The Executioner's Diary

From 1573 to 1617, Franz Schmidt was the head executioner for first Bamberg and then Nuremberg, Germany. He kept a work journal, tersely (in most cases) recording the criminals, their offenses, the means of execution and the results. It opens a limited window into the criminal justice system of that place and time.

In The Faithful Executioner, Joel Harrington offers a biography of Schmidt, filing in the unusual circumstances that led him to this career, and uses the journal entries to attempt to build a picture of what kind of man Schmidt was. To give the story context, Harrington highlights some interesting aspects of early modern German history and society and the functioning of the criminal justice system in Nuremberg, in particular.

The Faithful Executioner is an interesting read for anyone interested in history but should prove inspirational for fantasy rpgs with its little details on the criminal underworld, the workings of city law enforcement and incarceration. Harrington even provides a simple map of Nuremberg in the period: