THE FLAGELLANTS
About the same time another strange religious extravagance spread over western Europe. Under the name of Flagellants, thousands of enthusiasts banded together with crosses, banners, hymns, and all the paraphernalia of religion, and went about in procession, publicly scourging one another as an atonement for their sins and the sins of mankind in general. They received their first impetus from the preaching of Saint Anthony of Padua in the thirteenth century. About the year 1260 the movement broke out nearly simultaneously in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and Poland, and afterward spread into Denmark and England. It was at its height in the fourteenth century. In Germany in 1261 the devotees, preceded by banner and crosses, marched with faces veiled and bodies bared above the waist, and scourged themselves twice a day for thirty-three successive days in memory of the thirty-three years of Christ’s life. The strokes of the whip were timed to the music of hymns. Men and women together took part in the scourging. The mania finally wore itself out, but reappeared in 1349 with more systematic organization. According to Schaff, “When they came to towns, the bands marched in regular military order and singing hymns. At the time of flagellation they selected a square or churchyard or field. Taking off their shoes and stockings and forming a circle, they girded themselves with aprons and laid down flat on the ground.... The leader then stepped over each one, touched them with the whip, and bade them rise. As each was touched they followed after the leader and imitated him. Once all on their feet the flagellation began. The brethren went two by two around the whole circle, striking their backs till the blood trickled down from the wounds. The whip consisted of three thongs, each with four iron teeth. During the flagellation a hymn was sung. After all had gone around the circle the whole body again fell on the ground, beating upon their breasts. On arising they flagellated themselves a second time. While the brethren were putting on their clothes a collection was taken up among the audience. The scene was concluded by the reading of a letter from Christ, which an angel had brought to earth and which commended the pilgrimages of the Flagellants. The fraternities never tarried longer than a single day in a town. They gained great popularity, and it was considered an honor to entertain them.” ([Schaff], Religious Encyclopedia.) The society still exists among the Latin races, although under the ban of the church. As late as 1820 a procession of Flagellants passed through the streets of Lisbon. Under the name of Penitentes they have several organizations in the Mexican towns of our southwest, where they periodically appear in processions, inflicting horrible self-torture on themselves, even to the extent of binding one of their number upon a cross, which is then set up in the ground, while the blood streams down the body of the victim from the wounds made by a crown of cactus thorns and from innumerable gashes caused by the thorny whips. Such things among people called civilized enables us to understand the feeling which leads the Indian to offer himself a willing sacrifice in the sun dance and other propitiatory rites.