ——— Ouverture: the New History, its Past and its Future. New Perspectives on Historical Writing. Ed. by Peter Burke. The Pennsylvania State UP: Pennsylvania 1992. 1-23. ——— Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Temple Smith: London 1978. ——— Varieties of Cultural History. Polity: Cambridge 1997. Burke, Peter & Roy Porter (eds.). Languages and Jargon. Contributions to a Social History of Language. Polity: Cambridge 1995. ——— Language, Self and Society. A social history of language. Polity: Cambridge 1991. Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption. Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. Zone Books: New York 1989. ——— The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336. Columbia UP: New York 1995. Calmette, Joseph. The Golden Age of Burgundy. The Magnificent Dukes and their Courts. Transl. by Doreen Weightman. (1949) Phoenix: London 2001. Cambell, Lorne. L’organisation de l’atelier. Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps. Dir. Birgitte de Patoul & Roger Van Schoute. Le Renaissance du Livre: Tournai 1998. 90-9. Camille, Michael. At the sign of the ‘Spinning Sow’: the ‘other’ Chartres and Images of everyday life of the medieval street. History and Images. Towards a New Iconology. Ed. by Axel Bolvig and Phillip Lindley. Brepols: Turnhout 2003. 249-76. ——— The image and the self: unwriting medieval bodies. Framing medieval bodies. Ed. by Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin. Manchester UP: Manchester 1994. 62-99. Camporesi, Piero. The Fear of Hell. Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe. Transl. by Lucinda Byatt. (1987) Polity: Cambridge 1990. ——— The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore. Transl. by T. Croft-Murray. (1983) Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1988. Carbasse, Jean-Marie. La peine en droit français des origines au XVIIe siècle. Recueils de la société Jean Bodin pour l'histoire comparative des institutions. LVI. La Peine. II. Europe avant le XVIIIe siècle. Bruxelles 1991. 157-72. Cardon, Bert. Books at Court. Medieval Mastery. Book Illumination from Charlemagne to Charles the Bold. / 800–1475. Brepols: Leuven 2002. 69-75. Carlson, Marla. Spectator Responses to an Image of Violence: Seeing Apollonia. Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002. 7-20. Carlsson, Ulla & Cecilia von Feilitzen (eds.). Children and Media Violence. Yearbook from the UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen. Nordicom: Göteborg 1998. Carr-Gomm, Sarah. The Secret Language of Art. Duncan Baird: London 2003. Cartwright, Frederick. A social history of Medicine. Longman: London 1977. Cassard, Jean-Christophe. “Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir, la soif te passera!” Le Sang au Moyen Âge. Actes du quatrième colloque international de Monpellier Université Paul-

353

Valéry (27–29 novembre 1997). Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry: Montpellier 1999. 293-320. Cederlöf, Olle. Vapnens historia. I sammandrag från antiken till 1800-talets slut. (1951) Prisma: Stockholm 2002. Champion, Pierre. François Villon. Sa vie et son temps. I-II. Champion: Paris 1933. Chareyron, Nicole. Le sang des martyrs de Nicopolis (1396). Le Sang au Moyen Âge. Actes du quatrième colloque international de Monpellier Université Paul-Valéry (27–29 novembre 1997). Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry: Montpellier 1999. 321-30. Chartier, Roger. Cultural History. Between Practices and Representations. Transl. by Lydia G. Cochrane. Polity: Cambridge 1988. ——— Les élites et les gueux. Quelques représentations (XVIe–XVIIe siècles). Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaire. XXI (1974). 376-88. ——— Le Monde comme représentation. Annales ESC. 44:6 (1989). 1505-20. ——— On the Edge of the Cliff. History, Language, and Practices. The Johns Hopkins UP: Baltimore 1997. Chastel, André: L’art français. Pré-moyen âge, Moyen âge. Flammarion: Paris 1993. ——— L’art français. Temps modernes. 1430–1620. Flammarion: Paris 1994. Chélini, Jean. Histoire religieuse de l'Occident chrétien. A. Colin: Paris 1970. Chevalier, Bernard. Les bonnes villes de France du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Aubier: Paris 1982. Chevalier, Jean & Alain Gheerbrant. Dictionnaire des symboles. Mythes, rêves, coutumes, gestes, formes, figures, couleurs, nombres. (1969) Robert Laffont/ Jupiter: Paris 1982. Cheyette, Fredrick. La justice et le pouvoir royal à la fin du moyen âge français. Revue historique de droit français et étranger. 4 sér. 40 année. (1962). 373-94. Chiffoleau, Jacques. Ce qui fait changer la mort dans la région d’Avignon à la fin du moyen âge. Death in the Middle Ages. Ed. by Herman Braet and Werner Verbeke. Leuven UP: Leuven 1983. 117-33. ——— La comptabilité de l’au-delà: les hommes, la mort et la religion dans la région d’Avignon à la fin du Moyen Age (vers 1320–1480). Ecole française de Rome: Rome 1980. ——— Les justices du pape. Délinquance et criminalité dans la région d'Avignon au quatorzième siècle. Publications de la Sorbonne: Paris 1984. Choron, Jacques. Death and Western Thought. Macmillan: New York 1963. Clark, James. The dance of Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Glasgow 1950. Classen, Constance, David Howes & Anthony Synnot. Aroma. The cultural history of smell. Routledge: London 1994. Cohen, Esther. The Animated Pain of the Body. The American Historical Review. 105 (2000). 36-68. ——— The Crossroads of Justice. Law and Culture in Late Medieval France. E.J. Brill: Leiden 1993. ——— Peaceable domain, certain justice. Verloren: Hilversum 1996. ——— Symbols of Culpability and the Universal Language of Justice: The Ritual of Public Executions in Late Medieval Europe. History of European Ideas. 11 (1989). 407-16.

354

——— “To die a criminal for the public good”: the execution ritual in late medieval Paris. Law, Custom and the Social Fabric in Medieval Europe. Essays in Honor of Bryce Lyon. Ed. by Bernard S. Bachrach and David Nicholas. Medieval Institute Publications: Kalamzoo 1990. 285-304. Cohen, Gustave. Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre religieux français du Moyen Age. Champion: Paris 1951. Cohen Kathleen. Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: the Transit Tomb in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. University of California Press: Berkeley 1973. Cohen, Marcel. La linguistique et l’histoire. L’Histoire et ses méthodes. Dir. Charles Samaran. Gallimard: Paris 1961. 823-46. Contamine, Philippe & Olivier Guyotjeannin (dir.). La guerre, la violence et les gens au Moyen Âge. I-II. C.T.H.S: Paris 1996. Copleston, F.C. A History of Medieval Philosophy. Methuen & Co: London 1972. Coulet, Nöel. Les confréries de métier à Aix au bas moyen âge. Les métiers au moyen âge. Aspects éonomiques et sociaux. Actes du Colloque international de Louvainla-Neuve, 7–9 october 1993. Éd. Pascale Lambrechts & Jean-Pierre Sosson. Université Catholique de Louvain: Publications de l’institut d’études médiévales: Louvain-la-Neuve 1994. 55-73. Cuttler, S.H. The Law of Treason and Treason Trials in Late Medieval France. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1981. Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. Vintage: New York 1984. ——— The Kiss of Lamourette. Reflections in Cultural History. Norton, cop.: New York 1990. Davidson, Clifford. Gesture in Medieval British Drama. Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art. Ed. by Clifford Davidson. Medieval Institute Publications: Western Michigan University 2001. 66-127. ——— History, Religion, and Violence. Cultural Contexts for Medieval and Renaissance English Drama. Ashgate: Aldershot 2002. ——— Introduction. The Saint Play in Medieval Europe. Ed. by Clifford Davidson. Medieval Institute Publications: Kalamazoo 1986. 1-10. Davies, Christie. Stupidity and Rationality: Jokes from the Iron Cage. Humour in Society. Resistance and Control. Ed. by Chris Powell & George E.C. Paton. Macmillan: London 1988. 1-32. Davies, Natalie Zemon. Fiction in the Archives. Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in SixteenthCentury France. Stanford UP: Stanford 1987. ——— Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford UP: Stanford 1975. Day, Louis A. Ethics in Media Communications: Cases and Controversies. Wadsworth: Belmont, CA 1991. Delarue, Jacques. Le métier de bourreau du Moyen Age à aujourd'hui. Fayard: Paris 1989. Deligne, Chloé, Claire Billen & David Kusman. Les bouchers bruxellois au bas Moyen Age. Profils d’entrepreneurs. Patrons, gens d’affaires et banquiers. Hommages à Ginette Kurgan-van Hentenryk. Dir. Serge Jaumain & Kenneth Bertrams. Le Livre Timperman: Bruxelles 2005. 69-92.

355

Delisle, Léopold. Recherches sur la librarie de Charles V, roi de France, 1337–1380. I-II. Gérard Th. Van Heusden: Amsterdam 1967. Delort, Robert. Les animaux ont une histoire. (1984) Seuil: Paris 1993. Delumeau, Jean. Le péché et la peur. La Culpabilisation en Occident (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles). Fayard: Paris 1983. ——— La peur en Occident (XIVe–XVIIIe siècles): une cité assiegée. Fayard: Paris 1978. Demorest, Michel et Danielle. Dictionnaire historique et anecdotique des bourreaux. s.l. 1996. Desmaze, Charles. Les pénalités anciennes. Supplices, prisons et grâce en France. Plon: Paris 1866. Desplanque, Emile. Les Infâmes dans le Perpignan du Moyen Age. (1893) Mare nostrum: Narbonne 1998. Desportes, Françoise. Les métiers de l’alimentation. Histoire de l’alimentation. Dir. Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari. Fayard: Paris 1996. 433-447. Devisse, Jean & Michel Mollat. The Image of the Black in Western Art. II. Cambridge, Mass. 1979. De Vos, Dirk. Hans Memling: catalogus. Ludion: Ghent 1994a. ——— Hans Memling. L’œuvre complet. Fonds Mercator Paribas: Anvers 1994b. Diller, Hans-Jürgen. The torturers in the English mystery plays. Evil on the Medieval Stage. Ed. by Meg Twycross. Medieval English Theatre 11. (1992) 57-65. Douglas, Mary. Implicit Meanings; Essays in Anthropology. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London 1975. ——— Purity and Danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. (1966) London 1988. Dubois, A. Justice et bourreaux à Amiens dans les XVe et XVIe siècles. Amiens 1860. DuBruck, Edelgard E.: The Death of Christ on the Late-Medieval Stage. A Theater of Salvation. Death and Dying in the Middle Ages. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck & Barbara I. Gusick. Peter Lang: New York 1999. 355-75. ——— Lazarus’s Vision of Hell: A Significant Passage in Late-Medieval Passion Plays. Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002. 44-55. ——— The Theme of Death in French Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Mouton: The Hague 1964. Duby, Georges. Histoire des mentalités. L’Histoire et ses méthodes. Dir. Charles Samaran. Gallimard: Paris 1961. 937-66. ——— Mâle moyen âge. De l’amour et autres essais. Flammarion: Paris 1988. ——— Le moyen âge. Histoire de la civilisation française. I. Moyen âge & XVIe siècle. Ed. by Georges Duby & Robert Mandrou. Colin: Paris 1958. Edgerton, Jr., Samuel Y. Pictures and Punishment. Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine Renaissance. Cornell UP: Ithaca N.Y. 1985. Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. I-II. Transl. by Edmund Jephcott. (1939) Basil Blackwell: Oxford 1983. ——— La solitude des mourants. Orig.: Über die Einsamkeit der Sterbenden in unseren Tagen. Transl. by Sibylle Muller. (1982) Christian Bourgois: Paris 1998.

356

Ellena, Olivier. La noblesse face à la violence: arrestations, exécutions et assassinats dans les Chroniques de Jean Froissart commandées par Louis Gruuthuse (Paris, B.N.F., mss. fr. 2643-46). Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002. 68-92. Enders, Jody. Death by Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 2002a. ——— The Medieval Theater of Cruelty. Rhetoric, Memory, Violence. Cornell UP: Ithaca 1999. ——— The Music of the Medieval Body in Pain. Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002b. 93-112. Epp, Garret P.J. Passion, pomp, and parody: alliteration in the York Plays. Evil on the Medieval Stage. Ed. by Meg Twycross. Medieval English Theatre 11. (1992). 150-61. Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain. Gothic Art. Transl. by I. Mark Paris. (1983) Harry N. Abrams, Inc.: New York 1989. Esmein, A. Histoire de la procédure criminelle en France et spécialement de la procédure inquisitoire depuis le XIIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours. L. Larose & Forcel : Paris 1882. Evans, E. P. The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. (1906) Faber & Faber: London 1987. Evans, Elizabeth C. Physiognomics in the Ancient World. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 59, no. 5 (1969). Fagniez, Gustave. Études sur l’industrie et la classe industrielle à Paris au XIIIe et au XIVe siècles. Slatkine: Genève 1975. Ferroul, Yves. The Doctor and Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Death and Dying in the Middle Ages. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck & Barbara I. Gusick. Peter Lang: New York 1999. 31-50. Finucane, R.C. Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion: Social Ideals and Death Rituals in the Later Middle Ages. Mirrors of Mortality. Studies in the Social History of Death. Ed. by Joachim Whaley. St. Martin’s P.: New York 1981. 40-60. Flandrin, Jean-Louis. Assaisonnement, cuisine et diététique aux XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles. Histoire de l’alimentation. Dir. Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari. Fayard: Paris 1996. 491-509. Stroo, Cyriel, Pascale Syfer-d’Olne & al. (eds.). The Flemish Primitives. I-III. Catalogue of Early Netherlandish Painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Brepols: Brussels 1996–2001. Flori, Jean. Des moines qui tuent pour Dieu. Notre histoire. 176 (2000). 17-20. Fossier, Robert. The great trial. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages III 1250–1520. Transl. by Sarah Hanbury Tenison. Ed. by Robert Fossier. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1986. Foucault, Michel. Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison. (1975) Gallimard: Paris 1994. Frank, Grace. The medieval French drama. Clarendon: Oxford 1954. Franklin, Alfred. Dictionnaire historique des arts, métiers et professions exercés dans Paris depuis le treizième siècle. Paris 1906.

357

Friesen, Ilse E. Saints as Helpers in Dying: the Hairy Holy Women Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, and Wilgefortis in the Iconography of the Late Middle Ages. Death and Dying in the Middle Ages. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck & Barbara I. Gusick. Peter Lang: New York 1999. 239-56. Gaiffier, Badouin de. Un thème hagiographique: le pendu miraculeusement sauvé. Etudes critiques d'hagiographie et d'iconographie. Société des Bollandistes: Bruxelles 1967. 194-232. Garapon, Robert. La fantaisie verbale et le comique dans le théâtre français du Moyen Age à la fin du XVIIe siècle. (Thèse). Armand Colin: Paris 1957. Garnier, François. Le langage de l’image au Moyen Âge. Signification et symbolique. Le Léopard d’Or: Paris 1982. ——— La lecture de l’image médiévale. Le livre au Moyen Age. Dir. Jean Glenisson. Presses du CNRS: Paris 1988. 176-7. Gaskell, Ivan. History of Images. New Perspectives on Historical Writing. Ed. by Peter Burke. The Pennsylvania State UP: Pennsylvania 1992. 168-92. Gatton, John Spalding. ‘There must be blood’: mutilation and martyrdom on the medieval stage. Violence in Drama. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1991. 79-91. Gauvard, Claude. “De grace especial”. Crime, état et société en France à la fin du Moyen Age. Publications de la Sorbonne: Paris 1991. ——— Grâce et exécution capitale: les deux usages de la justice royale française à la fin du moyen âge. La justice royale et le parlement de Paris (XIVe–XVIIe siècle). Études réuniées par Yves-Marie Bercé et Alfred Soman. Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes. T. 153. (1995) 275-90. ——— Violence citadine et réseaux de solidarité. L'exemple français aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Annales ESC. 5 (1993). 1113-26. Geremek, Bronislaw: Criminalité, vagabondage, paupérisme: la marginalité à l'aube des temps modernes. Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine. XXI. (1974). 337-75. ——— Le marginal. L’homme médieval. Dir. Jacques Le Goff. Seuil: Paris 1989. 381413. ——— The margins of society in late medieval Paris. (1971) Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1987. Ginzburg, Carlo. Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method. Transl. by John and Anne C. Tedeschi. (1986) The Johns Hopkins UP: Baltimore 1989. Girard, J. & P. Pansier. La cour temporelle d'Avignon aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Recherches historiques et documents sur Avignon, Le Comtat-Venaissin et La Principauté d'Orange. I. Paris 1909. Goldhill, Simon. Violence in Greek tragedy. Violence in Drama. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1991. 15-33. Gonthier, Nicole. Le châtiment du crime au Moyen Age. XIIe–XVIe siècles. Presses Universitaires de Rennes: Rennes 1998. ——— Les cris de haine et rites d’unité. La violence dans les villes, XIIIe-XVIe siècle. Brepols: Turnhout 1992. Goodich, Michael E. Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century. Private Grief and Public Salvation. University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1995.

358

Grafton, Anthony. The availability of ancient works. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Ed. by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler and Jill Kraye. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1988. 767-91. Grand, Roger. Justice criminelle, procédure et peine des villes de France aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles. Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes, 102 (1941). 51-108. Greimas, A.-J. Dictionnaire de l’ancien français jusqu’au milieu du XIVe siècle. Larousse: Paris 1989. Grieco, Allen J. Alimentation et classes sociales à la fin du Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance. Histoire de l’alimentation. Dir. Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari. Fayard: Paris 1996. 479-90. Gross, Angelika & Jacqueline T. Schaefer. Sémiotique de la tonsure de l’“insipiens” à Tristan et aux fous de Dieu. Le clerc au moyen âge. Senefiance. 37 (1995). 24561. Guenée, B. Tribunaux et gens de justice dans le baillage de Senlis à la fin du Moyen Age (vers 1380–vers 1550). Strasbourg 1963. Gurevich, Aron. Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages. Ed. by Jana Howlett. Polity: Cambridge 1992. ——— Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception. Transl. by János M. Bak & Paul A. Hollingsworth. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1988. Hagen, Rose-Marie & Rainer Hagen. Bruegel. The complete paintings. Taschen: Köln 2000. Halkin, Léon-E. La cruauté des supplices de l'Ancien Régime. Revue historique de droit français et étranger. 4e Série 16 Année (1937). 131-44. Hanska, Jussi. “And the Rich Man also died; and He was buried in Hell” – The Social Ethos in Mendicant Sermons. Suomen Historiallinen Seura: Helsinki 1997. Harper, Stephen. Insanity, Individuals, and Society in Late-Medieval English Literature. The Subject of Madness. Edwin Mellen: Lewiston, NY 2003. Haskel, Francis. Art and history: the legacy of Johan Huizinga. History and Images. Toward a New Iconology. Ed. by Axel Bolvig and Phillip Lindley. Brepols: Turnhout 2003. 3-17. Heers, Jacques. Fêtes des fous et carnavals. (1983) Hachette-Pluriel: Paris 1997. ——— La ville au moyen âge en Occident. Paysages, pouvoirs et conflits. Fayard: Paris 1990. Heikkilä, Tuomas. Keskiajantutkimuksen nousu ja uho. Historiallinen aikakausikirja. 2 (2003). 301-5. Heinzelman, Matthew Z. The Self in the Eyes of the Other: Creating Violent Expectations in Late-Medieval German Drama. Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002. 149-60. Henrard, Nadine. Le Théâtre religieux médieval en langue d'oc. Droz: Genève 1998. Herold, J. Christopher. Aikakautensa valtiatar. Rouva de Staëlin elämäkerta. Orig.: Mistress to an Age. Transl. by Eila Pennanen. (1958) WSOY: Porvoo 1959. Hillairet, Jacques. Gibets, piloris et cachots du vieux Paris. Minuit: Paris 1956. Homan, Richard L. Mixed feelings about violence in the Corpus Christi plays. Violence in Drama. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1991. 93-100. Hooze, Robert. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. Ludion: Ghent 2000.

359

Huizinga, Johan. L’automne du Moyen Age. Orig.: Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen. Transl. by J. Bastin. (1919) Payot: Paris 2002. ——— Erasmus. Transl. by Eino E. Suolahti. WSOY: Porvoo 1953. IJsseling, Samuel. The Book, the Writing and the Image. Medieval Mastery. Book Illumination from Charlemagne to Charles the Bold. / 800–1475. Brepols: Leuven 2002. 17-23. Imbert, Jean. La peine de mort. (1989) PUF: Paris 1993. Imbert, Jean & Georges Levasseur. Le pouvoir, les juges et les bourreaux. Hachette: Paris 1972. Immonen, Kari. Uusi kulttuurihistoria. Kulttuurihistoria – Johdatus tutkimukseen. Ed. by Kari Immonen & Maarit Leskelä-Kärki. SKS: Hämeenlinna 2001. 11-25. Ives, Eric W. Anne Boleyn. Basil Blackwell: London 1988. Jacob, R. Image de la justice. Essai sur l'iconographie judiciaire du Moyen Age à l'âge classique. Le Léopard d’Or: Paris 1994. ——— Peindre le droit ou l’imaginaire du juriste. Le Moyen Age en lumière. Manuscrits enluminés des bibliothèques de France. Dir. Jacques Dalarun. Fayard: Paris 2002. 207-33. Jodogne, Omer. La tonalité des mystéres français. Studi in onore di Italo Siciliano. Leo S. Olschki: Firenze 1966. 581-92. Joutsivuo, Timo. Kehon tilojen moninaisuus. Terveys yksilöllisenä tasapainotilana Galenoksesta renessanssiin. Terveyden lähteillä. Länsimaisten terveyskäsitysten kulttuurihistoriaa. Ed. by Timo Joutsivuo & Heikki Mikkeli. Historiallinen Arkisto: Helsinki 1995a. 31-57. ——— Ruumiin vai sielun hoitoa? Kristinusko, sairaus ja lääketiede. Terveyden lähteillä. Länsimaisten terveyskäsitysten kulttuurihistoriaa. Ed. by Timo Joutsivuo & Heikki Mikkeli. Historiallinen Arkisto: Helsinki 1995b. 59-83. Kaeuper, Richard W. War, justice, and public order. England and France in the Later Middle Ages. Clarendon: Oxford 1988. Kahrl, Stanley J. Traditions of Medieval English Drama. Hutchinson University Library: London 1974. Kaimio, Maarit. Väkivallan käsite ja kontrolli antiikin Kreikassa. Väkivalta antiikin kulttuurissa. Ed. by Maarit Kaimio, Jaakko Aronen & Juha Sihvola. Gaudeamus: Tampere 1998. 13-44. Katajala-Peltomaa, Sari. Paholainen, demonit ja riivatut raukat – keskiaikaisia käsityksiä sielunvihollisesta. Paholainen, noituus ja magia – kristinuskon kääntöpuoli. Pahuuden kuvasto vanhassa maailmassa. Ed. by Sari Katjala-Peltomaa & Raisa Maria Toivo. SKS: Helsinki 2004. 78-115. Keen, Maurice. A History of medieval Europe. Routledge and Keagan Paul: London 1967. Kidutus ongelma myös Euroopassa. Turun Sanomat 19.10.2000. Klemettilä, Hannele. The Executioner in Late Medieval French Culture. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis. Ser. B. Tom. 268. Turku 2003. ——— Keskiajan pyövelit. Atena: Jyväskylä 2004. ——— Ritari Siniparta. Gilles de Rais’n tarina. Atena: Jyväskylä 2005.

360

Kluckert, Ehrenfried. Gothic Painting. The Art of Gothic. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting. Ed. by Rolf Toman. (1998) Könemann: Cologne 1999. 386-467. Koldeweij, Jos. The Wearing of Significative Badges, Religious and Secular: The Social Meaning of a Behavioural Pattern. Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse. Brepols: Turnhout 1999. 307-28. Koopmans, Jelle. Le Théâtre des exclus au Moyen Age: hérétiques, sorcières et marginaux. Imago: Paris 1997. ——— Le Pendu miraculeusement sauvé: literature et faits divers. Rapports Het Franse Boek 3 (2000). 130-8. Kraye, Jill. Moral philosophy. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Ed. by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler and Jill Kraye. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1988. 303-86. Krötzl, Christian. “Crudeliter afflicta”. Zur Darstellung von Gewalt und Grausamkeit in mittelalterlichen Mirakelberichten. Crudelitas. The Politics of Cruelty in the Ancient and Medieval World. Proceedings of the International Conference, Turku (Finland) May 1991. Ed. by Toivo Viljamaa, Asko Timonen and Christian Krötzl. Krems 1992. 121-38. Kytömäki, Juha & Seppo Paananen (eds.). Televisio ja väkivalta. Yleisradio: Helsinki 1988. Labat-Poussin, B., M. Langlois & Y. Lanhers. Actes du parlement de Paris. Parlement Criminel. Règne de Philippe VI de Valois. Inventaire analythique des registres X2a, 2 à 5. Paris 1987. Laborde, Alexandre, comte de. La bible moralisée illustrée. I-V. Paris 1911–1927. Lacroix, Paul. Mœurs, usages et costumes au Moyen Age et à l’époque de la Renaissance. Firmin Didot: Paris 1873. Langbein, John H. Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance. England, Germany, France. Harvard UP: Cambridge MA 1974. Langlois, M. & Y. Lanhers. Confessions et jugements de criminels au Parlement de Paris (1319–1350). S.E.V.P.E.N: Paris 1971. Lanhers, Yvonne. Crimes et criminels au XIVe siécle. Revue historique, 240 (1968). 325-38. Laurioux, Bruno. Cuisines médievales (XIVe et XVe siècles). Histoire de l’alimentation. Dir. Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari. Fayard: Paris 1996. 459-77. Lavoie, Rodrique. Justice, criminalité et peine de mort en France au moyen âge: essai sur typologie et de régionalisation. Le sentiment de la mort au moyen âge. Études présentées au cinquième colloque de l'Institut d'études médievales de l'Université de Montréal. Dir. Claude Sutto. Québec 1979. 33-55. Lebègue, Raymond. Le mystère des Actes des Apotres. Contribution à l'étude de humanisme et du protestantisme français au XVIe siècle. Champion: Paris 1929. Lecouteux, Claude. Au-delà du Merveilleux. Des croyances du Moyen Age. Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne: Paris 1995. ——— Les Monstres dans la Pensée médiévale européenne. Presses de l’Université de ParisSorbonne: Paris 1999. Le Goff, Jacques. L’Europe est-elle née au Moyen Âge. Seuil: Paris 2003a.

