Chapter VII
Cause of the degeneracy of the Fehm-courts—Attempts at reformation—Causes of their high reputation—Case of the Duke of Würtemberg—Of Kerstian Kerkerink—Causes of the decline of the Fehm-jurisdiction.
The chief cause of the degeneracy of the Fehm-courts was the admission of improper persons into the society. Originally, as we have seen, no man was admitted to become a schöppe without producing satisfactory evidence as to the correctness of his character; but now, in the case of either count or schöppe, a sufficient sum of money availed to supersede inquiry, and the consequence was that men of the most disgraceful characters frequently presided at the tribunals and wielded the formidable powers of the society. A writer in the reign of Sigismund says, “that those who had gotten authority to hang men were hardly deserving enough to keep pigs; that they were themselves well worthy of the gallows if one cast a glance over their course of life; that they left not unobserved the mote in their brother’s eye, but overlooked the beam in their own, &c.” And it required no small courage in the writer thus to express himself; for, according to his own testimony, people then hardly ventured even to speak of the Secret Tribunals, so great was the awe in which they were held.
The consequence was that justice was not to be had at any tribunal which was presided over by corrupt judges, as they selected assessors, and even by-standers, of the same character with themselves, and whatever verdict they pleased was found. The tribunal-lord generally winked at their proceedings, while the right of appeal to the emperor was treated with little respect; for these monarchs had generally affairs of more immediate importance to themselves to occupy their attention. The right of exemption was also trampled on; sovereign princes were, as we have seen, cited before the tribunals; so also were the Jews. Purely civil matters were now maintained to belong to the Fehm-jurisdiction, and parties in such cases were cited before the tribunals, and forfehmed in case of disobedience. In short, the Fehm-jurisdiction was now become a positive evil instead of being, as heretofore, a benefit to the country.
Various attempts were doubtless made to reform the Fehm-law and tribunals, such as the Arensberg reformation, the Osnaburgh regulation, and others, but to little purpose. The system, in fact, was at variance with the spirit which was now beginning to prevail, and could not be brought to accord with it.
Before we proceed to the decline of the society, we will pause a moment to consider the causes of the great reputation and influence which it obtained and exercised during the period in which it flourished.
The first and chief cause was the advantage which it was found to be of for the maintenance of social order and tranquillity. In the very worst and most turbulent times a portion of mankind will always be found desirous of peace and justice, even independently of any private interest; another portion, feeling themselves the victims of oppression, will gladly catch at any hope of protection; even the mighty and the oppressive themselves will at times view with satisfaction any institution which may avail to shield them against power superior to their own, or which they conceive may be made the instrument of extending and strengthening their consequence. The Fehm-jurisdiction was calculated to suit all these orders of persons. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the most anarchic periods of Germany; the imperial power was feeble to control; and the characters of most of the emperors were such as to render still more unavailing the little authority which, as heads of the empire, they possessed. Sensible of their weakness, these monarchs generally favoured the Fehm-tribunals, which so freely, and even ostentatiously, recognised the imperial superiority, as long as it did not seek to control them or impede them in their proceedings. The knowledge which, if initiated, they could derive of the crimes and misdemeanors committed in the empire, and the power of directing the arms of the society against evil-doers, were also of no small importance, and they gradually became of opinion that their own existence was involved in that of the Fehm-courts. The nobles of Westphalia, in like manner, found their advantage in belonging to the society, and the office of tribunal-lord was, as we have seen, one of influence and emolument.
But it was the more helpless and oppressed classes of society, more especially the unhappy serfs, that most rejoiced in the existence of the Fehm-tribunals; for there only could they hope to meet with sure redress when aggrieved, and frequently was a cause, when other courts had been appealed to in vain, brought before the Secret Tribunal, which judged without respect of persons. The accuser had farther not to fear the vengeance of the evil-doer, or his friends and dependents; for his name was kept a profound secret if the proofs which he could furnish were sufficient to justify the inquisitorial process already described, and thus the robber-noble, or the feudal tyrant, often met his merited punishment at a time when he perhaps least dreaded it, and when he held his victim, whose cries to justice had brought it on him, in the greatest contempt; for, like the Nemesis, or the “gloom-roaming” Erinnys of antiquity, the retributive justice of the Fehm-tribunals moved to vengeance with stealthy pace, and caught its victim in the midst of his security.
A second cause was the opinion of these courts having been instituted by Charles the Great, a monarch whose memory was held in such high estimation and such just veneration during the middle ages. Emperors thought themselves bound to treat with respect the institution of him from whom they derived their authority; and the clergy themselves, exempt from its jurisdiction, were disposed to view with favour an institution established by the monarch to whom the Church was so deeply indebted, and of whose objects the punishment of heretics was one of the most prominent.
