Ítélet-végrehajtók és ítélet-végrehajtás Nagybányán a 17–18. században
Executioners and Executions in Baia Mare (Nagybánya) in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Summary/Abstract: The study deals with the person and the activity of the executioners from Baia Mare, and presents the punishments that were carried out by them. Due to the considerable amount of the archival sources the chronological boundaries of the analyze range from 1600 to 1730. The most important sources of the study are the privileges, the town accounts, the records of the public administration and the minutes of the town council of Baia Mare. The executioners were members of the gipsy community of the town, and because of their occupation, they were living on the margins of the society. For a long period during the 17th century two executioners were in service, but starting from the 18th century there was only one. He was responsible for the execution of the death penalties, mutilations, corporal and humiliating punishments. Beheading and hanging were the most common methods of execution, but a good number of wrongdoers were impaled, broken on wheels, burned, stoned, buried alive, and even drowned. The study showed that in times of war (1660s, early 1700s) the crime rate increased, which implied a more determined action by the authorities, and as such the number of corporal punishments, mutilations, and executions increased. In contrast in times of peace the number of executions decreased and the punishments imposed for crimes became less severe.

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