Letter of appeal
A fire letter is a request for help , a threat or an appeal in writing. A set of laws from the 14th century also bore this title.
Legislation
The Great Fire Letter was a piece of legislation from 1374 to punish thieves and arsonists. He was by Stephan II , Duke of Bavaria, together with his son and successor Stephan III. to secure the roads and the movement of goods.
Incendiary letter
The use of the term fire letter , which is still in use today, as a request for rapid help, goes back to the document known as a fire begging letter ( Latin literae incendiariae , litterae indictionis incendij ) since the 16th century. This fire begging letter was an official letter for so-called burned -down people - people who had lost their homes and belongings in a fire. They received a fire letter not only for begging purposes . The document also authorized the granting of free lumber and the acceptance of donations of money. Fire letters were abolished when the public fire insurance companies began to be established , as there was some abuse. The meaning has remained as an urgent and admonishing request for help.
threat
According to Meyer's encyclopedia from 1888 , the fire letter was a script through which individuals or a group were threatened with arson . At the end of the 19th century, the penal code of the German Reich (Section 126) punished the disturbance of the public peace by threatening a crime that was dangerous to the public , including the threat of incendiary letters, with imprisonment for up to one year. This is now regulated in the German Criminal Code under Section 126 Disturbing the public peace by threatening criminal offenses .
appeal
In a figurative sense, a fire letter can also mean a fiery written appeal or a kind of emergency call that shows or denounces grievances and often calls for remedial action.
