The summons of a town or community was usually addressed to all the male inhabitants. In general some of them were specially named in it; the Arensberg Reformation directed that the names of at least thirty persons should be inserted. The term was six weeks and three days, and those who served the summons were required to be _true and upright_ schöppen. The noth-schöppe, that is, the person who had surreptitiously become possessed of the secrets of the society, was summoned but once. The usual time was allowed him for appearing to the charge. Should the accused be a mere vagabond, one who had no fixed residence, the course adopted was to send, six weeks and three days before the day the court was to sit, and post up four summonses at a cross-road which faced the four cardinal points, placing a piece of imperial money with each. This was esteemed good and valid service, and if the accused did not appear the court proceeded to act upon it. Notwithstanding the privileges which the members of the society enjoyed, and the precautions which were employed to ensure their safety, and moreover the deadly vengeance likely to be taken on any one who should aggrieve them, we are not to suppose the service of a summons to appear before a Fehm-court to have been absolutely free from danger. The tyrannic and self-willed noble, when in his own strong castle, and surrounded by his dependents, might not scruple to inflict summary chastisement on the audacious men who presumed to summon him to answer for his crimes before a tribunal; the magistrates of a town also might indignantly spurn at the citation to appear before a Fehm-court, and treat its messengers as offenders. To provide against these cases it was determined that it should be considered good service when the summons was affixed by night to the gate of a town or castle, to the door of the house of the accused, or to the nearest alms-house. The schöppen employed were then to desire the watchman, or some person who was going by, to inform the accused of the summons being there, and they were to take away with them a chip cut from the gate or door, as a proof of the service for the court. If the accused was resolved to obey the summons, he had only to repair on the appointed day to the place where the court was to be held, the summons being his protection. Those who would persuade us that the Fehm-courts were held by night in secret places say that the mode appointed for the accused to meet the court was for him to repair three-quarters of an hour before midnight to the next cross-roads, where a schöppe was always waiting for him, who bound his eyes and led him to where the court was sitting. This, however, is all mere fiction; for the place where the court was to be held was expressly mentioned in every summons.