A third, and not the least important cause, was the excellent organization of the society, which enabled it to give such effect to its decrees, and to which nothing in those times presented any parallel. The veil of secrecy which enveloped all its proceedings, and the number of agents ready to execute its mandates, inspired awe; the strict inquiry which was known to be made into the character of a man before he was admitted into it gained it respect. Its sentences were, though the proofs were unknown, believed to have emanated from justice; and bad men trembled, and good men rejoiced, as they beheld the body of a criminal suspended from a tree, and the schöppe’s knife stuck beside it to intimate by whom he had been judged and condemned.
The reign of the Emperor Maximilian was a period of great reform in Germany, and his establishment of the Perpetual Public Peace, and of the Imperial Chamber, joined with other measures, tended considerably to alter and improve the condition of the empire. The Fehm-tribunals should, as a matter of prudence, have endeavoured to accommodate themselves to the new order of things; but this is a part of wisdom of which societies and corporate bodies are rarely found capable; and, instead of relaxing in their pretensions, they even sought to extend them farther than before. Under their usual pretext—the denial of justice—they extended their citations to persons and places over which they had no jurisdiction, and thereby provoked the enmity and excited the active hostility of cities and powerful territorial lords.
The most remarkable cases which this period presents of the perversion of the rights and powers of the Fehm-tribunals are the two following:—
Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg lived unhappily with his duchess Sabina. There was at his court a young nobleman named Hans Hutten, a member of an honourable and powerful family, to whose wife the duke was more particular in his attentions than could be agreeable to a husband. The duchess, on her side, testified a particular esteem for Hans Hutten, and the intimacy between them was such as the duke could not forgive. Hutten was either so vain or so inconsiderate as to wear publicly on his finger a valuable ring which had been given to him by the duchess. This filled up the measure of the jealousy and rage of the duke, and one day, at a hunting-party in the wood of Bebling, he contrived to draw Hutten away from the rest of the train, and, taking him at unawares, ran him through with his sword; he then took off his girdle, and with it suspended him from one of the oak-trees in the wood. When the murder was discovered he did not deny it, but asserted that he was a free schöppe, and had performed the deed in obedience to a mandate of the Secret Tribunal, to which he was bound to yield obedience. This tale, however, did not satisfy the family of Hutten, and they were as little content with the proposal made by the murderer of giving them satisfaction before a Westphalian tribunal. They loudly appealed to the emperor for justice, and the masculine eloquence of Ulrich von Hutten interested the public so strongly in their favour, that the emperor found himself obliged to issue a sentence of outlawry against the Duke of Würtemberg. At length, through the mediation of Cardinal Lang, an accommodation both with the Hutten family and the duchess was effected; but the enmity of the former was not appeased, and they some time afterwards lent their aid to effect the deposition of the duke and the confiscation of his property.
It would seem that the Fehm-tribunals would have justified the assassination committed by the duke, at least that all confidence in their justice was now gone; and, at this period, even those writers who are most lavish in their praises of the schöppen of the olden time can find no language sufficiently strong to describe the iniquity of those of their own days. It was now become a common saying that the course of a Fehm-court was first to hang the accused and then to examine into the charges against him. By a solemn recess of the Diet at Triers, in 1512, it was declared “that by the Westphalian tribunals many an honest man had lost his honour, body, life, and property;” and the Archbishop of Cologne, who must have known them well, shortly afterwards asserted, among other charges, in a capitulation which he issued, that “by very many they were shunned and regarded as seminaries of villains.”
The second case to which we alluded affords a still stronger proof of their degeneracy.
A man named Kerstian Kerkerink, who lived near the town of Münster, was accused, and probably with truth, of having committed repeated acts of adultery. The Free-tribunal of Münster determined to take cognizance of the affair, and they sent and had him taken out of his bed in the dead of the night. In order to prevent his making any noise and resistance, the persons who were employed assured him that he was to be brought before the tribunal of a respectable councillor of the city of Münster, and prevailed on him to put on his best clothes. They took him to a place named Beckman’s-bush, where they kept him concealed while one of them conveyed intelligence of their success to the town-council.
At break of day the tribunal-lords, free-count, and schöppen, taking with them a monk and a common hangman, proceeded to Beckman’s-bush, and had the prisoner summoned before them. When he appeared he prayed to be allowed to have an advocate; but this request was refused, and the court proceeded forthwith to pass sentence of death. The unfortunate man now implored for the delay of but one single day to settle his affairs and make his peace with God; but this request also was strongly refused, and it was signified to him that he must die forthwith, and that if he wished he might make his confession, to which end a confessor had been brought to the place. When the unhappy wretch sued once more for favour, it was replied to him that he should find favour and be beheaded, not hung. The monk was then called forward, to hear his confession; when that was over the executioner (who had previously been sworn never to reveal what he saw) advanced and struck off the head of the delinquent.