361

——— Une histoire du corps au Moyen Âge. Liana Levi: Paris 2003b. ——— Medieval Civilization, 400–1500. Transl. by Julia Barrow. (1964) Basil Blackwell: Oxford 1988a. ——— The Medieval Imagination. Transl. by Arthur Goldhammer. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1988b. ——— La naissance du Purgatoire. Gallimard: Paris 1981. ——— Time, Work, & Culture in the Middle Ages. Transl. by Arthur Goldhammer. (1977) The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1980. Leguay, Jean-Pierre. La criminalité en Bretagne au XVe siècle. Délits et répression. La faute, la répression et le pardon. C.T.H.S.: Paris 1984a. 53-79. ——— La pollution au Moyen Age dans le royaume de France et dans les grands fiefs. Gisserot: Paris 1999. ——— La rue au Moyen Age. Éditions Ouest-France Université: Rennes 1984b. L’Engle, Susan & Robert Gibbs. Illuminating the Law. Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge Collection. Harvey Miller: London & Turnhout 2001. Le Roux de Lincy, A.J.V. Le livre des proverbes français, précédé de recherches historiques sur les proverbes français et leur emploi dans la littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance. I-II. Delahays: Paris 1859. Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324. (1975) Gallimard: Paris 1982. Lester, Geoff. Idle words: stereotyping by language in the English mystery plays. Evil on the Medieval Stage. Ed. by Meg Twycross. Medieval English Theatre 11. (1992) 129-39. Lévy, René & Philippe Robert. Le sociologue et l’histoire pénale. Annales ESC. 39:1 (1984). 400-22. Lidman, Satu. Häpeän merkityksestä ja hyödyntämisestä rangaistuksissa. Historiallinen aikakausikirja. 3 (2002). 258-69. Liepe, Lena. Den medeltida kroppen. Kroppens och könets ikonographi in nordisk medeltid. Nordic Academic Press. Lund 2003. Limentari Virdis, Caterina & Mari Pietrogiovanna. Retables. L’âge gothique et la Renaissance. Transl. by Odile Menegaux. Citadelles & Mazenod: Paris 2001. Lindqvist, Herman. Historien om Sverige. Gustav Vasa och hans söner och döttrar. (1993) Nordstedts: Stockholm 2000. Linstead, Steve. ‘Jokers Wild’: Humour in Organisational Culture. Humour in Society. Resistance and Control. Ed. by Chris Powell & George E.C. Paton. MacMillan: London 1988. 123-48. Litzen, Veikko. Sota rauhan säilyttämisen keinona. Rauhan ajatus historiassa. Ed. by Jaakko Suolahti, Olli Vehviläinen & Markku Järvinen. WSOY: Porvoo 1970. 43-60. Loiseleur, Jules. Les crimes et les peines dans l'antiquité et dans les temps modernes. Hachette: Paris 1863. Mâle, Emile. L'Art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France. Etude sur l'iconographie du moyen âge et sur ses sources d'inspiration. (1908) A. Collin: Paris 1995.

362

Mane, Perrine. Émergence du vêtement de travail à travers l'iconographie médiévale. Le vêtement. Histoire, archéologie et symbolique vestimentaires au Moyen Age. Le Léopard d'Or: Paris 1989. 93-122. Marichal, Robert. La critique des textes. L’Histoire et ses méthodes. Dir. Charles Samaran. Gallimard: Paris 1961. 1247-366. Marolo, Maria Pilar Silva. Juan de Flandes. Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps. Dir. Birgitte de Patoul & Roger Van Schoute. Le Renaissance du Livre: Tournai 1998. 573-83. Martens, Maximilliaan P.J. La clientèle du peintre. Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps. Dir. Birgitte de Patoul & Roger Van Schoute. Le Renaissance du Livre: Tournai 1998. 144-79. ——— The Position of the Artist in the Fifteenth Century: Salaries and Social Mobility. Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse. Brepols: Turnhout 1999. 387414. Martin, Hervé. Mentalités médiévales. XIe–XVe siècle. PUF: Paris 1996. Martineau-Génieys, Christine. Le thème de la mort dans la poésie française de 1450 à 1550. Paris 1978. Marty-Dufaut, Josy. La Gastronomie du Moyen Age. Autres Temps: Marseille 1999. Mazouer, Charles. Le théâtre français du Moyen Âge. Sedes: Saint-Just-la-Pendue 1998. Mellinkoff, Ruth. Outcasts. Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Middle Ages. I-II. University of California Press: Berkeley, CA 1993. Merback, Mitchell B. The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel. Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Reaktion: London 1999. Mérindol, Christian de. Signes de hiérarchie sociale à la fin du moyen age d'après les vêtements. Méthodes et recherches. Le vêtement. Histoire, archéologie et symbolique vestimentaires au Moyen Age. Le Léopard d'Or: Paris 1989. 181-223. Michaud-Fréjaville, Françoise. L’effusion de sang dans le procès et les traités concernant Jeanne d’Arc (1430–1456). Le Sang au Moyen Âge. Actes du quatrième colloque international de Monpellier Université Paul-Valéry (27–29 novembre 1997). Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry: Montpellier 1999. 331-40. Mills, Robert. “For They Know Not What They Do”: Violence in Medieval Passion Iconography. Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002. 200-16. Minois, Georges. History of Old Age. From Antiquity to the Renaissance. Transl. by Sarah Hanbury Tenison. (1987) Polity: Cambridge 1989. Mollat, Michel. The poor in the Middle Ages: an essay in social history. Transl. by Arthur Goldhammer. Yale UP: New Haven 1986. Monballyu, J. & J. Dauwe. Joos de Damhouder en zijn "Practycke in civiele saecken". Ghent 1999. Monestier, Martin: Peines de mort. Histoire et techniques des exécutions capitales des origines à nos jours. Chérche Midi: Paris 1994. Montanari, Massimo. The Culture of Food. Transl. by Carl Ipsen. Basil Blackwell: Oxford 1996.

