Note 2 — PART SEVENTH The Femgerichte.

What follows regarding the Femgerichte is based on Theodor Lindner’s work, “Die Femgerichte,” Münster and Paderborn, 1888. (Whatever may have been the original meaning of the word “fem” in “femgericht,” it is enough to know that in usage it is equivalent to “secret”; hence femgericht—secret judgment, or secret tribunal.)