Meantime, information of what was going on had reached the town, and old and young came forth to witness the last act of the tragedy, or perhaps to interfere in favour of Kerkerink. But this had been foreseen and provided against; officers were set to watch all the approaches from the town till all was over, and when the people arrived they found nothing but the lifeless body of Kerkerink, which was placed in a coffin and buried in a neighbouring churchyard.
The bishop and chapter of Münster expressed great indignation at this irregular proceeding and encroachment on their rights, and it served to augment the general aversion to the Fehm-courts.
Our readers will at once perceive how much the proceedings in this case, which occurred in the year 1580, differed from those of former times. Then the accused was formally summoned, and he was allowed to have an advocate; here he was seized without knowing for what, and was hardly granted even the formality of a trial. Then the people who came, even accidentally, into the vicinity of a Fehm-court, would cross themselves and hasten away from the place, happy to escape with their lives: now they rush without apprehension to the spot where it was sitting, and the members of it fly at their approach. Finally, in severity as well as justice, the advantage was on the side of the old courts. The criminal suffered by the halter; we hear of no father confessor being present to console his last moments, and his body, instead of being deposited in consecrated earth, was left to be torn by the wild beasts and ravenous birds. The times were evidently altered!
Seal of the Secret Tribunals
The Fehm-tribunals were never formally abolished; but the excellent civil institutions of the Emperors Maximilian and Charles V., the consequent decrease of the turbulent and anarchic spirit, the introduction of the Roman law, the spread of the Protestant religion, and many other events of those times, conspired to give men an aversion for what now appeared to be a barbarous jurisdiction and only suited to such times as it was hoped and believed never could return. Some of the courts were abolished; exemptions and privileges against them were multiplied; they were prohibited all summary proceedings; their power gradually sank into insignificance; and, though up to the present century a shadow of them remained in some parts of Westphalia, they have long been only a subject of antiquarian curiosity as one of the most striking phenomena of the middle ages. They were only suited to a particular state of society: while that existed they were a benefit to the world; when it was gone they remained at variance with the state which succeeded, became pernicious, were hated and despised, lost all their influence and reputation, shared the fate of every thing human, whose character is instability and decay, and have left only their memorial behind them.
It is an important advance in civilization, and a great social gain, to have got rid, for all public purposes, of Secret Societies—both of their existence and of their use; for, that, like most of the other obsolete forms into which the arrangements of society have at one time or other resolved themselves, some of these mysterious and exclusive institutions, whether for preserving knowledge or dispensing justice, served, each in its day, purposes of the highest utility, which apparently could not have been accomplished by any other existing or available contrivance, has been sufficiently shown by the expositions that have been given, in the preceding pages, of the mechanism and working of certain of the most remarkable of their number. But it has been made at least equally evident that the evils attendant upon their operation, and inherent in their nature, were also very great, and that, considered even as the suitable remedies for a most disordered condition of human affairs, they were at best only not quite so bad as the disease. They were institutions for preserving knowledge, not by promoting, but by preventing that diffusion of it which, after all, both gives to it its chief value, and, in a natural state of things, most effectually ensures its purification, as well as its increase; and for executing justice, by trampling under foot the rights alike of the wrong-doer and of his victim. Mankind may be said to have stepped out of night into day, in having thrown off the burden and bondage of this form of the social system, and having attained to the power of pursuing knowledge in the spirit of knowledge, and justice in the spirit of justice. We have now escaped from that state of confusion and conflict in which one man’s gain was necessarily another man’s loss, and are fairly on our way towards that opposite state in which, in everything, as far as the constitution of this world will permit, the gain of one shall be the gain of all. This latter, to whatever degree it may be actually attainable, is the proper hope and goal of all human civilization.
The End
London: Printed by W. Clowks and Sons, Stamford Street.
and asking,
“Do the roses still bloom by the calm Bendameer?”
Calm and still, beyond doubt, is the Bendameer.
says Mr. Moore in his “Lalla Rookh,” undoubtedly without any knowledge of the eastern song. His original was perhaps Campbell’s
“Andes, giant of the western star,
His meteor standard to the winds unfurled,
Looks from his throne of clouds o’er half the world;”
which was again, in all probability, suggested, like Gray’s
“Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream’d like a meteor to the troubled air,”
by Milton’s
“Imperial ensign, which, full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.”