363

Mormando, Franco. What Happens to Us When We Die? Bernando of Siena on ‘The Four Last Things’. Death and Dying in the Middle Ages. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck & Barbara I. Gusick. Peter Lang: New York 1999. 109-42. Morris, David B. The Culture of Pain. University of California Press: Berkeley 1991. Mourin, Louis. Jean Gerson, prédicateur français. De Tempel: Brugge 1952. Muchembled, Robert. Anthropologie de la violence dans la France moderne (XVe– XVIIIe siècles). Revue de Synthèse 108 (1987). 31-55. ——— Une histoire du diable. XIIe–XXe siècle. Seuil: Paris 2000. ——— Le temps de supplices. De l'obeissance sous les Rois absolus. XVe–XVIIIe siècles. A. Colin: Paris 1992. Muir, Lynette R.: The biblical drama of medieval Europe. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1995. ——— The Saint Play in Medieval France. The Saint Play in Medieval Europe. Ed. by Clifford Davidson. Medieval Institute Publications: Kalamazoo, MI 1986. 123-80. Mulvaney, Beth A. Gesture and Audience: The Passion and Duccio’s Maestà. Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art. Ed. by Clifford Davidson. Medieval Institute Publications: Western Michigan University 2001. 178-220. Mustakallio, Katariina. Kuolemantuomiot varhaisen Rooman kuvauksissa. Väkivalta antiikin kulttuurissa. Ed. by Maarit Kaimio, Jaakko Aronen & Juha Sihvola. Gaudeamus: Tampere 1998. 207-18. Nowosadtko, Jutta. Scharfrichter und Abdecker. Der Alltag zweier “unehrlicher Berufe” in der Frühen Neuzeit. Ferdinand Schöningh: Paderborn 1994. Os, Henk van, Jan Piet Filedt Kok, Ger Luijten & Frits Scholten. Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400–1600. Waanders: Amsterdam 2000. Palomäki, Risto. Suomenlinnan pyöveli nauttii työstään. Ilta-Sanomat 1.8.2001. Panofsky, Erwin. Meaning in the visual arts. Anchor Books: Garden City, N.Y. 1955. ——— Perspective as Symbolic Form. Transl. by Christopher S. Wood. (1927) Zone Books: New York 1997. Park, Katharine. The organic soul. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Ed. by Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler and Jill Kraye. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1988. 464-84. Pastoureau, Michel. L’animal. Le Moyen Age en lumière. Manuscrits enluminés des bibliothèques de France. Dir. Jacques Dalarun. Fayard: Paris 2002. 65-105. ——— L'étoffe du diable. Une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés. Seuil: Paris 1991. ——— Figures et couleurs. Études sur la symbolique et la sensibilité médiévales. Le Léopard d’Or: Paris 1986. ——— Une histoire symbolique du Moyen Âge occidental. Seuil: Paris 2004. ——— Rayures. Une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés. Seuil: Paris 1995. Pernoud, Régine. Pour en finir avec le Moyen Age. Seuil: Paris 1977. Perrot, Jean-Pierre. Du sang au lait: l’imaginaire du sang et ses logiques dans les passions de martyrs. Le Sang au Moyen Âge. Actes du quatrième colloque international de Monpellier Université Paul-Valéry (27–29 novembre 1997). Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry: Montpellier 1999. 459-70.

364

Peters, Edward. Prison Before the Prison: The Ancient and Medieval Worlds. The Oxford history of the prison: the practice of punishment in Western society. Ed. by Norval Morris and David J. Rothman. Oxford UP: New York 1995. 23-47. ——— Torture. Basil Blackwell: Oxford 1985. Petit de Julleville, L. Le Théâtre en France. Histoire de la littérature dramatique depuis ses origines jusqu'à nos jours. A. Colin: Paris 1897. Pietropoli, Cecilia. The characterisation of Evil in the Townley Plays. Evil on the Medieval Stage. Ed. by Meg Twycross. Medieval English Theatre 11. (1992) 85-93. Piponnier, Françoise. Une révolution dans le costume masculin au XIVe siècle. Le vêtement. Histoire, archéologie et symbolique vestimentaires au Moyen Age. Le Léopard d'Or: Paris 1989. 225-42. ——— Du feu à la table: archéologie de l’équipement de bouche à la fin du Moyen Âge. Histoire de l’alimentation. Dir. Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari. Fayard: Paris 1996. 525-36. Pleij, Herman. Colors Demonic and Divine. Shades of Meaning in the Middle Ages. Transl. by Diane Webb. (2002) Columbia UP: New York 2004. ——— Dreaming of Cockaigne: medieval fantasies of the perfect life. Transl. by Diane Webb. Columbia UP: New York 2001. Pouchelle, Marie-Christine. The Body and Surgery in the Middle Ages. (1983) Polity: Cambridge 1990. ——— Le sang et ses pouvoirs au Moyen Age. Affaires de Sang. Dir. Robert Muchembled. Imago: Paris 1988. 17-41. Pradel, Jean. Droit Pénal. T. I. Cujas: Paris 1974. Prevenier, Walter & Wim Blockmans. The Burgundian Netherlands. Transl. by Peter King and Yvette Mead. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1986. Puppi, L. Les supplices dans l'art. Cérémonial des exécutions capitales et iconographie du martyre du XIIe au XIXe siécle. Larousse: Paris 1991. Rambaud, Jacqueline. Le Décret de Gratien. Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit. Dir. Henri-Jean Martin & Jean Vezin. Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis: Mayenne 1990a. 201-4. ——— Les Décrétales. Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit. Dir. Henri-Jean Martin & Jean Vezin. Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis: Mayenne 1990b. 205-9. Rampton, Martha. Up from the Dead: Magic and Miracle. Death and Dying in the Middle Ages. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck & Barbara I. Gusick. Peter Lang: New York 1999. 275-91. Rapp, Françis. L'Eglise et la vie religieuse à la fin du moyen âge. PUF: Paris 1971. Raynaud, Christiane. “A la hache”. Histoire et symbolique de la hache dans la France médiévale (XIIIe-XVe siècles). Le Léopard d’Or: Paris 2002. ——— La violence au Moyen Age. XIIe–XVe siècle. D'après livres d'histoire en français. Le Léopard d’Or: Paris 1990. Rebold Benton, Janetta, The Medieval Menagerie. Abbeville: New York 1992. Reinhard, Wolfgang. Lebensfromen Europas. Eine historische Kulturanthropologie. C.H. Beck: München 2004.

365

Revel, Jacques. The Uses of Civility. A History of Private Life. III. Passions of the Renaissance. Ed. by Roger Chartier. Transl. by Arthur Goldhammer. The Belknap Press of Harvard UP: Cambridge, MA 1989. 167-205. Rìo, María José del. Karnevaali, maailma ylösalaisin. Eurooppa. Karnevaalit ja ilonpito. Transl. by Tarja Virtanen. Ed. by Wim Blockmans & al. WSOY: Porvoo 1993. 81-92. Robert, Christian Nils. La Justice. Vertu, courtisane et bourreau. Georg: Genève 1993. Robert, Philippe & René Lévy. Histoire et question pénale. Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine. T. XXXII (1985). 481-526. Rothschild, Jean-Pierre. Traduire au Moyen Age. Le livre au Moyen Age. Dir. Jean Glenisson. CRNS: Paris 1988. 155-61. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. A guide to the collections of Ancient Art & Modern Art. Ephrem with collaboration of the scientific staff of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. Alice: Brussels 1999. Runnalls, Graham A. Études sur les mystères. Un recueil de 22 études sur les mystères français, suivi d’un répertoire du théâtre religieux français du Moyen Age et d’une bibliographie. Champion: Paris 1998. Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Lucifer. The Devil in the Middle Ages. Cornell UP: Ithaca 1984. Sainéan, Lazare. L'argot ancien (1455–1850). (1907) Slatkine: Genève 1972. Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within. Animals in the Middle Ages. Routledge: New York 1994. Salmi, Hannu. Onko tuoksuilla ja äänillä menneisyys? Aistiympäristön historia tutkimuskohteena. Kulttuurihistoria – Johdatus tutkimukseen. Ed. by Kari Immonen & Maarit Leskelä-Kärki. SKS: Hämeenlinna 2001. 339-57. ——— Suudelma. Faros: Turku 2004. Sawday, Jonathan. The Body Emblazoned. Dissection and the human body in renaissance Culture. Routledge: London 1995. Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain. The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford UP: New York 1985. Schmitt, Jean-Claude. Le corps, les rites, les rêves, le temps. Essais d’antropologie médiévale. Gallimard: Paris 2001. ——— Le corps des images. Essais sur la culture visuelle au Moyen Âge. Gallimard: Paris 2002. ——— Ghosts in the Middle Ages. The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society. Transl. by Teresa Lavender Fagan. (1994) The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1998a. ——— The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children Since the Thirteenth Century. Transl. by Martin Thom. Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1983. ——— Images and the historian. History and Images. Toward a New Iconology. Ed. by Axel Bolvig and Phillip Lindley. Brepols: Turnhout 2003. 19-44. ——— La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval. Gallimard: Paris 1990. ——— Religion, Folklore, and Society in the Medieval West. Debating the Middle Ages. Issues and Readings. Ed. by Lester K. Little & Barbara H. Rosenwein. Basil Blackwell: Oxford 1998b. 376-87. ——— Le suicide au moyen âge. Annales ESC. 31:1 (1976). 3-19.

