The Secret Societies Of The Middle Ages

a placard on his door at night , or by some other signal . But if he paid no regard to these warnings , ancl did not mend his ways , they held the tribunal in the open air , ancl both judges and assessors came to him with halters in their hands , and walked three times round him , repeating together the words , " Who is a good man , he sits still , " Should the man have been guilty of any crimehe got up and

, walked away , ancl no one was permitted to pursue him , but his goods were confiscated , partly to tho sovereign , and partly to the secret tribunal . But if he continued sitting , and the judges ancl assessors returned a third time , they throAv a halter round his neck , and hanged him on the nearest tree ; after which they returned and declared that the man whom they had just hanged was justly put to death

; yet no one knew who performed the office of executioner , neither diet any ono dare to condemn , or even to censure the judges . The judges and assessors , moreover , he continues , must be men of discretion and taciturnity , and never betray their proceedings , or they would assuredly

be put to death . On account of the unjust and nefarious proceedings of these courts , Eric , Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburgh , abolished this secret tribunal within his jurisdiction . Schottelius also * gives the following account of the proceedings at Zelle , taken-from an ancient manuscript . When the secret judgment is proclaimed , all the inhabitants of the place above twelve years of

age repair to an open square , and sit down upon the ground , while the prince , and his councillors and bailiffs , range themselves round a table . The secret judgest then first announce the delinquent and the offence of which ho is accused ; they then walk round him in procession , and strike him with a white stick on the legs . If he has committed a capital offence he is commanded to riseancl in a day and a night to go

, into banishment . If any one is struck once or tAvice it is considered as a friendly warning to amend his ways ; but if ho is summoned the third time the priest administers to him the last rites , and the executioner hangs him on the nearest tree . William , Duke of Lunenburgh , was the last sovereign of that house who was present at this ceremony at Zelle .

Pfeffel , moreover , has given an account ^ : the enormities and cruelties of this dreadful tribunal , and of its subsequent suppression . The judges and assessors , ho says , who were unknown , discovered , either themselves or by spies , the most secret actions , and struck with dread persons of all ranks and conditions . Their trials became so much the more terrible , as they judged without appeal , ancl without any known forms ; their mode of proceeding was always enveloped in the most impenetrable darkness , and the assessors paraded with the axe and tho halter , and carried into execution their own sentences .