Summary of Joel F. Harrington's The Faithful Executioner

By IRB Media

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#1 The family had moved to Bamberg eight months earlier, and Frantz had already accompanied his father to several executions in the city and nearby villages. He was testing his son on the most difficult and honorable form of execution, death by the sword.

#2 The local dog slayer, or knacker, had assembled a few stray canines and brought them in his ramshackle wooden cages to the executioner’s residence in the heart of the city. Schmidt paid his subordinate a small tip for the favor and took the animals to the courtyard behind the house.

#3 The insecurity of life was evident from the very beginning. The first two years of a child’s life were the most dangerous, as frequent outbreaks of smallpox, typhus, and dysentery proved particularly fatal to younger victims.

#4 The German states of the 1500s were divided up among more than 300 member states, which ranged in size from small baronial castles to vast territorial principalities. The emperor and his annual representative assembly, the Reichstag, provided a common focus of allegiance and symbolic authority, but they were powerless to prevent or resolve the feuds and wars that regularly broke out among member states.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822529397

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Insights on Joel F. Harrington's The Faithful Executioner

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The family had moved to Bamberg eight months earlier, and Frantz had already accompanied his father to several executions in the city and nearby villages. He was testing his son on the most difficult and honorable form of execution, death by the sword.

#2

The local dog slayer, or knacker, had assembled a few stray canines and brought them in his ramshackle wooden cages to the executioner’s residence in the heart of the city. Schmidt paid his subordinate a small tip for the favor and took the animals to the courtyard behind the house.

#3

The insecurity of life was evident from the very beginning. The first two years of a child’s life were the most dangerous, as frequent outbreaks of smallpox, typhus, and dysentery proved particularly fatal to younger victims.

#4

The German states of the 1500s were divided up among more than 300 member states, which ranged in size from small baronial castles to vast territorial principalities. The emperor and his annual representative assembly, the Reichstag, provided a common focus of allegiance and symbolic authority, but they were powerless to prevent or resolve the feuds and wars that regularly broke out among member states.

#5

The sixteenth century was a period of high inflation and unemployment, which led to a decline in the number of nonmilitary jobs available to commoners. The ranks of soldiers for pay accordingly ballooned twelvefold over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

#6

The Plackerei was not limited to the battlefield. It was also common in times of peace, when unemployed or unpaid, some groups of young men would rove about the countryside looking for food, drink, and women.

#7

The people of Frantz Schmidt’s day were terrified by the many dangers they faced, from highwaymen to fire-breathing dragons. They were also terrified by the specter of witchcraft, which hovered menacingly over their lives.

#8

Religion was a major