he was not wanted there. If he did not then quit the district, or if he continued his misdeeds, a Vehm-ge richt was held, judges and schöppen went round among the collected people, with ropes in their hands, repeating the words, He who is an honest man sit still.' If the suspected person got up, he was allowed to go away unmolested, but he lost his property. If he remained sitting, the rope was thrown over his neck, and he was hung on the nearest tree." In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Germany was in a sad state of confusion. Commerce was changing the relations which had before existed between the different ranks of society. The nobles were envious of the growing wealth of the citizens, and jealous of that power which was before undividedly their own. No other law was known but force, and there was no other way to settle disputes but by arms. The people were separating from the patriarchal governments to which they had before been subjected, and the complicated administration of justice, which the sovereigns afterwards introduced, was not then established. Codes of laws were nearly unknown, and the freygerichte had almost exclusively, in the north of Germany, the power of ininflicting exemplary punishments. Though the justice they administered was rude, it seems to have been some restraint on evil doers, and they thus acquired considerable power. They were numerous and united, and at one time appeared likely to become masters of Germany. Austrians, Barbarians, and Swabians, when any person had offended them, whom they could not bring otherwise to account, complained to a frey-gericht in Westphalia, and procured a sentence from it, which this army of one hundred thousand schöppen were bound to execute. Such a tremendous power induced almost every man of distinction to join their ranks. Every prince had schöppen among his councillors, and every magistracy numbered them among its members. When the city of Osnabrück disputed with Conrad of Langen, above three hundred Frey-schöppen fell with him under the secret condemnation of the Vehm. Princes even, the Duke of Bavaria, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, for example, were frey. schöppen, and William Duke of Brunswick, a schöppe, said, "If Adolphus of Schleswig comes to me, I must hang him, or the rest of the schöppen will hang me." It can hardly be expected that a tribunal thus composed, carrying on its operations in secret, and having obtained the greater part of its power during a period of confusion, should not at times have been made subservient to the ambition, revenge, or malice of individuals. All the historians who mention it, mention, at the same time, its assumption of power, and in general terms, the cruelty of its proceedings. The conduct of the schöppen, says Moser, was that of banditti and assassins. History has preserved the name of Conrad of Langen, who was condemned, probably unjustly, on an accusation of murder; but the Emperor Sigismund, to protect him, took him into his service. He appeal ed from the judgment, and he appears to have escaped the vengeance of the Vehm. To condemn a man on the secret accusations of unknown persons, or to require him, at the moment an accusation was made, to justify himself, in the midst of circumstances terrific enough to shake the stoutest heart, was undoubtedly a severe and cruel proceeding, but such was the character of every action in that rude age. If we examine the proceedings of this tribunal without paying attention to the general manner of former times, nothing can appear more arbitrary and barbarous. If, however, we reflect on the cruelties committed at that period by every class of society, when it had power, or was enraged, we may, perhaps, conclude that the conduct of the Vehm did not surpass in atrocity that of many individuals. The manner of execution was secret and murderous; but sentence was never passed, unless for contumacy, without hearing the criminal. The executioners, or Freyschöppen, were all taken from the upper ranks, and among them were some of the most distinguished men of the time; so that we may conclude that the sentences of the Frey-grufen did not exceed in cruelty and injustice the general character of the age. They are said to have declared to one of the emperors, that they would hang without mercy some Frey-schöppen who had been made by one of his predecessors without the customary forma lities; and this was perhaps one of the greatest of their cruelties. They had, however, no property in common, and therefore wanted, in a great measure, a common interest, and the stimulus to rapacity which the ambition of promoting the welfare of an order supplies. Their injustice might benefit individual members, not the whole; and composed of men of different ranks, and of different countries, it does not appear to have been a very convenient instrument for the gratification of individual revenge. The short time their power lasted, its disappearing almost without efforts on the part of the sovereigns, and quite without resistance on their part, proves their want of combination. It must also be remembered, that these courts hindered many petty princes in the exercise of sovereign authority. They could hardly be said to be monarchs in their own territories while their people were subjected to this foreign jurisdiction. They were succeeded also by learned jurisconsults, who have ever since been oracles in every thing which regards the administration of justice, and who have always vilified the rude proceedings of the barbarous but free Germans. There is therefore some reason to believe that the l'ehm has had a worse character given it than it merited. It was a very rude method of administering justice, but at that time there was no other better. It interposed between the exercise