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One of the worst and most notorious professions of the Middle Ages was that of the executioner. The main task of the executioner was to carry out punishments such as corporal punishment and the death penalty. Becoming an executioner was not something you chose yourself because the executioner had low social status and was both feared and ostracized from society. Most often, it was people who had been pardoned from their death sentence under the condition that they became executioners, but the executioner profession could also be passed down from father to son. A new executioner’s first task was often to execute the old executioner.

The abhorrence of the executioner was so strong that parents sometimes preferred to whip their children themselves, if they had been sentenced to such a thing. This was so that the children would not come into contact with the executioner. In church, the executioner and the rascal had their own place, at the back. In many places they were not allowed to take communion with others, and they were not even allowed to drink from the same chalice but from a separate, inferior one. Not only did the people hate the executioner, they also despised his wife and children.

No ordinary citizen wanted to marry an executioner’s child or a rascal’s child. Socializing was limited to prostitutes, thieves, robbers, street boys and similar groups. Their houses were in the worst parts of town or even outside the walls.