we have no certain knowledge.
Tradition ascribes it to Charlemagne, but that needs confirmation. It
seems rather to have been an outgrowth of an old Saxon system, which
also left its marks in the systems of justice of Saxon England, where
existed customs not unlike those of the Holy Vehm.

Mighty was the power of these secret courts, and striking the traditions
to which they have given rise, based upon their alleged nocturnal
assemblies, their secret signs and solemn oaths, their mysterious
customs, and the implacable persistency with which their sentences
sought the criminal, pursuing him for years, and in whatever corner of
the empire he might take refuge, while there were none to call its
ministers of justice to account for their acts if the terrible knife had
been left as evidence of their authority.

Such an association, composed of thousands of men of all classes, from
the highest to the lowest,--for common freemen, mechanics, and citizens
shared the honor of membership with knights and even princes,--bound
together by a band of inviolable secrecy, and its edicts carried out so
mysteriously and ruthlessly, could not but attain to a terrible power,
and produce a remarkable effect upon the imagination of the people. "The
prince or knight who easily escaped the judgment of the imperial court,
and from behind his fortified walls defied even the emperor himself,
trembled when in the silence of the night he heard the voices of the
_Freischoeffen_ at the gate of his castle, and when the free count
summoned him to appear at the ancient _malplatz_, or plain, under the
lime-tree, or on the bank of a rivulet upon that dreaded soil, the
Westphalian or red ground. And that the power of those free courts was
not exaggerated by the mere imagination, excited by terror, nor in
reality by any means insignificant, is proved by a hundred undeniable
examples, supported by records and testimonies, that numerous princes,
counts, knights, and wealthy citizens were seized by these Schoeffen of
the secret tribunal, and, in execution of its sentence, perished by
their hands."

An institution so mysterious and wide-spread as this could not exist
without some degree of abuse of power. Unworthy persons would attain
membership, who would use their authority for the purpose of private
vengeance. This occasional injustice of the Vehmic tribunal became more
frequent as time went on, and by the end of the fifteenth century many
complaints arose