The members of the feme were called wissende, " the knowing ones," or the initiated. It was necessary that they should be born in wedlock, be of the Christian religion, lead a blameless life, and bind themselves by a tremendous oath " to support the holy feme, and to conceal it from wife and child, father and mother, sister and brother, fire and wind, from all that the sun shines on and the rain wets, and from all that is between heaven and earth." Originally, none but an inhabitant of the " Red Land," possessed of real property, could be admitted a member of the wissende; at a later period, this rule was relaxed. From the general body were elected officers called freischoffen (free justices), who were assessors of the court and executors of its sentences. The presiding judge was called the freigraf (free count). The general superintendence and presidency of the secret tribunals belonged to the lord of the land, i.e., in Westphalia, to thearchbishop of Cologne. The highest office, however, as supreme president, was nominally held by the emperor, who was usually elected into the number of the wissende on the occasion of his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. The court of a freigraf was called freiding (a free court of justice), and the place where he held court a freistuld (free bench or court).
One of the most celebrated free courts had its seat at Dortmund. The sittings of the tribunal were either open or secret. The former were held by day in the open air, and decided in civil disputes: the secret tribunals took cognizance of those who had been unable to prove their innocence in the open courts, as well as of those who were accused of heresy, sorcery, rape, theft, robbery, or murder. The accusation was made by one of
the freischOffen, who declared, upon oath, that the accused had committed the crime. The citation was secretly affixed, with symbolical signs, to the door of the accused, who was to meet the wissende at a certain hour and place, and be conducted by them before the tribunal. The accused could now clear himself by an oath, but the accuser and witnesses could oppose this with another. If the accused could now bring forward six witnesses to swear in his favor, the accuser could strengthen his oath with 14 wit nesses; and it was not till after 21 witnesses had made their affidavit in his favor that sentence of acquittal necessarily followed. The persons convicted, as well as those who refused to obey the summons, were given over to the freischoffen. The first freischoffe who met him was bound to hang him on a tree, or, if he made any resistance, to put him otherwise to death. A knife was left by the corpse, to show that it was not a mur der, but a punishment inflicted by one of the freischoffen. Compare Wigand, Day Fehmgericht Westfalen's (Hamm. 1825), and Usener, Die Frei- find heindichen Gerichte Wes(falen's (Frankfort, 1832); Geisberg, Die Fehme (1858).