It is thus that the particles of poetry, like those of matter, are in eternal circulation, and forming new combinations.
says Burns, describing the “ploughman’s collie,” in his tale of the “Twa Dogs;” and in the Glossary, Dr. Currie explains Baws’nt as meaning “having a white stripe down the face.” As, however, some notion of handsomeness or attractiveness of appearance seems to be involved in the epithet, Bauseant, or Beauséant, may possibly be merely an older form of the present French word, Bienséant.
Notes
1 See Lobeck’s excellent work “Aglaophamus.”
2 Since the present work was prepared, a translation of Von Hammer’s History of the Assassins has been published by Dr. Oswald Charles Wood.
3 Hammer’s Geschichte der Assassinen (History of the Assassins), and the same writer’s Fundgruben des Orients (Mines of the East), M. Jourdain’s Extrait de l’Ouvrage de Mirkhond sur la Dynastie des Ismaelites, and Malcolm’s History of Persia, are the principal authorities for the following account of the Assassins.
4 The name given to the dynasty founded by Ardeshir, from his pretended ancestor Sassan, a grandson of Isfundear, a hero greatly celebrated in the ancient history of Persia. Isfundear was the son of Gushtasp, who is supposed to be the Darìus Hystaspes of the Greek historians. Sir John Malcolm has endeavoured to identify Isfundear with the Xerxes of the Greeks.
5 The Oriental proper names being mostly all significant, we shall translate them when we first employ them. As, however, it is not always that it can be discovered what the original Arabic characters are of an eastern word which we meet in Roman letters, we shall be sometimes obliged to leave names unexplained, and at other times to hazard conjectural explanations. In the last case, we shall affix a mark of doubt.
6 The Kubla Khan of Coleridge (Poetical Works, vol. i. p. 266) is a fine instance of this power of the mind, withdrawn from the contemplation of material objects. The reader will probably recollect the sign given from heaven to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, on the occasion of his work written against revealed religion. The writer has lately heard an instance of a lady of fortune, to whom, as she reclined one day on a sofa, a voice seemed to come from heaven, announcing to her that she was selected as the instrument for accomplishing a great work in the hands of God; and giving, as a sign, that, for a certain number of months, she should be unable to leave the sofa on which she was lying. Such is the power of imagination, that the supposed intimation in regard to the sign actually took effect; she believed herself to have lost the power of motion, and therefore did in reality lose it.
7 See, in Sir J. Malcolm’s History of Persia, the dialogue between the Persian king Yezdijird and the Arab envoy. “Whatever,” said the latter, “thou hast said regarding the former condition of the Arabs is true. Their food was green lizards; they buried their infant daughters alive; nay, some of them feasted on dead carcasses and drank blood, while others slew their relations, and thought themselves great and valiant when, by such an act, they became possessed of more property. They were clothed with hair garments, knew not good from evil, and made no distinction between that which is lawful and that which is unlawful. Such was our state. But God in his mercy has sent us by a holy prophet a sacred volume, which teaches us the true faith,” &c.
8 Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 165.
9 The Hebrews, as appears from the poetic parts of the Scriptures, had the same delight in the clang of rhyme as the Arabs. See particularly Isaiah in the original.
10 See Ockley’s History of the Saracens.
11 Hence they were named the Standing (Wakfiyah).
12 Abbas, the ancestor of this family, was one of the uncles of the Prophet. They obtained possession of the khalifat A.D. 750, and retained it through an hereditary succession of princes for 500 years. Al-Mansoor, the second khalif of this dynasty, transferred the royal residence from Damascus, where the Ommiades had dwelt, to Bagdad, which he founded on the banks of the Tigris. This city, also named the City of Peace, the Vale of Peace, the House of Peace, has acquired, beyond what any other town can claim, a degree of romantic celebrity by means of the inimitable Thousand and One Nights. Such is the ennobling power of genius!
13 Khizer, by some supposed, but perhaps erroneously, to be the prophet Elias, is regarded by the Mohammedans in the light of a beneficent genius. He is the giver of youth to the animal and the vegetable world. He is clad in garments of the most brilliant green, and he stands as keeper of the Well of Life in the Land of Darkness. According to the romances of the East, Iskander, that is, Alexander the Great, resolved to march into the West, to the Land of Darkness, that he might drink of the water of immortality. During seven entire days he and his followers journeyed through dark and dismal deserts. At length they faintly discerned in the distance the green light which shone from the raiment of Khizer. As they advanced it became more and more resplendent, like the brightest and purest emeralds. As the monarch approached, Khizer dipped a cup in the verdant Water of Life, and reached it to him; but the impatience of Iskander was so great that he spilt the contents of the cup, and the law of fate did not permit the guardian of the fount to fill it for him again. The moral of this tale is evident. Its historic foundation is the journey of the Macedonian to the temple of Ammon.
