[tyxodiwktis]

The Faithful Executioner is a great book with a lot of detail from a primary source (the executioners diary over several decades) on law, order and punishment in 16th century Nuremberg. All the punishments are fairly pedestrian - hanging, flogging, branding, etc. with a handful of ‘creative’ ones that stand out enough to warrant special mention in the diary. Note that while the executioner obviously performed capital punishment he was also responsible for carrying out less severe punishment as well. Now maybe other places had more sadistic executioners but that kind of behavior would have attracted notice - they were public servants who answered to local government.

[mmhsieh]

even up past the renaissance, the bar for killing was low. we forget sometimes that newton was master of the mint and he hanged a lot of counterfeiters. for making fake money. newton killed dudes for making fake money.

[rsynnott]

As mentioned in one of the above articles, that was a modern liberal punishment. They used to BOIL forgers.

[mmhsieh]

forgers and regicides apparently. don't touch the king's loot!