Even an anti-capital-punishment-ist can appreciate the medieval poetic justice of a hangman meeting his end at the end of a rope: see the King’s Bench case from 1417 ( National Archives KB 27/623 m.15; AALT image 0211) in which one Nicholas Vesavery of ‘No Man’s Land’ (sounds nice), co. Middlesex, hangman of London,  was said by a jury to have stabbed Alice, his ‘concubine’ to the heart, on Thursday before Valentine’s day., and was hanged. It is not surprising that the job of hangman attracted some fairly unsavoury and low-ranking individuals, but it is, perhaps, surprising that Nicholas had no chattels at all to be confiscated after he was adjudged a felon (see margin of entry).

GS 21/3/2014

DRAFT