blinded by the terror it inspired, was not long without displaying the most extravagant assumption of power, and digressing from the strict path to which its action should have been confined.  It summoned before its tribunals princes, who openly denied its authority, and cities, which did not condescend to answer to its behests.  In the fifteenth century, the free judges were composed of men who could not be called of unimpeachable integrity; many persons of doubtful morals having been raised to the dignity by party influence and by money.  The partiality and the spirit of revenge which at times prompted their judgments, were complained of; they were accused of being open to corruption; and this accusation appears to have been but too well founded.  It is known that, according to a feudal practice established in the Vehmic system, every new free judge was obliged to make a present to the free count who had admitted him into the order; and the free counts did not hesitate to make this an important source of revenue to themselves by admitting, according to an historian, “many people as judges who, in reality, deserved to be judged.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 331.—­View of Cologne in the Sixteenth Century.—­From a Copper-plate in the “Theatrum Geographicum” of P. Bertius.  The three large stars represent, it is supposed, the Three Persons of the Trinity, and the seven small ones the Electors of the Empire.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 332.—­German Knights (Fifteenth Century).—­From a Plate in the “Life of the Emperor Maximilian,” engraved by Burgmayer, from Drawings by Albert Durer.]

Owing to the most flagrant and most insolent abuses of power, the ancient authority of the institution became gradually more and more shaken.  On one occasion, for instance, in answer to a summons issued by the Imperial Tribunal against some free judges, the tribunal of the Terre-Rouge had the daring to summon the Emperor Frederick III. before it to answer for this want of respect.  On another occasion, a certain free count, jealous of one of his associates, hung him with his own hands while out on a hunting excursion, alleging that his rank of free judge authorised him to execute summary justice.  From that time there was a perpetual cry of horror and indignation against a judicial institution which thus interpreted its duties, and before long the State undertook the suppression of these secret tribunals.  The first idea of this was formed by the electors of the empire at the diet of Treves in 1512.  The Archbishop of Cologne succeeded, however, in parrying the blow, by convoking the chapter-general of the order, on the plea of the necessity of reform.  But, besides being essentially corrupt, the Holy Vehme had really run its course, and it gradually became effete as, by degrees, a better organized and more defined social and political state succeeded to the confused anarchy of the Middle Ages, and as the princes and free towns adopted the custom of dispensing justice either in