Femgerichte

Femgerichte, originally the local Westphalian courts of the Middle Ages, were developed into a secret organization over the whole of Germany, which reached its greatest influence in the first half of the 15th c. Proceedings and membership were secret (stilles Gericht), and death sentences were immediately carried out by hanging without possibility of appeal. In the latter part of the 15th c. the Femgerichte began to lose their prestige in the face of opposition from the territorial princes and the emperor. Though they forfeited all their important powers, they lingered into the 19th c. The best-known literary presentations of Femgerichte are in Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen and H. von Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn.