Secret Courts Of West

Igor Bukker

At the turn of the 13th century in the north-west of Germany, in Westphalia, secret courts spread - femgerichts or themes. The word Femgericht or Feme apparently comes from the Middle Low German veime - "punishment for a crime; retribution; retribution; fine".

The privilege to administer justice, and in practice to be in charge of the life and death of their subjects, in that era were exclusively monarchs. Already a century earlier, there were so-called "free courts" (Freigerichte ), consisting of imperial judges and calling the Schöffes  from the inhabitants of the district. The scribes at each freigericht recorded the sentences in the "bloody book" (Blotch).

Themes differed from free courts in that those who did not appear in court were tried secretly and secretly carried out the death sentence - if possible by hanging - execution. Freigraf was the chairman of the secret court. The executor of the sentence, in other words, the executioner were the sheffens. The very judicial system had a number of shortcomings - lack of police, the difficulty of catching criminals in neighbouring kingdoms, impossibility in practice to arrest and judge influential persons and rich people. 

The themes were needed and especially found understanding and support from the poorest sections of the population. The accuser, since his name was not made public, could not be afraid of the revenge of the friends or vassals of the attacker. Thus, a kind of medieval system of witness protection operated.

The Irish writer Thomas Keithley, in The Templars and Other Secret Societies of the Middle Ages, argues that the authority of the secret courts was facilitated by the belief that Charlemagne himself established the themes. The most revered monarch in medieval Western Europe. Deprived of the opportunity to prosecute heretics for sacrilege, the German archbishops and popes also supported the themes. Finally, the effectiveness of such tribunals spoke for itself.

“Bad people trembled, and virtuous people rejoiced when they saw the body of a criminal hanging from a tree and a sheffen knife stuck nearby, demonstrating by whom he was convicted and sentenced,” writes Thomas Keightley. Over time, black spots on the white robes of secret judges became noticeable. Worthless people began to penetrate the themes, who discredited the court verdicts. The judges were accused of bribery, addiction, settling personal scores and other sins.

“The right to hang without observing the usual legal forms is indignantly mentioned (about 1430) by the learned secretary of Ludwig of the Palatinate and his other contemporaries, especially the younger ones,” reported the prominent historian Eugene Tarle. “By the end of the 15th century, these complaints multiplied so much that the emperors began to trade privileges that exempted a private person or a whole city from the jurisdiction of the theme.”

Until the second half of the 15th century, that is, at the time of its heyday, there were from 15 to 30 thousand Femgerichts in Germany. Since the era of the Reformation in Germany, when the saying arose that in the themes the defendant was first hanged and then interrogated, the number of secret tribunals began to steadily decrease. This process was largely completed by the middle of the 16th century.

- Pravda.ru