For other meanings of the term, see executioner (disambiguation). Headsman redirects here; see The Headsman (2005 film) for the movie.

A judicial executioner (not to be confused with executor) is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice. The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      In law, the judiciary or judicial is the system of courts which administer justice in the name of the sovereign or state, a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. ... An executor is a person named by a maker of a will to carry out the directions of the will. ... Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ... A state is a political association with effective dominion over a geographic area. ... Lady Justice or Justitia is a personification of the moral force that underlies the legal system (particularly in Western art). ... HIGH, MIDDLE AND LOW JUSTICE are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judiciary power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents. ...

Scope and job

The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorizing or ordering him to execute the sentence. The warrant protects the executioner from the charge of murder. Common terms for executioners derived from forms of capital punishment -though they often also performed other physical punishments- include hangman (hanging) and headsman (beheading). In the military the role of executioner was usually performed by a soldier, such as the provost. A common stereotype of an executioner is a hooded medieval or absolutist executioner. For the 1996 Blur single, see Stereotypes (song). ... A hood is a kind of headgear. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ...

While this task can be an occasional one, it can be carried out in the line of more general duty by an officer of the court, the police, prison staff, or even the military. A special case is the tradition of the Roman fustuarium, continued in forms of running the gauntlet, where the culprit receives his punishment from the hands of the comrades his crime has gravely harmed, e.g. for failing in vital sentinel duty or stealing from a ship's limited food supply. The FUSTUARIUM (an abstraction from the Latin fustis, a branch or rod) was a Roman military form of execution by cludgeling, which was copied by later armies. ...

Many executioners were professional specialists, who usually traveled a whole area since executions would rarely be very numerous. Still, especially if a resident, he would often also administer non-lethal physical punishments, or apply torture. Corporal punishment is forced pain intended to change a persons behaviour or to punish them. ... Torture is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he...

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

Since executions in France (using the guillotine since the French Revolution) persisted until 1977, the French Republic had an official executioner, Marcel Chevalier, until the formal abolition in 1981. Historic replicas (1:6 scale) of the two main types of French guillotines: Model 1792, left, and Model 1872 (state as of 1907), right The guillotine is a device used for carrying out executions by decapitation. ... The French Revolution (1789–1815) was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on... Also: 1977 (album) by Ash. ... Marcel Chevalier (born 28 February 1921) was the last executioner (headsman) in France. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ...

Executioners in society

In Europe and its colonies, executioners have often been shunned by their neighbours. This attitude can be observed in numerous novels and films, for instance in Alexandre Dumas, père's The Three Musketeers or in the film La veuve de Saint-Pierre (The Widow of Saint-Pierre) in which executioners, who are minor characters, were ostracized by villagers. The profession of executioner sometimes ran through a family, especially in France where the Sanson family provided six executioners between 1688 and 1847, and the Deibler dynasty provided five between 1879 and abolition in 1981 (Louis Deibler, his son Anatole, Anatole's nephew Jean-Henri Desfourneaux, another nephew of Anatole, André Obrecht, and finally André's nephew, Marcel Chevalier). In Britain, the most notable dynasty was the Pierrepoints, who provided three executioners between 1902 and 1956 - Henry, his brother Thomas, and Henry's son Albert. World map showing the location of Europe. ... This is a list of people who have acted as official executioners. ... Alexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870) was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. ... For other uses, see The Three Musketeers (disambiguation). ... Pieces of broken pottery as voting tokens. ... André Obrecht was the official executioner of France from 1951 until 1976 when the title was handed to the final executioner in France, Marcel Chevalier. ... Marcel Chevalier (born 28 February 1921) was the last executioner (headsman) in France. ... The poster for the film about the life of Albert Pierrepoint Albert Pierrepoint (30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) is the most famous member of a Yorkshire family who provided three of Britains Chief Executioners in the first half of the 20th century. ...

Native societies in Asia, Africa, The Americas, and the Pacific seem rarely to display such prejudice towards executioners, even when, as in North America, there is significant and vocal opposition to the death penalty itself. World map showing the location of Asia. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... World map showing the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere historically considered to consist of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation). ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ...

In "Memories of Silk and Straw", by Junichi Saga, one of the families surveyed in the Japanese village of Tsuchiura is that of an executioner family ("The Last Executioner", P. 54). This family does suffer social isolation, even though the family is somewhat well-off financially. Where the paragraph above cites little social shunning for executioners in places like North America, one needs to bear in mind the infrequency of executions in modern times and the ease of a prison official not telling his family what his actual job at the prison is, something that was not possible when most executions were carried out in view of the general public.

See also

• List of executioners
• Pierrepoint (film)
• The Executioner of Prague by Josef Svátek.