List of executioners in Themiclesia
The following list of executioners in Themiclesia enumerates all individuals known through corvée rolls and other records to have performed executioner service in Themiclesian cities (mainly Kien-k'ang) since 1080 and up to the abolition of capital punishment in Themiclesia in 1853. The records at Kien-k'ang are the most complete as the city's archives were the best maintained throughout history, though the oldest such record is not at Kien-k'ang. By cross-reference to other records, it is possible to learn where these individuals lived, what their professions were, how many days they remained in service, whether they incurred any fines, and whether they were the principal, substitute, or hirling in the corvée; relating to their performance, it is also possible, albeit in rarer cases, to deduct how many executions they performed.
This research was first systematically done by James Miller in 1980 in his book A Concordance of Death: Exhaustive List of Executioners in Themiclesia and Their Biographic Portraits, which was adapted from his 1977 doctoral dissertation. His motivation is the observation that researchers have written far more, "frequently of a speculative or even lurid character", based on far less actual information about executioners in other countries, whereas information is available in Themiclesia and ironically nobody has yet exploited it. Several other authors have added to the list on account of newly-discovered records or otherwise.
Unlike many other states, at least after 1080, Themiclesia did not employ professional executioners. It was not deemed necessary to have a consistent person in this role, and executions as a rule were assigned to a commoner performing an annual labour service. Possibly, the habit of executing prisoners only on one occasion per year made the role useless throughout the rest of the year, and in general only year-round jobs were made into formal offices. It is less clear how executions were performed prior to 1080 when they were centralized in civic magistracies (formerly, other officials and even private citizens were permitted to execute offenders under a variety of circumstances).
It should be noted that the assizes are named for the administrative year whose work they are meant to defray. The Themiclesian administrative year begins on the first day of the tenth lunar month, which generally falls in November or early December; the Gregorian year is the year following its commencement, not the same year. Thus, the Winter 1333 assizes occurred some time in November or December 1332.
General observations
The Code of 1080, overhauling the corvée labour system in all cities under royal government, established much more specific types of service and their respective performance guidelines and standards, for the eradication of misgovernment and corruption, according to its preambles. The type of executioner was established amongst the 331 types of "ordinary services" (恆), which means they were to be accounted for in the annual corvée assizes.
The corvée assize was a method by which a city determined how to perform the labour work required in the upcoming year: first, the professional soldiers and prisoners were counted, and anything which could be performed by them within statutory bounds were first defrayed upon them; if there was outstanding work, then the adult men and women were summoned, and work was defrayed upon them; then on the elderly and adolescents. For more specialized forms of labour, a similar system was in use for designated sections of the population that had a specific skill. If all the local labour could not cover the required work, then requisitions were sent to the central government or the viceroy overseeing the province. The labour assize itself was generally concerned with the quantity of labourers available, seeking to ensure that all the expected work could be covered by persons accounted for, while the specific tasks were assigned only somewhat later and in processes that differed from city to city.
Executioner duty was within the pool of general work, which category also included clearing forests, keeping fires, tending gates, pounding roads, etc. It was assigned to adult men only, which is to say men from age 20 through 56. Miller could not give a certain reason why but suggests that it is within the vein of "far from home and alone", which are often reserved for adult men. He points to the explicit rule that delivering letters to government offices was permitted on both adult men and women, but whenever the destination was beyond the city and the distance exceeded single day's journey on foot, it was permitted on men only. Execution areas, considering all cities, were typically remote; Kien-k'ang's execution area, centrally located, was exceptional and effected by resettlement. The city's prominence gives the impression that the situation was normal when it was not.
Stadler's earlier work in 1956 states that there is little correlation between the physical strenuousness of the work and the gender that was deemed appropriate—both men and women engaged in such backbreaking work as pounding roads, which required a very large and heavy hammer be repeatedly brought down to compact the earthen road to make it less likely to subside in rain, as well as simply "conveying grains". Miller rejects the idea that the religious pollution the duty created was the cause for the gendered assignment. While there are no corvée duties that explicitly created pollution for women, they were otherwise exactly as susceptible to pollution as men in religious terms and undergo the same process to remove it. That is, religious impurity was no more or less an issue in women or men, and in 1080 this would meant a range of prohibited activities but nothing that could not be overcome. The duty of a prison midwife, which was assigned to women, could also create pollution if the infant turned out to be stillborn, and this does not prevent its assignment to women.
