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 i

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.