Inventory of Tools and Implements Used by a Sixteenth-Century Executioner

This publication distinguishes between two inventories: instruments used in criminal justice anda reasoned reconstruction of the furnishings and equipment of an executioner's dwelling andworkplace. The core of the first inventory can be traced to the BambergischeHalsgerichtsordnung of 1507 and the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of 1532. The second coverstools consistent with carcass disposal and skinning, maintenance, and possible woundtreatment, but no sixteenth-century inventory of possessions belonging to the Kruse family hasbeen demonstrated. The research identifies 52 distinct types of objects. On the basis of thesesources, none can be identified as the private property of Caspar Kruse I, II or III. The survey istherefore suitable as a critical framework for historical reconstruction and literaryrepresentation, not as an established inventory of the executioner's house in Goslar.