Memorials of Human Superstition / being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne

by Jean Louis de Lolme

CHAP. XII.

The same discretionary power of inflicting disciplines, has been established in the Convents of Nuns, and lodged in the hands of the Abbesses, and Prioresses.

NOR have the holy Founders of religious Orders considered flagellations as being less useful in the Convents of Women, than in those of Men; and in the Rules they have framed for them, they have accordingly ordered that kind of correction to be inflicted upon those whose bad conduct made it necessary.

This chastisement of flagellation, upon Women who make profession of a religious life, is no new thing in the world. It was the chastisement appropriated to the Vestals, in antient Rome; and we find in the Historians, that when faults had been committed by them in the discharge of their functions, it was commonly inflicted upon them by the hands of the Priests, or sometimes of the Great Priest himself.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus relates, that the Virgin Urbinia was lashed by the Priests, and led in procession through the Town.

The High-priest, Publius Licinius, ordered, as we read in Valerius Maximus, ‘that a certain Vestal who had suffered the sacred fire to be extinguished, should be lashed and dismissed.’

Julius likewise relates, ‘that the fire in the Temple of Vesta, having happened to be extinguished, the Virgin was whipped by the High-priest, M. Æmilius, and promised never to offend again in the same manner.’ And Festus says in his Book, that ‘whenever the fire of Vesta came to be extinguished, the Virgins were lashed by the Great Priest.’

Severities of the like kind have been deemed necessary to be introduced into the Convents of modern Nuns, by the holy Fathers who have framed religious Rules for them.

In that very antient Rule for the conduct of Nuns, which is contained in Epistle CIX. of St. Augustin, the mortification of discipline is prescribed to the Prioress herself. ‘Let her (it is said in the above Rule) be ever ready to receive discipline, but never impose it but with fear[66].’

Cesarius, Archbishop of Arles, in the Rule framed by him, which is mentioned with praise by several antient Authors, such as Gennadius, and Gregory of Tours, prescribes the discipline of flagellation to be inflicted upon Nuns who have been guilty of faults; and enters, besides, into several particulars about the propriety as well as usefulness of this method of correction. ‘It is just (he says) that such as have violated the institutions contained in the Rule, should receive an adequate discipline: it is fit that in them should be accomplished what the Holy Ghost has in former times prescribed through Solomon. He who loves his Child, frequently applies the rod to it.’

St. Donat, Archbishop of Bezancon, in the Rule he has framed for Nuns, has expressed the same paternal disposition towards them, as Archbishop Cesarius has done: he recommends flagellations as excellent methods of mending the morals of such of them as are wickedly inclined, or careless in performing their religious duties; and he determines the different kinds of faults for which the above correction ought to be bestowed upon them, as well as the number of the blows that are to be inflicted. The above Rule of St. Donat has been mentioned with much praise by the Monk Jonas, in his Account of the Life of St. Columbanus, which the venerable Beda has inserted in the third volume of his Works.

In that Rule, commonly called the Rule of a Father, which St. Benedict, Bishop of Aniana, in his Book on the Concordance of Rules, and Smaragdus, in his Commentaries on the Rule of St. Benedict, have both mentioned, provisions of the same kind as those above, are made for the correction of Nuns. ‘If a Sister (it is said in that Rule) that has been several times admonished, will not mend her conduct, let her be excommunicated for a while, in proportion to the degree of her fault: if this kind of correction proves useless, let her then be chastised by stripes.’

Striking a Sister, has likewise been looked upon as an offence of a grievous kind; and St. Aurelian, in the Rule he has framed for Nuns, orders a discipline to be inflicted on such as have been guilty of it.

To the above regulations, Archbishop Cesarius has added another, which is, that the corrections ought, for the sake of example, to be inflicted in the presence of all the Sisters. ‘Let also the discipline be bestowed upon them in the presence of the Congregation, conformably to the precept of the Apostle, Confute Sinners in the presence of all[67].’