366

——— L’univers des marges. Le Moyen Age en lumière. Manuscrits enluminés des bibliothèques de France. Dir. Jacques Dalarun. Fayard: Paris 2002. 229-361. Schnerb, Bertrand. L’état bourguignon: 1363–1477. Perrin: Paris 1999. Schwam-Baird, Shira. Terror and Laughter in the Images of the Wild Man: The Case of the 1489 Valentin et Orson. Fifteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 27. Ed. by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Yael Even. Camden House: Rochester, NY 2002. 238-56. Scott, George Ryley. The History of Corporal Punishment. (1968) Senate: London 1996. Sellin, J. Thorsten. Slavery and Penal System. Elsevier: New York 1976. Shahar, Shulamith. The old body in medieval culture. Framing medieval bodies. Ed. by Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin. Manchester UP: Manchester 1994. 160-86. Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine. An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1990. Smets, Irene. Groeninge Museum & Arentshuis, Bruges. A Selection of the Finest Works. Ludion: Ghent 2000. Smeyers, Maurice & Katharina (eds.). Dirk Bouts (ca.1410-1475): een Vlaams primitief te Leuven. Peeters: Leuven 1998. Sorabji, Richard. Emotion and Peace of Mind. From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford UP: Oxford 2002. Sosson, Jean-Pierre. Le Statut du peintre. Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps. Dir. Birgitte de Patoul & Roger Van Schoute. Le Renaissance du Livre: Tournai 1998. 76-87. Sot, Michel, Anita Guerreau-Jalabert & Jean-Patrice Boudet. L’étrangeté médiévale. Pour une histoire culturelle. Dir. Jean-Pierre Rioux & Jean-François Sirinelli. Seuil: Paris 1997. 167-82. Spierenburg, Pieter. The Broken Spell. A Cultural and Anthropological History of Preindustrial Europe. Rutgers UP: New Brunswick 1991. ——— The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression, from a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience. Cambridge UP: Cambridge New York, NY 1984. Stein, Robert. Gifts of Mourning-Cloth at the Brabantine Court in the Fifteenth Century. Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse. Brepols: Turnhout 1999. 5180. Sterling, Charles. La peinture médiévale à Paris. 1300–1500. I-II. Bibliothèque des arts: Paris 1987–1990. Tanon, Louis. Histoire des justices des anciennes églises et communautés monastiques de Paris suivie des registres inédits de Saint-Maur-des Fossés, Sainte-Geneviève, Saint-Germaindes-Prés et du registre de Saint-Martin-des-Champs. L. Larose & Forcel: Paris 1883. Taylor, Andrew. ‘To pley a pagyn of þe devyl’: tur piloquium and the scurrae in early drama. Evil on the Medieval Stage. Ed. by Meg Twycross. Medieval English Theatre 11. (1992). 162-74. Taylor, Henry Osborn. The Mediaeval Mind. A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages. I. Harvard UP: Cambridge, Massachusetts 1966.

367

Tervarent, Guy. Attributs et symboles dans l’art profane. Dictionnaire d’un langage perdu (1450–1600). Droz: Genève 1997. Toropainen, Veli Pekka. Piilukirves ja hirsipuu – Turun pyövelit 1600-luvulla. Genos 4 (2004). 188-207. Toubert, Hélène. Fabrication d’un manuscript. Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit. Dir. Henri-Jean Martin & Jean Vezin. Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis: Mayenne 1990. 417-20. Tuhkanen, Tuija. Helige Erasmus i Kalands kyrka. ICO-Iconographisk Post. Nordic Rewiev of Iconography. 3 (1996). 1-11. Turunen, Ari. Humalan henki eli juomatapojen tarina. Atena: Jyväskylä 1999. Vacandard, E. L’inquisition. Étude historique et critique sur le pouvoir coercitif de l’église. Paris 1906. Vainajien salaisuudet. Kupan arvoitus. Uusinta. TV1 19.7.2003. 10:05-10:55. Van Buren, Anne Hagopian. Le sens de l’histoire dans les manuscrits du XVe siècle. Pratiques de la culture écrite en France au XVe siècle. FIDEM: Louvain-la-Neuve 1995. 515-25. Van Caenegem, R.C. La Peine dans les anciens Pays-Bas (12e–17e S.). Recueils de la société Jean Bodin pour l'histoire comparative des institutions. LVI. La Peine. II. Europe avant le XVIIIe siècle. Bruxelles 1991. 117-41. Van Dülmen, Richard. Theatre of Horror. Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany. Transl. by Elisabeth Neu. (1985) Polity: Cambridge 1990. Van Uytven, Raymond. Showing off One’s Rank in the Middle Ages. Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse. Brepols: Turnhout 1999.19-34. Vanwijnsberghe, Dominique. At the Court as in the City: the Miniature in the Burgundian Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century. Medieval Mastery. Book Illumination from Charlemagne to Charles the Bold. / 800–1475. Brepols: Leuven 2002. 263-71. Vaughan, Richard. Charles the Bold: the last Valois Duke of Burgundy. Longmans: London 1973. ——— John the Fearless: the growth of Burgundy. Longmans: London 1966. ——— Philip the Bold: the formation of the Burgundian state. Harward UP: Cambridge, MA 1962. ——— Philip the Good: the apogee of Burgundy. Longmans: London 1970. Verdon, Jean. Rire au Moyen Âge. Perrin: Saint-Amand-Montrond 2001. Vincent, Catherine. Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France. XIIIe–XVe siècle. Albin Michel: Paris 1944. Virkkunen, A.H. Oulun kaupungin historia. I. Kaupungin alkuajoilta isovihan loppuun. Kirjola: Oulu 1953. Virtanen, Keijo. Kulttuurihistoria humanistisena tieteenä. Metodikirja. Näkökulmia kulttuurihistorian tutkimukseen. Turun yliopiston täydennyskoulutuskeskus: Turku 1993. 9-18. Voisenet, Jacques. Le tabou du sang dans le pénitentiels du Haut Moyen Âge. Le Sang au Moyen Âge. Actes du quatrième colloque international de Monpellier Université

