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|title=The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death in the Sixteenth Century

|sort=Faithful Executioner: Life and Death in the Sixteenth Century, The

|publisher=Vintage

|date=May 2014

|video=3uSHM2EMF_8

|summary=The life and grim career of Franz Schmidt, official executioner of Nuremberg for over forty years in the 16th and 17th centuries, based on his personal journal. This review contains references that some readers may wish to avoid.

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Frantz Schmidt, the official executioner and torturer in Nuremberg, the Albert Pierrepoint of his day, entered his terrible profession by accident. In 1553, shortly before he was born, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach had three gunsmiths arrested after they were found guilty of plotting to kill him. Invoking a local custom, he called on a random bystander to execute them, and his choice fell on Heinrich Schmidt to carry out the sentence. If he disobeyed, he and the two men standing next to him would also be summarily hanged. Having thus been made to carry out one execution, Schmidt and his family were ostracised by all respectable citizens in their home town of Nuremberg and banned from all public buildings. He therefore had no choice but to take it up as a lifelong career.

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