Topic: Vehmgericht

Vehmgericht , Vehme , or vehmic court , in medieval Germany, a type of criminal tribunal. The inability of the Holy Roman emperors to exercise effective central control over their lands and the extensive feudal warfare of the period brought increasing disorder. To control this lawlessness, there emerged in Westphalia near the end of the 12th cent. extralegal but efficient criminal tribunals, the Vehmgerichte. Probably the outgrowths of the Frankish courts, they had presumably received their original jurisdiction from the royal court in Carolingian times. In the legal fragmentation of... Read more