in the Middle Ages. 61 Lersner gives us a grim catalogue of the public executions at Frankfort from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, among which are many drownings. The executions took place in the river, and the criminal was thrown from the bridge. In some instances, out of regard to the feelings of family connexions, to avoid the ignominy of a public execution, the sentence was carried into effect at night. Murder, bigamy, robbery, sorcery, forging, and cheating at cards and dice, were alike punished by drowning, which was awarded to offenders of either sex. The bodies of the drowned were sometimes buried near the spot to which they had drifted." In 1536 the body of a citizen who had murdered his wife and hung himself was ordered to be inclosed in a tun and thrown into the river ; but, if the water of the Maine were too low, it was to be buried near the Knacker House. 6 A memorable instance of drowning occurred in Bavaria in the fifteenth century. On the 14th of October, 1436, Agnes Bcrnauerinn, wife of Duke Albert the Pious, was thrown off the bridge of the city of Straubing into the Danube by order of her father, Ernest Duke of Bavaria. She appears not to have been put into a sack, and her limbs not to have been securely bound, for she rose to the surface of the water and swam to the shore, crying " Help ! help !" but the executioner put a long pole into her hair and kept her down. d The most memorable instance of drowning in Bohemia is that of John Xepomuk, Canon of Prague, who, on the 28th of April, 1383, was, by order of kiny AVenceslas, thrown off the bridge of that city. He was confessor to the Queen, and was thus punished for not revealing the secrets of the confessional. The event made a deep impression on the popular mind, and it is said that five stars appeared in the water as he fell. Nepomuk was beatified in 1720, and canonized on the 19th of May, 1729. Here we may remark that in these cases the criminals were precipitated from the bridges and not from the bank of the river. The bridge was probably selected vicem legis obtinet, longevi enim temporis usus et consuetudinis non est vilis authoritas. Bracton, do Legibus, lib. i. cap. 3, fo. 2.
- Frankfurter Chronik, Band ii. xxxiv. Capital.
b Ib. loc. cit. sub anno 1506. Hans Sebald Beham, the engraver, is said, by his biographers, to have been put to death in this way at Frankfort, but we can find no mention of his execution in the Chronicle of Lersner. c Ib. sub anno 1536. The horse-slaughterer of the city was also the public executioner. d The Life of Agnes was published at Munich by F. I. Lipowsky in 1801. It is illustrated by a plate of her tomb, well executed, but the portrait facing the title-page is that of a lady in the costume of the seventeenth century!
