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Jesse: For the past two years I've been working with German performance records describing security precautions at various kinds of civic performances--crowd control, safeguards against fire, riots, pickpockets, etc.--and I have not yet encountered anything to suggest that the authorities were worried about the danger of putting a condemned man on a public stage. You can read about such practices in Suetonius, but I have never heard of any such thing in late medieval Europe. Sounds like a bit of a whopper to me. One place you might check, however, would be the collection of translated records compiled by Peter Meredith and John Tailby. I recall a story (from Spain) about an actor playing Christ being stabbed to death by his enemies during a performance. They may have other examples of accidental or homicidal fatalities on the stage, if not outright executions. After you track down the source of this rumor, please let us know what you find out. --steve wright