556 - Baroque oath skull

Baroque oath skull probably 17th century, human skull cap, the top engraved with a central cross of beams flanked by four further beams, signs of age, damage, L 20 cm. Info: As early as the Middle Ages, oath skulls were used as objects of jurisdiction; the Feme courts reached the height of their power in the 15th century and increasingly took on the character of strictly organised secret societies of the ‘initiates’, who were bound by oath to absolute secrecy, due to the increasing secrecy of the proceedings and the immediate execution of death sentences handed down, fear and dread of the Feme spread; the last ‘Secret Court’ was held in 1806, and oath skulls thus also found their place in cabinets of curiosities, Source: Georg Laue, *Memento Mori*, p. 168, and the internet.