Epitomes of Evil
Representations of Executioners in Northern France and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages
By (author) Hannele Klemettila
Hangmen were familiar characters from urban reality to people living in France and the Burgundian Netherlands in the late Middle Ages. These officers played an essential role in the new penal system. However, general attitudes towards public executioners were highly ambiguous, often hostile and disparaging. In past imagery, various hangman figures, real or fictitious, were closely linked to ideas of otherness, cruelty, sin and evil. They were identified with criminals, marginal people and demons. In the period of the late Middle Ages, the hangman’s representations were actively exploited, shaped and modified for various reasons by different social and cultural groups in different products of culture, religious as well as secular. This study casts light on ways of perceiving the executioner in French and Burgundian culture and society from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. The primary sources used in this work consist of wide and varied printed and non-printed textual materials such as chronicles, writings by legal experts and theologians, drama and poetry. Significant role is also given to the testimony offered by pictorial art, both sacred and profane, especially miniatures and panel paintings.
- By (author) Hannele Klemettila
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Moving Pictures. Intra-European Trade in Images, 16th-18th Centuries
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Governments of the Universitates
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Earning Dignity
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Councils, Conflicts, Correspondence
Urban Diplomacy in Reval (Tallinn) and Lübeck (c. 1470–1570)
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Des villes en revolte
Les republiques urbaines aux Pays-Bas et en France pendant la deuxieme moitie du XVIe siecle
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Urban Hierarchy
The Interaction between Towns and Cities in Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times
Volume 53
Gouverner la ville au bas Moyen Age
Les elites dirigeantes de la ville de Namur au XVe siecle
Volume 16
La Justice dans une ville du Nord du Royaume de France au Moyen Age
Etude sur la pratique judiciaire a Saint-Quentin (fin XIe-debut XVe siecle)
Volume 24
Civilites et incivilites urbaines
Urbanite, rituels et ceremonies dans la ville du XVIIe siecle
Volume 62
Le chatiment des villes dans les espaces mediterraneens (Antiquite, Moyen Age, Epoque moderne)
Volume 26
De Bono Communi
The Discourse and Practice of the Common Good in the European City (13th-16th c.) / Discours et pratique du Bien Commun dans les villes d'Europe (XIIIe au XVIe siecle)
Volume 22
Le pouvoir en ville
Gestion urbaine et pratiques politiques a Geneve (fin XIIIe - debut XVIe siecles)
Volume 25
Rise of Cities Revisited
Reflections on Adriaan Verhulst's Vision of Urban Genesis and Developments in the Medieval Low Countries
Volume 61
Technologies of Learning
Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the 15th Century to the End of the Ancien Regime
Volume 11
Woven into the Urban Fabric
Cloth Manufacture and Economic Development in the Flemish West-Quarter (1300-1600)
Volume 54
Emotions in the Heart of the City (14th-16th century) / Les emotions au coeur de la ville (XIVe-XVIe siecle)
Les emotions au coeur de la ville (XIVe-XVIe siecle)
Volume 5
Urban Elites and Aristocratic Behaviour in the Spanish Kingdoms at the End of the Middle Ages
Volume 27
Des amities ciblees
Concours de tir et diplomatie urbaine dans le Saint-Empire, XVe-XVIe siecle
Volume 51
Power of Space in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
The cities of Italy, Northern France and the Low Countries
Volume 30
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