Executioners upheld law and order, but their grim profession came with a heavy price.
The king of Navarre (Charles II the Bad) orders the leaders of the Jacquerie executed by beheading. Artwork circa 1380. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
On a spring afternoon in 1573, a 19-year-old named Frantz Schmidt stood in the backyard of his family home in Bavaria, sword in hand, preparing to slay a stray dog. This was not just some cruel random act of violence — it was a career test, the final step in Schmidt’s journey to becoming a professional executioner. He had already graduated from decapitating pumpkins. Now, he would move on to people.
We know of these intimate aspects of Schmidt’s life as a Medieval executioner, from start to finish, thanks to his surviving diaries, which offer a rare glimpse into one of the most reviled professions of medieval Europe.
Executioners were the enforcers of justice, yet their role placed them in an uneasy position. They were feared, shunned, and forced to live at the margins of society. Yet, without them, the law would crumble.
“Forget that image of the hood and them being anonymous and sadistic,” Harrington said. “They would have seen themselves as law enforcement officials.”
A Job No One Wanted
In the Middle Ages, lawlessness was rampant. Thieves, murderers, and heretics roamed the streets. But justice, when it came, was swift and brutal. The death penalty was the solution for many crimes, and executioners were tasked with making sure that justice was seen, heard, and remembered.
“They really liked to make a public spectacle,” Joel Harrington, a historian at Vanderbilt University, told Live Science. Harrington explained how executions served as a public warning to others.
But an executioner wasn’t exactly something medieval children dreamed of being when they grew up. Rather, it was a detested job and very few people would volunteer for it. In fact, it was almost never a choice.
A 15th-century scene of an execution in Britain. Credit: British Library.
Often, the duty passed down through generations, creating what Harrington called “execution dynasties” that spanned Europe. Sons would inherit the job from their fathers, which they would pass on to their sons like a curse.
Schmidt’s father had been randomly chosen for the job by a Bavarian prince, and now it was Frantz’s turn to carry the weight of the family legacy. Once marked, there was little hope of escape.
This entrapment meant that some families, over generations, became synonymous with the role. These dynasties spread across Europe, their names forever linked with death and punishment.
Yet, despite their importance for the state in maintaining the rule of law, executioners were outcasts. They lived on the edges of town, socially isolated from those they served. Marriage, for example, was often confined to their own kind, as no respectable family wanted to be linked to the grim work of the executioner.
Straddling the Line Between Respect and Fear
Frantz Schmidt’s diaries, revealed in Harrington’s book The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century, reveal a paradoxical world. Executioners like him had to be skilled at their work. A botched execution — too many swings of the axe or a messy beheading — could spark a riot among the crowd, and sometimes the furious spectators would attack the executioner. In some cases, an executioner could face imprisonment or be stripped of his wages for failing to carry out his task cleanly.
Yet these men were more than instruments of death. Schmidt himself had aspirations beyond the block. He longed to be a doctor, treating far more patients than he executed.
“He had many, many more patients he healed than people he executed,” Harrington said.
Medieval executioners — maybe not that surprisingly given the nature of their jobs — often had a deep knowledge of human anatomy. Their understanding of the body made them not only effective executioners but also sought-after healers. Ironically, people who shunned them in public would seek them out in times of illness, when no one else could help.
Still, executioners existed in a strange twilight. The act of taking a life, even in the name of justice, was seen as corrupting. Joseph de Maistre, an 18th-century philosopher, once reflected on the executioner’s role with morbid fascination: “This head, this heart, are they made like ours? Do they not have something odd or foreign to our nature? Is he a man?”
Contrary to myth, executioners were rarely hooded. There was no need to hide their identities — everyone knew who they were. In some regions, they even wore special clothing to signify their grim role, ensuring they were visible, even off-duty.
More Than Dealers of Death
For medieval executioners, death was not the only business. In many cities, their duties expanded far beyond the scaffold. They were tasked with overseeing torture, cleaning cesspools, managing stray animals, and even taxing prostitutes and lepers. These unsavory tasks helped make ends meet since executions, while public and highly visible, were infrequent. In fact, many executioners supplemented their income by working as knackers, meaning they were in the business of disposing of dead animals.
The grim work of execution and the dirty tasks no one else would take on cemented their status as social outcasts. So, they were essential, yet untouchable. In Japan, executioners came from the lowest social caste, and in the Ottoman Empire, only Roma gypsies could serve as executioners. Their brutal methods (which included impaling) were feared by all.
Despite this, some executioners managed to break through the barriers of their social status. Schmidt himself became the official executioner of Bamberg, a prestigious and well-paid position that afforded him a comfortable life. He lived in a large house with his family and earned a generous salary.
But his success could not erase the stigma attached to his profession. He spent his later years petitioning the authorities to release his children from the family’s grim legacy — and he succeeded, ending the “family curse”.