14 See Frazer’s Khorasan.
15 Lari and Macrisi, quoted by Hammer.
16 Macrisi is Hammer’s authority for the preceding account of Abdallah. It is to be observed that this Abdallah is unnoticed by Herbelot.
17 The genuineness of the descent of Obeid-Allah has been a great subject of dispute among the eastern historians and jurists. Those in the interests of the house of Abbas strained every nerve to make him out an impostor.
18 That is, Missionary of Missionaries.
19 Cadhi of Cadhis.
20 Hammer, p. 54.
21 Mr. De Sacy (Journal des Savans, an 1818) is of opinion that the Arabic words Taleel and Ibahat will not bear the strong sense which Hammer gives them. The former, he says, only signifies that Deism which regards the Deity as merely a speculative being, and annihilates the moral relations between him and the creature; the latter only denotes emancipation from the positive precepts of laws, such as fasting, prayer, &c., but not from moral obligations.
22 Or Hassan-ben-Sabah (son of Sabah), so named from Sabah Homairi, one of his pretended Arabian ancestors.
23 The Soonna is the body of traditions, answering to the Mishua of the Jews, held by the orthodox Mussulmans.
24 Reis, from the Arabic Râs (the head), answers in some respects to captain, a word of similar origin. Thus the master of a shin is called the Reis. Sir John Malcolm says, “it is equivalent to esquire, as it was originally understood. It implies in Persia the possession of landed estates and some magisterial power. The reis is in general the hereditary head of a village.”
25 Mirkhond.
26 Sir J. Malcolm says that the person with whom he read this portion of history in Persia observed to him that the English were well acquainted with this stratagem, as it was by means of it that they got Calcutta from the poor Emperor of Delhi.
27 This castle was built by sultan Malek Shah. The following was its origin:—As Malek Shah, who was a great lover of the chase, was out one day a hunting, one of the hounds went astray on the nearly inaccessible rock on which the castle was afterwards erected. The ambassador of the Byzantine emperor, who was of the party, observed to the sultan, that in his master’s dominions so advantageous a situation would not be left unoccupied, but would long since have been crowned with a castle. The sultan followed the ambassador’s advice, and erected the castle of the King’s Pearl on this lofty rock. When the castle fell into the hands of the Ismaïlites, pious Moslems remarked that it could not have better luck, since its site had been pointed out by a dog (an unclean beast in their eyes), and its erection advised by an infidel.
28 Hammer, 97.
29 That is, Jesus. It may be here observed that the proper names of the Old Testament are still used in the East. Ibrahim, Ismael, Yahya, Joossuf, Moossa, Daood, Suleiman, Issa, are Abraham, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, and Joshua, or Jesus.
30 Ahmar, fem. Hamra, is red in Arabic; hence the celebrated Moorish palace at Granada was called Alhambra (Al-Hamra), i. e. the Red.
31 Hence the Spanish Cid.
32 Hammer, book ii.
33 Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. ii.
34 Marsden’s Translation.
35 Fundgruben des Orients, vol. iii.
36 The Arabic name of the hyoscyamus, or henbane. Hammer conjectures that the word benge, or, with the Coptic article in the plural, ni-benje, is the same with the nepenthe of the ancients.—Fundgruben des Orients, iii. 202.
37 Fundgruben des Orients, vol. iv.
38 History of Persia, vol. i.
39 Elmacin, Historia Saracenica, l. iii. p. 286.
40 Marinus Sanutus, l. iii. p. x. c. 8.
41 This was the Armenia in Cilicia.
42 D’Herbelot, titre Carmath.
43 The number slain was 6,000.
44 It was the month of December.
45 As Sanjar lived to a great age he was contemporary with several of the Ismaïlite sheikhs.
46 That is, the point towards which they turn in prayer, namely, Mecca.
47 The former of these names is Arabic, the latter Persian.
48 He was accompanied by Saladin, who gives the following account of his own repugnance to the expedition:—“When Noor-ed-deen ordered me to go to Egypt with my uncle, after Sheerkoh had said to me in his presence, ‘Come Yoossuf, make ready for the journey!’ I replied, ‘By God, if thou wert to give me the kingdom of Egypt I would not go, for I have endured in Alexandria what I shall not forget while I live.’ But Sheerkoh said to Noor-ed-deen, ‘It cannot be but that he should accompany me.’ Whereupon Noor-ed-deen repeated his command, but I persisted in my refusal. As Noor-ed-deen also adhered to his determination, I excused myself by pleading the narrowness of my circumstances. Noor-ed-deen then gave me all that was requisite for my outfit, but I felt as if I was going to death.”—Abulfeda.