Kien-k'ang
| Executioner | Assize | Executions | Other information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mli-ta, peasant | Winter 1333 | 17 | Later caned 100 strokes in 1337 for violating curfew |
| ′Yup, fisherman | Winter 1334 | 6 | The number of executions is only a part of the 6 that year, since he was discharged for an injured arm for fear of losing his ability to fish as his livelihood (抑疾肱 恐為廢厥業 罷去) |
| Qran, stable boy | Special assize May 1334 | Qran was chosen following to finish earlier executions that ′Yup left undone owing to his arm injury (抑疾也罷去 掮賡) | |
| Ter, pastry-seller | Winter 1335 | 537 | 12 days in service; victims include 17 barons and about 100 women and children, mostly from the treasonous conspiracy that year. The scene of the execution was described in some detail by contemporaries, saying that the sentences were so numerous that the commissioners witnessing the executions as well as the executioner were exhausted and asked to go home only at midday; the commissioners passed this request on to the Royal Attorneys Board, who commented the request was not admissible because it is not yet dark (end of the working day), and consequently at the assembly in Chancery it was not permitted (繁形也使者眔庸事律疲敝敯以午罷歸 使者以請 御事曰未夕也弗厥當聽 眔廷集遂弗聽). The Royal Attorneys then imposed on Ter a fine of about 200 grams gold for not finishing in one day; Ter pleaded that it was not possible, which was accepted in Chancery, causing the fine to be waived. |
| Krin, peasant | Winter 1336 | 4 | Maybe the same person as Krin who reported his rented home unsafe in 1340; the same house went on to collapse in 1341, killing two; likely not the same person as Krin who was an active singer and composer in this period |
| Mik, peasant | Special assize Feb. 1336 | 1 | Victim is the arsonist Rwa-sti who was convicted of starting fires by witchcraft; a fear of escape by witchcraft may have prompted the execution to be expedited, thus necessitating a special assize to find an executioner, as otherwise it would have been scheduled for the following year |
| Gam, window cleaner | Winter 1823 | 82 | 3 days in service, fined 4 rang in gold for delays; committed suicide soon afterwards |
| Tyup, gardener | Winter 1853 | 6 | Complained to the Royal Commissioners his only hat was stolen in broad daylight (from his own head) and he could not retrieve it while performing a strangulation |
| Pang Styit, merchant | Winter 1854 | 34 | Last executioner in Themiclesia, owner of Hing-kem-stang, a candy store; victims include Krer aka "Silver Wolf", the infamous 19-year-old gang leader convicted of 6 murders and 21 burglaries, who with his 15 associates known as the "Sixteen Evil Adolescents" (of whom the adults were also executed at the same time) terrorized the Srak-tam District in 1851 – 53 and ran a protection racket estimated to be worth £5,000 per annum |
Connection to Camian practices
It is striking that many Camian towns used professional, military executioners even while it was ruled from Themiclesia. It seems the system of corvée assizes was implemented only to a much more limited extent in Camian than in metropolitan Themiclesia, since many of the duties under the corvée system was undertaken by the local military garrison (which had its own way of distributing labour). Metropolitan military units were readily disbanded once their purposes expired, but on the other hand, in Camia, units were presumed needed for longer as the government was more hesitant to dismiss the soldiers owing to the more precarious defences. It seems natural to assume, given military units are active for longer and thus consuming more individuals' time and energy, it should be responsible for more duties.
At one time, military laws consistently applied to Camian civilians, and the military was enabled to take cognizance of these offences. Civilians were thus subject to military executions if found guilty by it of some offences, and military executions were norm rather than the exception even for civilian crimes, as appears from the fact that civilian magistrates were consistently left unappointed up to 1620 or so. A 1683 proclamation permanently forswore military laws for civilians living in cities, following a major remonstration, so between 1683 – 1701, civilians in Camia would not have been subject to military trial or execution. But military involvement was ironically restored after independence, since the cause of the uprising was not military justice itself, and the reforms introduced, while welcome for some, were deeply unpopular with other.
It is a matter of active discussion how much of Themiclesian military practices became part of ordinary life in Camia, but the employment of professional executioners does not seem to have a definite metropolitan origin. For how well the Themiclesian military was documented in the late Middle Ages and in the Republic, an executioner is not an appointed official in any known military unit, and so it is speculated that this appointment could have an aboriginal origin or a Hallian origin instead. However, in Themiclesia, the duty of supervising executions is a regular duty of some Royal Attorneys on commission, and in Camia this duty was deputized to a military officer in contradistinction to the metropole. So it is also held by some that, in the absence of a mature corvée system, that duty could have implied the actual execution rather than mere supervision, possibly via a subordinate.
The method of execution, though, is distinctly un-Themiclesian. In the metropole, decapitation was stipulated for sacral and political crimes, and strangulation for all others. Sacral crimes, such as breaking fast prior to ceremonies, ceased to be punishable in Camia following independence and seems to have fallen into disuse even earlier. In the 1600s, Camia practiced decapitation by sword instead of axe, and this is certainly connected to military life as some soldiers would have been skilled with swords in the 1600s, while axes (at least the kind used in executions) were no longer used by the military. It was likewise a way to demonstrate proficiency with a weapon.
Julia Parsons remarks that heavy military presence in the judicial system was construed as community involvement in Camian villages, since many were so deeply associated with military life. According to her, they was not, as some writers of following centuries implied, tyranny from above. This bond between the village and the military was such that a rural young man either became a farmer or enlisted in the army, and any other option was suspect. She claims that while a death sentence was given by a military tribunal, it was a decentralized decision reflecting the local community's customs and values. Whether an execution was performed well therefore reflected the local unit's peacetime loyalty to the community and its competence. The executioner, as the unit's public representative in this duty, was expected and trained to stereotype a certain style of integrity, authority, and effectiveness that, for those reasons, did not exist in the metropole.