y reader. The extermination of the Stedinger
in 1234, of the Templars from 1307 to 1313, the execution of Joan
of Arc in 1429, and the unhappy scenes of Arras in 1459, are the
most prominent. The first of these is perhaps the least known, but
is not among the least remarkable. The following account, from Dr.
Kortuem's interesting history[26] of the republican confederacies of the
middle ages, will shew the horrible convenience of imputations of
witchcraft when royal or priestly wolves wanted a pretext for a quarrel
with the sheep.

[26] _Entstehungsgeschichte der freistaedlischen Buende im
Mittelalter_, von Dr. F. Kortuem. 1827.

The Frieslanders, inhabiting the district from the Weser to the Zuydersee,
had long been celebrated for their attachment to freedom, and their
successful struggles in its defence. As early as the eleventh century they
had formed a general confederacy against the encroachments of the Normans
and the Saxons, which was divided into seven _seelands_, holding annually
a diet under a large oak-tree at Aurich, near the Upstalboom. Here they
managed their own affairs, without the control of the clergy and ambitious
nobles who surrounded them, to the great scandal of the latter. They
already had true notions of a representative government. The deputies of
the people levied the necessary taxes, deliberated on the affairs of the
community, and performed, in their simple and patriarchal manner, nearly
all the functions of the representative assemblies of the present day.
Finally, the Archbishop of Bremen, together with the Count of Oldenburg
and other neighbouring potentates, formed a league against that section of
the Frieslanders known by the name of the Stedinger, and succeeded, after
harassing them and sowing dissensions among them for many years, in
bringing them under the yoke. But the Stedinger, devotedly attached to
their ancient laws, by which they had attained a degree of civil and
religious liberty very uncommon in that age, did not submit without a
violent struggle. They arose in insurrection in the year 1204, in defence
of the ancient customs of their country, refused to pay taxes to the
feudal chiefs or tithes to the clergy--who had forced themselves into
their peaceful retreats--and drove out many of their oppressors. For a
period of eight-and-twenty years the brave Stedinger continued the
struggle single-handed against the forces of the Archbishops of Bremen and
the Counts of