Frantz Schmidt’s story is just one of many that paint a fuller picture of the medieval executioner. For all the gruesome nature of their vocation, executioners were, in the end, a reflection of the times in which they lived: brutal, unforgiving, and deeply conflicted.
And while society may have needed them to maintain order, the men behind the blade bore a far heavier burden—the curse of a job that no one wanted but they could never escape.
By the Edge of the Sword (or Ax)
An executioner in the Middle Ages was a person with great responsibilities, but also with great privileges too. To kill condemned criminals was not an easy task: it weighed heavily on one’s conscience and carried with it a lot of social stigma as well. But the difficulty of this job was repaid heavily by monarchs: executioners could earn a whole lot of money and attain lofty positions in society, including a noble status. Because of this, many individuals arose to become (in)famous in their respective nations.
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The executioner Franz Schmidt executing Hans Fröschel on May 18, 1591. This drawing in the margins of a court record is the only surviving fully reliable portrait of Franz Schmidt. (Public Domain)
Franz Schmidt, also known as Meister Franz (1555-1634) was one of the most prominent executioners in medieval Germany. Inheriting the calling from his own father, he became the chief headsman of the city of Hof, in Bavaria. After excelling at the job for several years, he advanced his position, and became the chief headsman of Nuremberg, a major city at the time. During the course of his 45-year career, he performed exactly 361 executions, all of which he detailed in his diary, which survive to this day.
Meister Franz performed executions in various ways, as was his duty. He’d kill the most violent criminals on the breaking wheel, while other criminals were executed by the rope, sword, or more rarely by drowning and burning. The burning punishment was only reserved for homosexuals and those counterfeiting money and occurred only twice in his entire career. And even though his employment at the time carried a lot of social stigma, Meister Franz nevertheless earned a significant amount of money and could live comfortably throughout his life.
The Butcher of Bohemia
One of the most famous executioners of the middle ages was Jan Mydlář (1572-1664), from Bohemia, modern Czech Republic. Living and working in the capital, Prague, he had a long career of being the headsman on the behalf of the House of Habsburg, one of the most important noble dynasties in Europe. Mydlář was a well-known figure, notorious for his grim appearance. During his executions, he wore a specially crafted red hood-like mask which covered his face and truly made him a dreadful presence in these already horrifying events.
Jan Mydlář’s most famous event was the execution of 27 leaders of the Bohemian Revolt, which occurred on June 21st, 1621, at the Old Town Square in Prague. Caused by religious and political disputes, the revolt was a popular uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty that eventually began the Thirty Years’ War. After the revolt ended, it was down to Mydlář to dispense justice. The stakes were high, however. This was no ordinary execution – he had to behead 27 men, and all of them with a single stroke. If he were to need two strokes, he’d lose his job and reputation. To complete all these executions, he used 4 swords in total, and it took him 5 hours to do it.
Mydlář’s grim work earned him a fearsome reputation, but he nevertheless enjoyed prominence. His descendants were also executioners. With his unique red mask, he became a lasting symbol and was featured on the debut EP of the popular thrash metal band, Sodom.
Execution of 27 Bohemian Revolt leaders, Old Town Square, Prague, 21 June 1621 (Public Domain)
Bloodshed in Britain
Similarly, in England, the executioners were always very busy. From the earliest origins of that nation, the job of the chief executioner was occupied. One of the earliest known English executioners was Thomas de Warblynton, also known as Thomas of Warblington. Being the first documented English headsman, he is known to have advanced his position in society significantly, all thanks to his grim employment.
Early English medieval documents mention him as the chief executioner of the most brutal punishments – in particular the sentence of drawing and quartering. But thanks to these punishments, Thomas earned the position of a petty noble, and held estates and servants.
His is the perfect example of how medieval executioners could perform their brutal duties but still reach a lavish standing in society. Thomas de Warblynton eventually became the sheriff of his own county, and had significant earnings. And all that because he quartered condemned criminals.
Upon his passing, his estates and riches, and likely his employment as well, were passed on to his heir, John de Warblynton, in the 44th regnal year of King Edward III. And so his descendants enjoyed the same privileges too.
Symbolic robed figure of a medieval public executioner at Peter and Paul Fortress, Saint Petersburg, Russia (Andrew Butko/CC BY-SA 3.0)
From Bloodshed to Riches
Justice always prevails. In the Middle Ages and beyond, this was always known. But even so, justice had to be displayed somehow. And the most common way to do this was with a sword. However, not everyone was able to perform these duties, as it weighed heavily on the conscience, and carried social stigma. But those select few stepped up to the job and carried out these duties with a strong sense of righteousness.
Famous executioners were not necessarily accepted in society, and carried a lot of weight on their souls, but even so – they served their King and country, punished those deserving of death, and earned a lot of money while doing it.