, but simply acting in
virtue of legal prescriptions, which were rigorously laid down, and
arranged in a sort of code which did honour to the wisdom of those who had
created it.

It was towards the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the
fifteenth centuries that the Vehmic jurisdiction reached its highest
degree of power; its name was only pronounced in a whisper and with
trembling; its orders were received with immediate submission, and its
chastisements always fell upon the guilty and those who resisted its
authority. There cannot be a doubt but that the Westphalian tribunal
prevented many great crimes and public misfortunes by putting a wholesome
check on the nobles, who were ever ready to place themselves above all
human authority; and by punishing, with pitiless severity, the audacity of
bandits, who would otherwise have been encouraged to commit the most
daring acts with almost the certainty of escaping with impunity. But the
Holy Vehme, blinded by the terror it inspired, was not long without
displaying the most extravagant assumption of power, and digressing from
the strict path to which its action should have been confined. It summoned
before its tribunals princes, who openly denied its authority, and cities,
which did not condescend to answer to its behests. In the fifteenth
century, the free judges were composed of men who could not be called of
unimpeachable integrity; many persons of doubtful morals having been
raised to the dignity by party influence and by money. The partiality and
the spirit of revenge which at times prompted their judgments, were
complained of; they were accused of being open to corruption; and this
accusation appears to have been but too well founded. It is known that,
according to a feudal practice established in the Vehmic system, every
new free judge was obliged to make a present to the free count who had
admitted him into the order; and the free counts did not hesitate to make
this an important source of revenue to themselves by admitting, according
to an historian, "many people as _judges_ who, in reality, deserved to be
_judged_."

[Illustration: Fig. 331.--View of Cologne in the Sixteenth Century.--From
a Copper-plate in the "Theatrum Geographicum" of P. Bertius. The three
large stars represent, it is supposed, the Three Persons of the Trinity,
and the seven small ones the Electors of the Empire.]

[Illustration: Fig. 332.--German Knights (Fifteenth Century).--From a
Pl