Chapter 13 Death Disrupted: Heresy Executions and Spectators in the Low Countries, 1550–1566
In: The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800Search for other papers by Isabel Casteels in
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Abstract
In the 1550s and 1560s, heresy executions taking place in the Low Countries were regularly interrupted by audience members, who disturbed the execution ritual, or even tried to prevent executions from taking place. Using a combination of sources, including legal administration, government correspondences, eyewitness accounts and chronicles, and martyrological writings, this chapter aims to trace these audience interventions and analyze their impact on the last moments on the scaffold on the experience of the execution ritual. It is argued that the symbolic violence used by the spectators and contemporary discussions within Reformed communities indicate that audience interventions were strategic and performative, instead of spontaneous outbursts of Protestant sympathies. These disrupted executions had long afterlives, as their histories were recounted many times in stories, books, songs, and letters. Moreover, anticipating new audience interferences, local magistrates increasingly started to take precautionary measures when staging executions. Therefore, although only a handful of executions were actually disrupted, the perception of these interventions and the atmosphere of anxiety they created still shaped the entire experience of attending and staging executions in this period.