49 William of Tyre xx. 12.
50 Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. i. pp. 994, 1062.
51 William of Tyre makes their number 60,000. He declares his inability to give the origin of the name Assassins.
52 Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstauffen, ii., p. 490. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, iv., 489.
53 Annales Muslemici, tom. iv., pp. 122, 123. Hafniae, 1792.
54 An instance of Henry’s intimacy with the Assassins has been given in p. 81.
55 Sir J. Mackintosh (History of England, i. 187) seems to regard the letters as genuine.
56 May it not be said that real historic characters should not be misrepresented? Sir W. Scott was at full liberty to make his Varneys and his Bois Gilberts as accomplished villains as he pleased; he might do as he pleased with his own; but what warrant had he from history for painting Conrad of Montferrat and the then Master of the Templars under such odious colours as he does?
57 The author invariably writes Montserrat for Montferrat. The former is in Spain, and never was a marquisate. As it were to show that it was no error of the press, it is said, “The shield of the marquis bore, in reference to his title, a serrated and rocky mountain.” We also find naphtha and bitumen confounded, the former being described as the solid, the latter as the liquid substance.
58 “Sebil, in Arabic ‘the way,’ means generally the road, and the traveller is hence called Ibn-es-sebil, the son of the road; but it more particularly signifies the way of piety and good works, which leads to Paradise. Whatever meritorious work the Moslem undertakes, he does Fi sebil Allah, on the way of God, or for the love of God; and the most meritorious which he can undertake is the holy war, or the fight for his faith and his country, on God’s way. But since pious women can have no immediate share in the contest, every thing which they can contribute to the nursing of the wounded, and the refreshment of the exhausted, is imputed to them as equally meritorious as if they had fought themselves. The distribution of water to the exhausted and wounded warriors is the highest female merit in the holy war on God’s way.”—Hammer’s History of the Assassins, Wood’s translation, p. 144.
59 This part of Persia also acquires interest from the circumstance of Russia being believed to be looking forward to obtaining it, one day or other, by conquest or cession.
60 Azed-ud-dowlah, one of the most celebrated of these princes, had a dyke constructed across the river Kur, in the plain of Murdasht, near the ruins of Persepolis, to confine the water, and permit of its being distributed over the country. It was called the Bund-Ameer (Prince’s Dyke), and travellers ignorant of the Persian language have given this name to the river itself. We must not, therefore, be surprised to find in “Lalla Rookh” a lady singing,
“There’s a bower of roses by Bendameer’s stream;”
61 Four lines, quoted by Sir J. Malcolm from the Gulistan of Saadi, may be thus literally rendered in the measure of the original:—
The blest Feridoon an angel was not;
Of musk or of amber he formed was not;
By justice and mercy good ends gained he;
Be just and merciful, thou’lt a Feridoon be.
62 Paradise, we are to recollect, is a word of Persian origin, adopted by the Greeks, from whom we have received it. A Paradise was a place planted with trees, a park, garden, or pleasure-ground, as we may term it.
63 Hammer has, in his “Belles Lettres of Persia” (Schöne Redekunst Persians), and in the “Mines de l’Orient,” translated a considerable portion of the Shah-nameh in the measure of the original. MM. Campion and Atkinson have rendered a part of it into English heroic verse. Görres has epitomised it, as far as to the death of Roostem, in German prose, under the title of “Das Heldenbuch von Iran.” An epitome of the poem in English prose, by Mr. Atkinson, has also lately appeared.
64 This is the name which, in the form of Aladdin, is so familiar to us from the story of the Wonderful Lamp.
65 Malcolm’s History of Persia, vol. i. In the clever work called “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,” which is the best picture ever given of the language, manners, and modes of thinking of that class, there is an amusing account (and an undoubtedly true one) of the “Abduction of Mat Kavanagh,” one of that curious order of men called in that country hedge-schoolmasters, which, as indicative of a passion for knowledge, may be placed in comparison with this anecdote of Ala-ed-deen.
66 “And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurled,
Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes
Sublime from that valley of bliss to the world,”
67 The principal works on the subject of the Templars are Raynouard Monumens historiques relatifs à la Condamnation des Templiers; Dupuy Histoire de la Condamnation des Templiers; Münter Statutenbuch des Ordens der Tempelherren; and Wilike Geschichte des Tempelherrenordens. There is scarcely anything on the subject in English.
68 On the subject of chivalry see Ste. Palaye Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, Sir W. Scott’s Essay on the same subject, and Mills’s and James’s histories of chivalry. We do not recollect that any of these writers has fairly proved that the chivalry which they describe ever existed as an institution, and we must demur to the principle which they all assume of romances like Perceforest being good authority for the manners of the age in which they were composed.
