or ministers of justice, bareheaded and
without weapons, in complete silence, none being permitted to speak
except when called upon in the due course of proceedings.

The court being solemnly opened, the person cited to appear before it
steps forward, unarmed and accompanied by two sureties, if he has any.
The complaint against him is stated by the judge, and he is called upon
to clear himself by oath taken on the cross of the sword. If he takes
it, he is free. "He shall then," says an ancient work, "take a farthing
piece, throw it at the feet of the court, turn round and go his way.
Whoever attacks or touches him, has then, which all freemen know, broken
the king's peace."

This was the ancient custom, but in later times witnesses were examined,
and the proceedings were more in conformity with those of modern
courts. If sentence of death was passed, the criminal was hanged at
once on the nearest tree. The minor punishments were exile and fine. If
the defendant refused to appear, after being three times cited, the
sentence of the Vehm was pronounced against him, a dreadful sentence,
ending in,--

"And I hereby curse his flesh and his blood; and may his body never
receive burial, but may it be borne away by the wind, and may the ravens
and crows, and wild birds of prey, consume and destroy him. And I
adjudge his neck to the rope, and his body to be devoured by the birds
and beasts of the air, sea, and land; but his soul I commend to our dear
Lord, if He will receive it."

These words spoken, the judge cast forth the rope beyond the limits of
the court, and wrote the name of the condemned in the book of blood,
calling on the princes and nobles of the land, and all the inhabitants
of the empire, to aid in fulfilling this sentence upon the criminal,
without regard to relationship or any ties of kindred or affection
whatever.

The condemned man was now left to the work of the ministers of justice,
the Schoeffen of the court. Whoever should shelter or even warn him was
himself to be brought before the tribunal. The members of the court were
bound by a terrible oath, to be enforced by death, not to reveal the
sentence of the Holy Vehm, except to one of the initiated, and not to
warn the culprit, even if he was a father or a brother. Wherever the
condemned was found, whether in a house, a street, the high-road, or the
forest, he was seized and hanged to the nearest tree or post, if the
servants of the court could lay hand