Secret Societies of the Middle Ages

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CHAPTER VI.

The Emperor Lewis the Bavarian--Charles IV.--Wenceslaus--Rupertian Reformation--Encroachments of the Fehm-courts--Case of Nickel Weller and the town of Görlitz--Of the City of Dantzig--Of Hans David and the Teutonic Knights--Other instances of the presumption of the Free-counts--Citation of the Emperor Frederic III.--Case of the Count of Teckenburg.

THE history of the Fehm-gerichte, previous to the fifteenth century, offers but few events to detain at-attention. The Emperor Lewis the Bavarian appears to have exerted his authority on several occasions in granting privileges in Westphalia according, as it is expressly stated, to the Fehm-law. His successor, the luxurious Charles IV., acted with the same caprice respecting the Fehm-tribunals as he did in every thing else, granting privileges and revoking them just as it seemed to accord with his interest at the moment. This monarch attempted also to extend the Fehm-system beyond Westphalia, deeming it perhaps a good mean for bringing all Germany under the authority of his patrimonial kingdom of Bohemia. He therefore gave permission to the Bishop of Hildesheim to erect two Free-tribunals out of Westphalia. On the representations of the Archbishop of Cologne and the lords of Westphalia, however, he afterwards abolished them.

Wenceslaus, the son of Charles, acted with his usual folly in the case of the Fehm-tribunals; he is said, as he could keep nothing secret, to have blabbed their

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