69 Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, I., p. 59.
70 The other writers of that century agree in the account given above. Brompton’s authority has been preferred by some modern writers, who probably wished to pay their court to the order of Malta.
71 Wilken I. 28, gives 1135 as the year in which this piece was written.
72 See p. 187. Sir W. Scott describes his Templar in Ivanhoe, as wearing a white mantle with a black cross of eight points. The original cross of the Hospitallers, we may observe, had not eight points. That of the order of Malta was of this form.
73 Bauseant, or Bausant, was, in old French, a piebald horse, or a horse marked white and black. Ducange, Roquefort. The word is still preserved with its original meaning in the Scotch dialect, in the form Bawsent:
“His honest, sonsie, baws’nt face
Aye gat him friends in ilka place,”
74 See p. 88.
75 Page 116.
76 Wilken Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, Vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 39.
77 Page 116.
78 The organisation and the rules of the Hospitallers were similar to those of the Templars; but as that order existed down to modern times, the rules, &c., given by Vertot, contain a great number of modern additions.
79 When we use the word “Master,” we would always be understood to mean the Master or his representative.
80 That is, never to quit the order.
81 This influence of the clergy excited the spleen of the knights. Gerard de Caux, in his examination hereafter to be noticed, said, “The aged men of the order were unanimous in maintaining that the order had gained nothing in internal goodness by the admission of learned members.”
82 Sir W. Scott is perfectly correct in making the smith so important a character in his St. Valentine’s Eve.
83 The Armenia of the crusades was a part of Cilicia.
84 They will be found in Campomanes, p. 80, and Münter, p. 424.
85 The possessions of the Templars in England will be found in the works of Dugdale and Tanner.
86 Magister, Maistre, is the almost invariable expression in the historians, the statutes of the order, and most documents. Magnus Magister was, however, early employed. Terricus, the Master of the order, thus styles himself when writing to Henry II. of England. The term Grand-Master is apt to convey erroneous ideas of pomp and magnificence to the minds of many readers.
87 The Turcopoles were the offspring of a Turkish father, by a Christian mother; or also those who had been reared among the Turks, and had learned their mode of fighting. The Christians employed them as light cavalry; and the Templars had always a number of them in their pay.
88 The Turcomans were, as their name denotes, born Turks. The Christians used them as guides on their expeditions.
89 Le pas de chien. Münter (p. 66) declares his ignorance of where it lay. It was evidently the dangerous pass at the Nahr-el-Kelb, (Dog’s River), near the sea, on the way to Antioch.
90 Seneschal is one qui alterius vicem gerit. Charpentier Supplem. ad Dufresne Gloss. iii. p. 759.
91 The Carroccio of the Italian republics.
92 Sir W. Scott would probably find some difficulty in justifyin his making his Templar accept the combat à outrance at the “gentle and free passage of Ashby de la Zouche.”
93 It is not clear whether this is to be understood literally or metaphorically.
94 The proceedings against the Templars have been published from the original documents by Mowdenhaler, in Germany; but the work has been bought up by the freemasons, who fancy themselves descended from the Templars, so that we have been unable to procure a copy of it. Wilike has, however, extracted largely from it.
95 Sismondi Républiques Italiennes, iv. p. 143.
96 The arrests were made in England in the same secret and sudden manner as in France. Rymer iii. 34, 43.
97 In the church of the romantic hamlet of Gavarnic, a few leagues from Barèges, on the road to Spain, in the heart of the Hautes Pyrénées, are shown twelve skulls, which are said to have been those of Templars who were beheaded in that place. The tradition is, in all probability, incorrect; but the Templars had possessions in Bigorre.
98 This is mentioned in a private letter from Clement to Philip, of the 30th December, 1308.
99 Monumens Historiques, &c. p. 46.
100 Raynouard, p. 253.
101 Raynouard, 61. This circumstance was first remarked by Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lib. xci. Yet it seems hardly credible that the pope and his secretaries could have made so gross a mistake.
102 All these crimes had been acknowledged by various members of the order. Yet what can be more improbable than the worship of the cat for instance? This charge, by the way, had already been made against the sect of the Cathari, who were said to have derived their name a catta:—rather their name gave origin to the invention.
103 Almost every charge brought against the Templars had been previously made against the Albigenses, with how much truth every one is aware.
104 Our readers will call to mind the well-known anecdote of King Richard I. When admonished by the zealous Fulk, of Neuilly, to get rid of his three favourite daughters, pride, avarice, and voluptuousness,—“You counsel well,” said the king, “and I hereby dispose of the first to the Templars, of the second to the Benedictines, and of the third to my prelates.”
105 Similar charges are said to have been brought against the Hospitallers in the year 1238, but without effect. There was no Philip the Fair at that time in France.
