Origin of the executioner's mask

[Astra]

On another board I go to, there's some discussion of apparent video of the Hussein execution. The executioners are said to be wearing masks (I didn't watch it). I think the reasons someone participating in such an event might want to remain anonymous are obvious, but I was curious if anyone had any information on the origins of the executioner's mask and if it is still used today. The only cases I'm familiar with were electricutions and lethal injections and no masks were mentioned.

I'm still searching, but Google keeps steering me more towards other uses for such masks, if you catch my meaning.

[Brad from Georgia]

Well, executioners didn't exactly have glamor jobs. I think the hoods were to provide some feeling of anonymity for the executioner and to prevent the condemned from reading anything human, pitying, etc., in the executioner's expression--or, alternately, to prevent the condemned from seeing how much some of them enjoyed the work.

I teach Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV from time to time, and point out that in Act I, Scene 2, Prince Hal insults Falstaff by promising that when Hal becomes King, he will make Falstaff a hangman. "Why is that a bad job?" one of my students once asked me.

"It's a job only the lowest and most brutal would take," I said. "It was a necessary job, but no one wanted to do it and no one respected them. Nobody loves the hangman."

Now, one of these days I'm going to write a mystery with that title. It strikes me as a title just crying out for a novel!

[musicgeek]

Originally Posted by Brad from Georgia

" Nobody loves the hangman."

Now, one of these days I'm going to write a mystery with that title. It strikes me as a title just crying out for a novel!

...But Everybody Loves the Hung

Sorry, I'll get it:

I once heard that you might need to bribe the executioner (this is in the old times, mind you...) to stay sober. This was especially important if you were to be beheaded. I think I would want my executioner to be able to do the deed in one fell swoop, rather than several drunken hacks... ugh.

[DemonWolf]

Originally Posted by aranea russus

It was also probably a way of preventing retribution against the hang man, particularly where there's jockeying for power or the executed is a very powerful person. I'm thinking about french revolutionary times here where (aristocratic) friends / family of the the executed could easily get the hang man dispached as a kind of revenge.

That was what I'd heard as well. The idea is that the family of the condemned cannot exact revenge upon the hangman of his family.

[queen of the caramels]

BTW Didn't it take three strikes to cut off Mary Queen of Scots head?

Apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_qu..._and_execution

The execution was poorly carried out. It is said to have taken three blows to hack off her head. The first blow struck the back of her head, the next struck her shoulder and severed her subclavian artery, spewing blood in all directions. She is said to have been alive and conscious after the first two blows. The next blow took off her head, save some gristle, which was cut using the axe as a saw [4]. Since Mary was executed with the same number of axe strikes as Essex, it has been postulated that the number was part of a ritual devised to protract the suffering of the victim.[2]

Also The Earl of Essex(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...rial_and_death) and Thomas Cromwell an earlier Earl of Essex(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...Essex#Downfall).

And The Countess of Salisbury(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margare...bury#Execution)

[ganzfeld]

EDMUND: I just don't understand it. Where on Earth did they find a man so utterly without heart and soul, so low and degraded as to accept the job of beheading the King of England? (Pauses, looks into the camera, and turns to Baldrick.) Baldrick...
BALDRICK: Yeah?
EDMUND: That little job that fell into your lap...
BALDRICK: Yes?
EDMUND: It wasn't, by any chance, something to do with an axe, a basket, a little black mask, and the King of England...?
BALDRICK: Nah...
EDMUND: Go on.
BALDRICK: I couldn't find a basket.

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by DemonWolf

That was what I'd heard as well. The idea is that the family of the condemned cannot exact revenge upon the hangman of his family.

Didn't work for the regicides of Charles the 1st. When his son came to the throne about 10 years later, there was a lot of retribution against those who were involved, including an ancestor of mine. He got off lightly, life in prison, but others were hung drawn and quartered.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

Didn't work for the regicides of Charles the 1st. When his son came to the throne about 10 years later, there was a lot of retribution against those who were involved, including an ancestor of mine. He got off lightly, life in prison, but others were hung drawn and quartered.

Those are the people who signed the death warrant; as far as I know the actual executioner was not punished.

wrt OP executioners (both with beheading and hanging) were hooded when executions were public, mainly to avoid retribution but also for anonymity. With some more recent methods of execution arrangements are made (especially with firing squads) so that it is uncertain who actually was the executioner (ie some rifles loaded with blanks).

In the case of Saddam Hussein, although execution was not supposed to be public there were a number of official witnesses (at least one of whom had a mobile phone camera), hence the masks.

[Joostik]

So when did it become common for executioners to wear masks anyway? They seem to be absent from medieval depictions, indeed I couldn't even find one from French Revolutionary times.

According to Fernand Vanhemelryck (2004), "Marginalen in de geschiedenis - Over beulen, joden, hoeren, zigeuners en andere zondebokken"*, the origins of the taboo on the position of executioner dates back to prechristian times. Vanhemelryck (p. 265) cites an alleged Germanic belief in the demonic nature of crime, which was thought to somehow pass over into the executioner upon a convict's death.

I can't find anything on the mask, though Vanhemelryck lists a number of ways an officially appointed executioner was expected to advertise his position in daily life - strips of fabric sewn to his clothes, specific types of hats - that would allow the "honourable" portion of society to avoid him more effectively. The office of executioner was very much a public one, and the executioner very much a public figure. The mask, then, doesn't strike me as a disguise - I'd be more inclined to see it as a way of dehumanising a figure performing a dehumanising task.

I'm sure there's a whole layer of psychology here that I can't possibly do justice with my limited background knowledge, to the effect a costume or a mask can have on people seeking to dissociate themselves from what they're doing.

Blue "Utter hack" Byrd

* Roughly "In the margins of history - on executioners, jews, prostitutes, gypsies and other scapegoats"

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Blue Byrd

I can't find anything on the mask, though Vanhemelryck lists a number of ways an officially appointed executioner was expected to advertise his position in daily life - strips of fabric sewn to his clothes, specific types of hats - that would allow the "honourable" portion of society to avoid him more effectively. The office of executioner was very much a public one, and the executioner very much a public figure. The mask, then, doesn't strike me as a disguise - I'd be more inclined to see it as a way of dehumanising a figure performing a dehumanising task.

I just happened to read a text about executions and executioners in Sweden the other day. The executioner had to wear red clothing to be easily recognisable, he had his own seat in the church and his own glass in the tavern.

There was a very good film released in 2005 called 'The Last Hangman (or Pierrepoint) in which the narrative talks about the mask. I can't remember the exact details, but I think he mentions that the mask was brought in to protect the executioner's family - in as much as most ordered deaths were from amongst the general population, who would often live in the same areas as the executioner (get the working class to kill their peers and the upper echelons don't have to dirty their hands).

It's well worth seeing.

...But Everybody Loves the Hung

Bwah ha ha ha ha! :wipes eyes: Yomank!