CHAP. X.
Strictness of certain Superiors of Convents, in exerting their power of flagellation. The same is abused by several of them.
THE Reader has seen, in the preceding Chapter, that the punishment of flagellation was extended to almost every possible offence Monks could commit; and the duration of the flagellations was, moreover, left pretty much to the discretion of the Abbot, whether in consequence of the generality of the terms used in the Statutes, or through some express provision made for that purpose. In the ancient Constitutions of the Monastery of Cluny, for instance, which St. Udalric has collected in one volume, several kinds of offence are mentioned, for the punishment of which it is expressly said, that the Offender shall be lashed as long as the Abbot shall think meet.
That Abbots and Priors have at all times well known how to exert those discretionary and flagellatory powers we mention, there is no manner of doubt. On this occasion, the two following stories may be related.
The first is that of the discipline which the Prior of a certain Monastery, who lived in the times of Charles Martel (A. 750) inflicted on some Carpenters who were employed by him in the service of the Convent, and who having too carelessly marked the proper size of a certain piece of timber, with their string rubbed with chalk, made afterwards a mistake in sawing it. The fact, as it is recited in the life of St. Pardulph, is as follows.
‘One Liframnus, the then Prior of the Monastery, resolved to build a few wooden steps, in the Chapel of St. Albinus the Martyr. After the Carpenters had measured the place on which those steps were to be raised, he took them to the wood, where they accordingly cut a beam, which they loaded upon a Cart, and conveyed to the Convent; but when they attempted to settle it upon the proper spot, it was found to be eighteen inches too short. The Prior, amazed at such a gross mistake, fell into a passion, and ordered disciplines to be inflicted upon the Carpenters[61].’
The other fact I mean to relate, to prove the great strictness of certain Ecclesiastical Superiors in exerting their power of flagellation, is contained in the Book written by Thomas de Chantpré. ‘There was (that Author says) in the Church of Rheims, a very able Dean, an Englishman by birth (genere Anglicano), who, as I have been informed by several persons who knew him, used stoutly to correct his brother Canons for their faults. It happened in his time, that the venerable Albert, Bishop of Liege, and Brother to the Duke of Brabant, was driven out of Germany by the Emperor Henry, and treacherously slain by a few Soldiers of that Emperor, near the City of Rheims. On the day appointed to celebrate his funeral, the venerable Rothard, who, though he was still Archdeacon of Rheims, had lately been elected Bishop of Châlons in Champagne, made his appearance, accompanied by a number of noble persons, without being clothed in his Canonical gown. After the ceremony was concluded, the Dean called all the Canons together, and among them the above Bishop. As soon as they were seated, the Dean said to the Prelate, You have not, as far as I know, resigned yet your Canonship, or Archdeaconship? The latter made answer, he had not. Well then, said the Dean, come and make satisfaction to the Church, and prepare your back for a discipline in the presence of the Brothers, for your having been at the choir without the nuptial robe. The Bishop-elect made no objection: he rose from his seat, stripped himself, and received a most vigorous discipline from the Dean: this done, he put on again his clothes, and, before the whole congregation, said to the Dean in a most graceful manner, I give thanks to God, and to his blessed Mother, the Patroness of the Church of Rheims, that I leave it under the government of such a person as you[62].’
Indeed so far have a number of Abbots, or Superiors of Convents, been from suffering their power of flagellation to lay dormant and useless, that they, on the contrary, have abused it to a great degree. Ovisiesius cautioned them, in very early days, against being guilty of such a fault. Nay, certain Heads of Monasteries have gone such lengths in that respect, that Cesarius, Bishop of Arles, was obliged to remind them, that, ‘if they inflicted flagellations continued too long upon Offenders, so that they died in consequence thereof, they were guilty of homicide.’
Among those Abbots who have distinguished themselves by their severity, St. Romuald may be mentioned, who, as we are informed in his Life written by Cardinal Damianus, was once exposed to a calumny of the blackest kind, from a Monk whom he used to scourge with great severity: nay, that holy Man’s Monks, as we are also informed by Cardinal Damianus, in one instance rose against him, flogged him without mercy, and drove him out of the Convent. This Saint, besides, had before been frequently lashed by the Devil[63].
