Chapter 2 Ambiguity and Authenticity: the ‘Good Death’ on the Scaffold

In: The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800
Author:
Hillard von Thiessen
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Type:
Chapter
Pages:
21–35
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004517745_003

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Abstract

The article analyses how persons convicted to death managed to change their identity completely before being executed, thereby allowing them to die a ‘good death’. Two exemplary cases are presented: the first is the execution of Rodrigo Calderón who had been the favourite of the Duque of Lerma, minister-favourite of Philip III. His execution in 1621 was designed to symbolize the end of a corrupt regime, but in contrast turned out to be perceived as the exemplary death of a man who had left his sinful life behind in order to prepare for particular judgement. The other case is that of Catharina Baumännin executed 1731 in Freiburg. She had earned her living by committing a kind of conversion fraud for several years travelling through Southwest Germany and pretending to desire to convert. She then was instructed, lodged and fed and usually slipped away before her fraud was discovered. During her tour she, in fact already a Catholic, was baptised two times in the Catholic rite and therefore finally convicted to death for rebaptism. Like Calderón, she performed a last conversion and successfully played the role of a rueful sinner and died a publicly celebrated ‘good death’. The article discusses why these changes of persona were regarded as authentic: In contrast to converts, who often were accused of opportunism, persons on the scaffold knew that they would face an incorruptible authority immediately after death; this perspective made their complete change of roles credible to their contemporaries.

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The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800

Contested Ideals, Controversial Spaces, and Suspicious Objects

Series:  Intersections, Volume: 89
Cover The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800
E-Book ISBN:
9789004517745
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
30 Apr 2024
Front Matter
Chapter 1 Introduction: the Moment(s) of Death in Early Modern Europe
Part 1 Approaching the Last Moments
Part 2 Ideal Deathbeds
Part 3 Objects and the Moments of Death
Part 4 Violence and Diseases
Back Matter

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