Who is the Executioner? A despicable person or a respected citizen? Let's find out the facts. An executioner is a person who is legally involved in torture and murder. The word has Turkish roots and is translated as - "sword".
1 fact
The executioner was not a favorite profession and therefore a weak-willed slave was put in this position or a deal was made with criminals sentenced to death. If they agreed, then all charges were dropped from them. If the father in the family was an executioner, then his son was obliged to continue his occupation. They were looking for the executioner's wife in the families of grave diggers or other executioners. The childless executioner himself was looking for a successor.
Fact 2
Once having become an executioner, a person has been doing this all his life, he had no right to change his occupation. The executioners, like representatives of any other profession, were highly and low skilled. A skillful Executioner is a rarity, so his services were very expensive. For this reason, they were quite wealthy, but the people avoided them. There are known reliable cases when an excellent executioner was invited to another country to carry out an execution.
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Fact 3
The executioners had the exclusive right to study the remains, while the doctors of that time did not have such rights. Therefore, the Executioners often sold bodies to doctors.
4 fact
Contrary to the well-established image of an executioner in a cap, in most cases they did not wear a headdress and did not hide their faces. Only if a noble person became a victim of the executioner, he was obliged to cover his face. They tried to carry out the execution carefully, since after it the shirt and boots rightfully belonged to them.
5 fact
In order to order the executioner's service, it was enough to throw a black glove over the window of the executioner's house. At the same time, the executioner's house was always near the city prison and was painted red.
6 fact
They went to church like everyone else. But they received communion after all the others.
7 fact
In the markets, they received all the products free of charge, since the sellers did not want to take "bloody" money.
Fact 8
The executioners very often engaged in the sale of dried organs and the expulsion of evil spirits. Since it was believed that the tormented body rejects the demons, and in torture the executioners had no equal.
Fact 9
The executioners were also required to look after the city's night butterflies. In addition, they collected corpses from the streets, expelled lepers and caught dogs.
Fact 10
In Russia, this profession was also called - "master of the shoulder" and they usually became former hunters. They were not in every settlement, if necessary, the executioner was called from the capital.