368

Paul-Valéry (27–29 novembre 1997). Publications de l’Université Paul-Valéry: Montpellier 1999. 111-25. Vovelle, Michel. Ideologies and Mentalities. Polity: Cambridge 1990. ——— La mort et l'Occident de 1300 à nos jours. Gallimard: Paris 1983. Wadsworth, R.L. The Bourreau in Arnoul Gréban's Mystère de la Passion. Revue de littérature comparée. 44 (1970). 499-509. Walther, Ingo F. & Norbert Wolf. Masterpieces of Illumination. The world’s most beautiful illuminated manuscripts from 400 to 1600. Taschen: Köln 2005. Weisser, Michael R. Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe. (1979) Harvester: Brighton 1982. Weisz, Jean S. Salvation through Death: Jacopino del Conte´s Altarpiece in the Oratory of S. Giovanni Decollato in Rome. Art History. Journal of the Association of Art Historians. Vol. 6. No. 1 (1983). 395-405. White, Lynn. The Legacy of the Middle Ages in the American Wild West. Speculum. A Journal of Mediaeval Studies. 40 (1965). 191-202. Wijsman, Hanno. Images between Stories and History. Miniatures Showing Travelling Women in Late Medieval Manuscripts from the Netherlands. Female Trails: Real and Imagined Mobility of Women in the Late Middle Ages. Ed. by Dick de Boer, Thérèse De Hemptinne & Katrien Heene. Brepols: Forthcoming. Wind, Edgar. The Criminal god. Journal of the Warburg Institute. I (1937/38). 243-5. Wirth, Jean. L’image médiévale. Naissance et développements. (VIe–XVe siècle). Méridiens Klincksieck: Paris 1989. ——— Les marges à drôleries des manuscripts gothiques: problèmes de méthode. History and Images. Towards a New Iconology. Ed. by Axel Bolvig and Phillip Lindley. Brepols: Turnhout 2003. 277-300. Wolff, Philippe. Les Bouchers de Toulouse du XIIe au XVe siècle. Regards sur le Midi médieval. Privat: Toulouse 1978a. 107-24. ——— Recherches sur les médecins de Toulouse aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Regards sur le Midi médieval. Privat: Toulouse 1978b. 125-42. Zaremska, Hanna. Les bannis au Moyen Age. Transl. by Thérèse Douchy. Aubier: Paris 1996. Ziegler, Philippe. The Black Death. Collins: London 1969. Ziwès, Armand. Le Jargon de Me François Villon. Walts et Puget: Paris 1960.

369

PICTORIAL APPENDIX 1. Bouts, Dirk. Judgment of Emperor Otho. Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. 2. Bouts, Dirk. Judgment of Emperor Otho. Ordeal of the Countess. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. 3. Legend of St Ursula. Before 1482. Groeninge Museum, Bruges. 4. Mount Calvary. C. 1500. Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. 5. Van der Weyden, Rogier. Martyrdom of St John. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. C. 1454. Staatliche Museen-Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. 6. Memling, Hans. Martyrdom of John the Baptist. Left-hand panel of the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. 1474–1479. Memling Museum, Bruges. 7. Fouquet, Jean. Execution of partisans of Aumary de Chartres in the Chroniques de SaintDenis. C. 1459. Ms. fr. 6465, fol. 236r. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 8. Execution of rebellious Norman knights in the Grandes Chroniques de France (1380) Ms. fr. 2813, fol. 398r. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 9. Metsys, Quentin. Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. Right-hand panel of the Triptych of the Ebenists’ Guild. 1508–1511. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. 10. Bosch, Hieronymus. Christ Carrying the Cross. C. 1515–1516. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent. 11. Judgment of Moses in the Grandes Heures de Rohan. 1430–1435. BN ms. lat. 9471, fol. 236r B. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 12. Flagellation in the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry. C. 1372–1390. Ms. lat. 18014, fol. 83v. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 13. Execution of Guillaume de Sans, seigneur of Pommiers in Jean Froissart’s chronicle, Bruges, 1470–1475. Ms. fr. 2644, fol. 1r. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 14. Execution of Robert de Trésilian in Jean Froissart’s chronicle, Bruges, 1470–1475. Ms. fr. 2645, fol. 238v. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

371

15. Execution of Olivier de Clisson and Breton knights in Jean Froissart’s chronicle, Bruges, 1470–1475. Ms. fr. 2643, fol. 126r. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 16. Execution of Themistus, Andranodorus, their wifes, daughters, and partisans in Le Rommans de Titus Livius. First quarter of the fourteenth century. Ms. fr. 30, fol. 256r. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

372

1. Bouts, Dirk. Judgment of Emperor Otho. Wrongful Execution of the Count. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. 373

2. Bouts, Dirk. Judgment of Emperor Otho. Ordeal of the Countess. C. 1470. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.

374

3. Legend of St Ursula. Before 1482. Groeninge Museum, Bruges.

375

4. Mount Calvary. C. 1500. Historisch Museum, Amsterdam.

376

5. Van der Weyden, Rogier. Martyrdom of St. John. Right-hand panel of the St John Altarpiece. C. 1454. Staatliche Museen-Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

377

6. Memling, Hans. Martyrdom of John the Baptist. Left-hand panel of the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. 1474–1479. Memling Museum, Bruges.

378

7. Fouquet, Jean. Execution of partisans of Aumary de Chartres in the Chroniques de Saintr Denis. C. 1459. Ms. fr. 6465, fol. 236 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

379

8. Execution of rebellious Norman knights in the Grandes Chroniques de France (1380) Ms. r fr. 2813, fol. 398 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

380

9. Metsys, Quentin. Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist. Right-hand panel of the Triptych of the Ebenists’ Guild. 1508–1511. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. 381

10. Bosch, Hieronymus. Christ Carrying the Cross. C. 1515–1516. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent.

382

11. Judgment of Moses in the Grandes Heures de Rohan. 1430–1435. BN ms. lat. 9471, r fol. 236 B. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

383

12. Flagellation in the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry. C. 1372–1390. Ms. lat. 18014, v fol. 83 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

384

13. Execution of Guillaume de Sans, seigneur of Pommiers in Jean Froissart’s chronicle, r Bruges, 1470–1475. Ms. fr. 2644, fol. 1 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

385

14. Execution of Robert de Trésilian in Jean Froissart’s chronicle, Bruges, 1470–1475. v Ms. fr. 2645, fol. 238 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

386

15. Execution of Olivier de Clisson and Breton knights in Jean Froissart’s chronicle, r Bruges, 1470–1475. Ms. fr. 2643, fol. 126 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

387

16. Execution of Themistus, Andranodorus, their wifes, daughters, and partisans in Le r Rommans de Titus Livius. First quarter of the fourteenth century. Ms. fr. 30, fol. 256 . Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

388