Should the accused not have appeared, and been in consequence outlawed, he was _forfehmed_ by the following awful curse: it was declared that "he should be excluded from the public peace, from all liberties and rights, and the highest _un-peace_, _un-grace_, and halter be appointed for him; that he should be cut off from all communication with any Christian people, and be cursed so that he might wither in his body, and neither become any more verdant, nor increase in any manner; that his wife should be held to be a widow, and his children orphans; that he should be without honour and without right, and given up to any one; that his neck should be left to the ravens, his body to all beasts, to the birds of the air and the fishes in the water; but his soul should be commended to God," &c., &c. If he continued a year and a day under the sentence of outlawry, all his goods then fell to the emperor or king. A prince, town, or community, that incurred the sentence of outlawry, lost thereby at once all liberties, privileges, and graces. Should the sentence passed be a capital one, the count flung the halter over his head out of the inclosure of the tribunal, the schöppen spat on it, and the name of the condemned was entered in the blood-book. If the criminal was present he was instantly seized, and, according to the custom of the middle ages, when, as in the East, no disgrace was attached to the office of executioner, the task of executing him was committed to the youngest schöppe present, who forthwith hung him from the nearest tree. The quality of the criminal was duly attended to; for if he was initiated he was hung seven feet higher than any other, as being esteemed a greater criminal. If the accused was not present, all the schöppen were, as we have already described, set in pursuit of him, and wherever they caught him they hanged him without any further ceremony. The sentence was kept a profound secret from the uninitiated. A copy of it, drawn up in the usual form, and sealed with seven seals, was given to the accuser.