of individual force and the subsequent regular administration of justice. In fact, it led the way to those imperial and regular tribunals, which destroyed it as soon as they were established. In its origin, whichever opinion as to this we adopt, it may probably be considered as rather a wise, though rude invention; it degenerated, however, like all institutions which are not subject to be occasionally reformed, and it was then put down, apparently by general consent, and the circumstances of the times. It grew into power from the situation of Germany, and fell gradually into disuse as modern order succeeded to the anarchy of the middle ages. The different princes necessarily preferred keeping, if possible, the administration of justice in their own hands. Moser Venturini As they established tribunals, they excluded the Frey-gerichte from their dominions. They had been the supporters of the Vehm, and as they and the magistrates of towns withdrew their support, it gradually sunk into oblivion. This progress was hastened by the growing influence of the professors of the Roman law, the establishment of the Cammer-gericht, and other courts of the empire, and by the increasing influence of the clergy, who took on themselves the cognizance of such crimes as magic and heresy, which had before been punished by the Vehm. We, of course, dissent from the reviewer's statement, that this court fell into disuse on the introduction of a new code of laws by Charles V. The Carolina (the name of this code) was first promulgated in 1533. But Spittler assures us, and other historians assert the same fact, that the Vehmgerichte were becoming less frequent before the end of the fourteenth century, † or a century and a half before the accession of Charles V. to the im perial throne. The celebrated Cammer-gericht, which gave the last blow to the no less celebrated Faust recht, and so much promoted a regular administration of justice, was established by Maximilian, the predecessor of Charles, in 1495, thirty-eight years prior to the promulgation of the Carolina. In the fourteenth century the Vehm was at the zenith of its power; in the fifteenth it had sunk considerably; and the very last trace which the historian could discover of such a tribunal having been held, was, as mentioned above, in 1570, or only forty years after Charles published his code. And this court, it must be remembered, was a very orderly one, presided by the Duke of Lünenburg, and quite different from some of these secret tribunals which a century before had been so frequently held in the name of the Vehm. Ít was also held in a part of Germany remote from the influence of the emperor, and where, in fact, the Carolina was not introduced till long after * No. 47, Quarterly Review. ArticleState of Society in Germany. + Geschichte des Furstenthums. Hannover, Vol. I. p. 62. Putter, Historische Entwickelungek, Vol. I. p. 309. its first publication. We do not deny that this code might, in some measure, have assisted in totally extinguishing the Vehm, but the code itself was only one of the many steps which were then making towards improvement; and the reviewer is quite wrong in attributing the suppression of the Vehm to the single circumstance of the promulgation of a few laws, which were only very little less barbarous than condemnation without law. The reviewer also appears to suppose the Vehm was a secret society, without any legitimate authority like the Free-masons. We are not disposed to deny that there were points of resemblance, but the purposes of the latter are concealed from every body but its members; it has no power but over them, and it is a mere association of individuals. While the purposes of the former were avowed, its power extended over the whole society, and it was sanctioned and authorized in its origin by princes and emperors. The name Vehm has been derived from various sources. Spittler, following Leibnitz, deduces it from the Latin Fama, which corresponds tolerably well with the principle of condemning a man according to his common fame. Other authors, as Moser, derive the name, with more probability, from an old German word signifying to cite. But we must leave this point to the antiquaries and philologists of Germany; remarking, however, en passant, that Holy Vehm is not synonymous with Bloody League, as the passage quoted in the review seems to imply; nor have we ever remarked that the latter appellation was one of the many names under which the Vehm is known in German history. We have seen Vehm-ding, Freygeding, Westpülisches Gericht, Hemelicke Beslottene Acht, and some others, but no one signifying any thing like Bloody League. In truth, the author of the Autumn on the Rhine seems to have borrowed his information concerning this tribunal from some one of the many novels in which the Germans at present, like some of our own authors, work up, embellish, and distort historical facts. Nothing can be more appropriate for a romance than the "Holy Vehm," or "Bloody League;" and one principal inducement we have for making it the subject of an article, is to prevent this curious piece of real history from being regarded as a mere fable. Should the reader desire more information on the subject than we have given, he may consult, in addition to the authors quoted, from whose works nearly all which we have written is translated, Das Vehm recht des Mittelalters Historisch Untersucht, von Karl. Hüten. Leipsig, 1793. CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DE COVER LEY FAMILY. No. VI. Bandyborough, Sept. 20. MR EDITOR, 66 As if to contradict Fanny's frequent assertions, that Wednesday would never come, and to reward uncle David's pertinacious belief that it would, if we waited patiently, make its appearance the day after Tuesday, Wednesday the 20th arrived at last, and the only cloud that dimmed the brightness of its morning sun was seen upon the brow of Mrs De Coverley, when she returned from holding a cabinet-council with her housekeeper. "What is the matter, dear Mamma?' said Fanny, you look disturbed.""Why, my dear, it is very provoking; but Dawson cannot get any fish, she tells me, and, after what I wrote to your brother Richard, Mr Trevor will certainly expect some."