1) The significance of naming a condemn criminal a “poor sinner” comes from the idea that even criminals are not necessarily forsaken from being saved in this culture. As the professor emphasized in the first two lectures, mercy would be the most important attribute when sentencing justice in order to have an orderly show of their control of justice. The idea that a person condemned is still a Christian similar to any other person in society. A story from the Bible that would have been common for the time would be the fact that when Jesus was crucified on the cross, two other criminals would be at his side, with one being saved for understanding that they must suffer for their crimes at least based on the Luke 23.
2) The execution ritual is vital to Early Modern criminal justices as a show of force of the state. Although crimes could be high, with an execution, people are put to fear the law since if caught, they face the punishment based on their crimes from hot iron pokes, …show more content…
Although the three orders would not truly reflect the society of Medieval and Early Modern Europe, it did have a huge effect on their mentality which is similar to the idea that the US sees itself as the land of opportunity although that seems to be a myth when comparing itself to the social mobility of Europe.
6) The reason that the Schmidt family became tainted by the duty of being executioners goes back to his father, Heinrich Schmidt, who was originally a woodman and fowler. He becomes an executioner because of the lord, Albrecht II Alcibiades, who was involved in the religious conflicts in the Hof region in 1540 and 1550. Alcibiades would arrest three gunsmiths because of a supposed plot on his life and had a bystander execute the smiths by invoking a ancient custom. The bystander chosen would be Heinrich Schmidt. This would put the Schmidt family into the dishonorable job of