Epitomes of Evil: Representations of Executioners in Northern France and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages (Studies in European Urban History

by Hannele Klemettilä

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.

388 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

FT Hannele Klemettilä on myöhäiskeskiaikaan erikoistunut tietokirjailija ja tutkija. Aiemmin häneltä on julkaistu muun muassa kiitetty ja komeasti kuvitettu kirja Keskiajan pyövelit (2004).

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Hannele Klemettilä (Hannele Klemettilä-McHale; born 1966 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish historian, medievalist, and author [1] living in Manhattan, New York, and the medieval village of Sonning-on-Thames in the county of Berkshire. She studied cultural history at the University of Turku, earned a Ph.D. in medieval history from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and was a Postdoctoral Researcher of the Academy of Finland in 2008-2010. She is an Adjunct Professor of cultural history at the University of Turku, and a Life Member at the Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. She published Epitomes of Evil (Brepols 2006),[2] and other books on late medieval cultural history. Her research interests include late medieval penal culture, representations of the executioner, Gilles de Rais, cooking and cookery books, conceptions of cruelty, medieval symbolism, attitudes to animals and nature.