-"Never mind, mother," said George, “if we have neither boiled sole, nor fried sole, we shall have the feast of reason and the flow of soul."-It was a despicable pun, to be sure; but we were too happy to be fastidious, and laughed heartily, all but uncle David, who asked for an explanation. At dinner, when my wife was seated between her favourite son and his favourite friend, I firmly believe she had entirely forgotten the disappointment of the morning, and it was only the force of habit that made her sigh as she said to her neighbour,-" I am sorry I could get no fish for you today, Mr Trevor." Her apology was unheard by him; he was listening to Fanny, who, looking anything but angry, was urging Richard to pass some severe sentence upon George, who had been, as usual, transgressing the laws of rout etiquette. "Think," she exclaimed, "of his hiding himself behind Dr Minchett's chair, when I wanted him to quote Byron and Scott to a party of unentertainable young ladies; and then, when I discovered his retreat, and woke him from his trance, to be told he was thinking of the Bears!" "May I," said Mr Trevor, "ask the defendant one question? Who or what were the Bears that thus unwarrantably ran away with him from whist and flirting?" "The Bears, answered George, "or, I should rather say, the Bears' bones, which, with all the wonders of the Ashmolean Museum, flitted before my mental vision, while my bodily eyes were fixed, not on vacancy, but on the expanse of broad-cloth which covered Dr Minchett's ample shoulders, were brought from the cavern by Gaylenoeuth; the secret of their accumulation there has long been a puzzle to geologists." "Then," said Richard, "I decree that the defendant do, this evening, write a poem, to inform the unlearn ed how the said bones did find their way into the said cavern."-George protested loudly against the iniquity of this sentence, declared the subject beneath the dignity of his Muse, the explanation impracticable, and ended by appealing to his mother. It was a difficult question, and Mrs De Coverley decided it in a manner peculiar to herself. Acting from the same principle of strict justice which made her, when they were children, divide the contested cake amongst the clamorous disputants, thereby avoid ing all useless and troublesome inquiries into individual right, she now neutralized George's punishment, by sharing his task amongst his accusers and judges. "It was impossible," she said, "that George could write a poem, while all the rest were talking so loud and so fast; they had much better, therefore, sit down all of them, and each write a bit." This plan promised so much amusement, that it was acquiesced in immediately; and it was settled that Miss Wilmot, my wife, Mrs Eleanor, uncle David, and myself, were to set the tasks for the others to write. And now suppose the party assembled in the drawingroom, the five poets are seated each at a separate table,-the pens are dip ped in ink, each "poetic eye in a fine phrenzy rolling,"-glances from floor to ceiling, from book-case to pier-glass, in search of some obstinate rhyme that will keep aloof,-Mrs De Coverley and her brother are playing at cribbage,-Aunt Eleanor is devouring a political pamphlet which Richard has brought her from town,-Miss Wilmot is taking a sketch of the party, and I am watching the progress of her pencil, and writing you, Mr Editor, an account of the scene. Twelve o'clock has struck, the poem has been read, and the merry groupe are gone laughing to bed. Mr Trevor is enchanted with his first essay in poetics, and Richard declares his would have been much better if he had not been situated so close to the cribbage players, that it was with the greatest difficulty he could prevent himself from writing his canto in a measure of fifteen two, fifteen four. I am going to sit up for another half hour, to copy the Bears for you, that you may see how foolish people dare to be when they are happy. Perhaps, if I had waited till to-morrow morn ing, my enthusiasm would have subsided, and I might then think the verses not worth sending. THE BEARS. CANTO I. Argument.-George at a rout-how he comes to fancy himself in the Ashmolean Museum-description of what he sees there is awoke from his reverie, and retires to bed. MRS DE COVERLEY. No more must I delighted stray Where Charwell's classic stream Far other rays descry The beams that glow on Beauty's cheek, That through her smiling dimples speak, And sparkle in her eye. Since you, my mother, choose the lay On which my Muse must write, Above the battlemented wall Of Bandyborough's tower When youthful belles, and ladies sage, Or go in chairs, To assemble in the brilliant room In little groups we now divided, With partner or with flirt; One ancient maid is slyly seen With scandal, cards, or tea? The lights all faded from my sight, My thoughts had ta'en their rapid flight The model of a Spanish ship, A human horn (at least 'tis said) Fancy! how much I owe to you, Oh kind benignant power! Who in the weary hour VOL. VI. Could shut the eye of tedium on mankind, Upset into a lady's lap. The lady's shriek was shrill and strong, The ladies, feelingly, complain, Of hidden things Or throw an empire down. But spoilt a satin gown. I slyly slunk away to bed, And on my pillow laid my head, CANTO II. Argument.-George falls asleep-sees in I fain, ere I begin the story, The point so deep I cannot sound it, 31 |