Feme court

The Feme was a type of medieval criminal justice system that was particularly common in the Westphalian region and emerged at a time of great legal uncertainty at the beginning of the 13th century. It involved trials for serious crimes such as robbery, arson, murder, rape, forgery, perjury and church crimes. The verdict was acquittal or death. The death sentence was carried out by hanging and executed by a lay judge.

The participants, under the direction of the so-called lord of the chair, were freemen, called lay judges, who held the hearings in secret. The defendant's summons was posted on his front door, the garden fence or the town or castle gate. The accused then had to appear before the Femegericht. If a summoned defendant did not attend the trial, he could be sentenced in absentia and could then expect to be executed at any time without notification of the verdict.

The local history association erected a feme court site on the bridge at the Borg. There is evidence for the existence of a feme court on Lüdinghausen territory for the period between 1230 and 1550. Feme jurisdiction was probably the responsibility of the owners of Lüdinghausen Castle from the 15th century onwards. A court is still mentioned here under the lime trees in the Borg in the middle of the 17th century.