Burzliwe życie katowskiego małżeństwa. Anna Concordia i Johann Barthel Müller (1735–1747)
The Turbulent Life of an Executioner and His Wife. Anna Concordia and Johann Barthel Müller (1735–1747)

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the activity of Johann Barthel Müller, the executioner in Königsberg between 1735 and 1747. As he also held the posts of hangman in other places, and his working area encompassed several starostwa, quite often he was deputised by his wife, Anna Concordia. She took care of matters related to nightwork, i.e. cleaning the waste from the townspeople’s houses. She had to deal with illegal competition because, frequently, poor women who had no other means of earning a living cleaned up the waste for a smaller fee, thus depriving the executioner of the income guaranteed to him by the privilege. The large sums that Müller had to pay for the possibility to practise his profession and the additional annual fees paid to the royal treasury made him run into severe financial trouble, which eventually led to the auctioning of his movable property and depriving him of his office of executioner in Königsberg.

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