106 Clement, in a bull dated but four days after that of the suppression, acknowledged that the whole of the evidence against the order amounted only to suspicion!
107 We mean the illustrious Jos. von Hammer, whose essay on the subject is to be found in the sixth volume of the Mines de l’Orient, where it will be seen that he regards Sir W. Scott, in his Ivanhoe, as a competent witness against the Templars, on account of his correct and faithful pictures of the manners and opinions of the middle ages. We apprehend that people are beginning now to entertain somewhat different ideas on the subject of our great romancer’s fidelity, of which the present pages present some instances.
108 See Manuel des Templiers. As this book is only sold to members of the society, we have been unable to obtain a copy of it. Our account has been derived from Mills’s History of Chivalry. That this writer should have believed it implicitly is, we apprehend, no proof of its truth.
109 This has, we think, been fully proved by Sr. Rossetti. It must not be concealed that this writer strongly asserts that the Templars were a branch of this society.
110 Dr. Berck has, in his elaborate work on this subject (Geschichte der Westphälischen Femgerichte, Bremen, 1815), collected, we believe, nearly all the information that is now attainable. This work has been our principal guide; for, though we have read some others, we cannot say that we have derived any important information from them. As the subject is in its historical form entirely new in English literature, we have, at the hazard of appearing occasionally dry, traced with some minuteness the construction and mode of procedure of these celebrated courts.
111 The romantic accounts of the Secret Tribunals will be found in Sir W. Scott’s translation of Goëthe’s Götz von Berlichingen, and in his House of Aspen and Anne of Geierstein. From various passages in Sir W. Scott’s biographical and other essays, it is plain that he believed such to be the true character of the Secret Tribunals.
112 The Vends (Wenden) were a portion of the Slavonian race who dwelt along the south coast of the Baltic.
113 Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, l. iii. c. 1., apud Leibnitz Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicarum, t. ii. p. 653.
114 Berck, pp. 259, 260.
115 See Berck, l. i. c. 5, 6, 7.
116 Spelt also Fem, Fäm, Vem, Vehm. In German f and v are pronounced alike, as also are ä and e. The words from which Fahm has been derived are Fahne, a standard; Femen, to skin; Fehde, feud; Vemi (i. e. væ mihi), wo is me; Ve or Vaem, which Dreyer says signifies, in the northern languages, holy; Vitte (old German), prudence; Vette, punishment; the Fimmiha of the Salic law; Swedish Fem, Islandic Fimm, five, such being erroneously supposed to be the number of judges in a Fehm, or court. Finally, Mözer deduces it from Fahm, which he says is employed in Austria and some other countries for Rahm, cream.
117 Common fame was a sufficient ground of arraignment in England, also, in the Anglo-Saxon period.
118 In the northern languages, Ting; hence the Store Ting (in our journals usually written Storthing), i. e. Great Ting, or Parliament of Norway.
119 Stuhlherr is tribunal-lord, or, literally, lord of the seat (of judgment); stuhl (Anglice, stool) being a seat, or chair.
120 This word, which cannot be adequately translated, is the low-Latin Scabini, the French Echevins. We shall take the liberty of using it throughout. The schöppen were called frei-(free) schöppen, as the count was called frei-graf, the court frei-stuhl, on account of the jurisdiction of the tribunals being confined to freemen.
121 Frohnbote is interpreted a Holy Messenger, or a Servant of God.
122 When a person was admitted into the society he paid, besides the fee to the count already mentioned, to each schöppe who was assisting there, and to each frohnbote, four livres Tournois.
123 The natives of Prussia were still heathens at that time.
124 In German Verfehmt. We have ventured to coin the word in the text. The English for answers to the German ver; vergessen is forget; verloren is forlorn.
125 In German, Dienstag, probably Dinstag, i.e. Court-day.
126 Berck, p. 231, from Spittler’s History of Hanover.
127 Vimricht, i.e. Fehm-law, the German word, of which the author presently gives a childish etymology.
128 Friederika Brun. Episoden aus Reisen durch das Südliche Deutschland, &c.
129 Golberry, Voyage en Afrique, t. i. p. 114, and seq.
130 The following is one of his predictions, delivered by him, under the name of Master Von Dolete, in the year 1457: “In the ensuing month, September, the sun will appear like a black dragon; cruel winds will blow, the sea will roar, and men will be knocked to pieces by the wind. The sun will then be turned to blood; that betokeneth war in the East and West. A mighty emperor will die; the earth will quake, and few men will remain alive. Wherefore secure your houses and chambers; lay up provisions for thirty days in caverns,” &c., &c. The arts of knaves and the language of impostors are the same in all ages and countries.