FOOTNOTES:
[114] Siluerunt tunc tempore omnia musica instrumenta & amatoriæ cantilenæ. Sola cantio pœnitentis lugubris audiebatur ubique, tam in civitatibus quam in villis, ad cujus flebilem modulationem corda saxea movebantur, & obstinatorum oculi lacrymis non poterant continere.——This Monk of St. Justina, whose account is here translated at length, was certainly no mean Writer: he was quite another Man than the Abbé Boileau.
[115] It has no doubt been perceived, that, in the course of this Work, I have commonly taken care to conclude the different Chapters into which it is divided, with a Note or Commentary of a certain length, upon the same subject with the Chapter itself, though of a less grave and serious turn. This precaution I thought necessary for the relief of the Reader, after the great exertion of his mind, occasioned by the weighty objects that had just been offered to his consideration. Such final Note I considered as a farce, after a serious and moral Drama, and as a kind of petite piece, or if you please, of interlude, calculated to revive the exhausted spirits of the Reader, and enable him to begin a fresh Chapter with alacrity.
On this occasion, however, I find great difficulty in pursuing the same plan. The processions of Disciplinants that have just been described, are such a dismal and gloomy subject, that it suggests no ideas but what are of a serious kind; it precludes all thoughts of mirth and jocularity; and I despair, in this Note, of being able to entertain the Reader so well as I flatter myself I have succeeded in doing in the former ones.
The flagellating practices and ceremonies alluded to in this Chapter, are certainly most astonishing facts in the History of Man: and if any thing renders our surprise less than it otherwise would be, it is the consideration that such practices have not been imagined on a sudden, and at once, but have been the result of a long series of slow innovations, introduced by different persons, at different times, and in places remote from one another.
Besides, it really seems that there is a secret propensity in Mankind, for arduous modes of worship of all kinds. The observation has been made, that in the Science of Moral, speculatively considered, Men, whatever may be their private conduct, are most pleased with such maxims as are most rigid; and so, with respect to religious rites, do they seem to be most taken with, and most strongly to adhere to, such as are most laborious, and even painful.
We see, in fact, that bodily austerities of a cruel kind, performed with religious intentions, have obtained among almost all the Nations in the World; and self-scourgings, in particular, were practised with views of this kind among almost all the Nations of antiquity of whom accounts have been left us: on which the Reader is referred to the sixth Chapter of this Book.
The same practice we mention, besides the advantage of its obviousness to recommend it, had in its favour, with Christians, the farther circumstance of its being in a manner sanctified by the History itself of the facts on which their religion is grounded. As a punishment of that kind made express part of the ill treatment which our Saviour underwent, the thoughts of pious persons were naturally directed to a mode of mortification of which so frequent mention was made in books, hymns, sermons, and religious conversations: hence has it happened, that the practices here alluded to, have been much more constantly and universally adopted by Christians, than by the professors of any other Religion.
A difference, however, took place in the above respect, between the Eastern and the Western Christians. As the Christians who were settled in the East, lived almost always in the midst of hostile Nations, and besides, never formed among themselves any very numerous sect, they never went such lengths in their opinions, nor gave into such extravagant practices, as the Christians in the West. They had not, for instance, adopted the fond notions since entertained by the latter, on the efficaciousness of self-flagellations to atone for past sins. Their religious notions had taken a different turn. They generally considered a certain deep sense of past offences, a state of unbounded contrition for the same, as the competent means of atonement. They considered tears as the last stage of such contrition, and in a manner a necessary token of it. Shedding tears was, therefore, the thing they aimed at, in all their devotional acts: self-scourging was thought by them to be an excellent expedient for obtaining so happy an effect; and they hence resorted to it, not (as hath been done in the West) as to a direct and immediate method of compensating past sins, but only as to a subsidiary operation, and a means which, they sagaciously thought, would soon bring them to the requisite state of tears and salutary compunction.
Of this turn of the devotion of the Eastern Christians, as well as of the ends they proposed to themselves in their acts of self-flagellation, we find proofs in the few instances that have been left us in Books, of their having performed acts of that sort: I shall relate the following one, which is to be found in the work of Gabriel, Archbishop of Philadelphia, intitled Πατερικὸν, or Collection of actions of Fathers, or Saints.
A certain Saint had come to a resolution of renouncing the World, and had fixed his habitation on the celebrated Mountain of Nitria, in Thebaid; and next to the cell to which he had retired, was that of another Saint, whom he heard every day bitterly weep for his sins. Finding himself unable to weep in the same manner, and heartily envying the happiness of the other Saint, he one day spoke to himself in the following terms: ‘You do not cry, you wretch; you do not weep for your sins. I will make you cry; I will make you weep by force, since you will not do it of your own accord; I will make you grieve for your sins, as you ought:’ saying which, he took up in a passion a large scourge that lay by him, and laid lashes upon himself so thick and in so effectual a manner, that he soon brought himself to that happy state which was the object of his ambition.
Another instance of the manner of the devotion of the Eastern Christians, is supplied by the passage in St. John Climax, that has been recited at pag. 121. Both the Opposers, and the Promoters, of the practice of self-flagellation, have gone too far in their interpretations of that passage. The latter have asserted that it expressly alluded to religious disciplines, performed in the same manner, and with the same views, as they now are in modern Monasteries; while the former have been as positive that it meant no such thing as beating or scourging, and is only to be understood of the lamentations of the Monks in the Monastery in question, that is, in a bare figurative manner. The passage in St. John Climax is this: ‘Some among the Monks watered the pavement with their tears, while others, who could not shed any, beat themselves.’ The expression used in this passage, to say that some among the Monks beat themselves, is certainly as precise as any the Greek language can supply; yet neither does it supply a sufficient proof that they performed, in the above Monastery, regular and periodical flagellations of the same kind with those that have been since used in the Western Monasteries, in the times of Cardinal Damian, and the Widow Cechald: the self-flagellations alluded to, in the passage we speak of, appear to have been of the same kind with those performed by the Saint of the Mountain of Nitria who has been abovementioned, and were calculated to enable those who could not weep, to weep plentifully.
But among the Western Christians, as the extensive Country over which they became in time to be spread, without any intervening opponents, afforded a vast field for innovations of every kind, they, as hath been above said, went the greatest lengths in their opinions concerning the usefulness of the practices we mention, to which the History of their Religion had at first given rise.
In the first place, mortifications of the kind here alluded to, were used among them from notions of much the same sort with those entertained by the Eastern Christians, that is, with a view of sanctifying themselves by their repentance, and assisting their compunction.
In the second place, they were actuated by a sense of love for Jesus Christ, and a desire of uniting themselves to him in his sufferings. The intention we speak of, is particularly recommended in the Statutes of different religious Orders; and the Brothers are exhorted in them, ‘when they inflict discipline upon themselves, to call to their mind Jesus Christ, their most amiable Lord, fastened to the column, and to endeavour to experience a few of those excessive pains he was made to endure.’ This notion of religious persons, which proceeds from an unbounded sense of gratitude towards their Divine Saviour, from a wish of repaying in any manner the immense service he had conferred upon them in saving them from destruction, and of at least sharing his sufferings, since they cannot alleviate them, has certainly something interesting in its principle.
But the most universal use, by far, that has been made of flagellatory disciplines among Christians, in these parts of the world, has been to atone for past sins. And indeed it is no wonder that a practice of so convenient a kind, which enabled every one, by means of an operation of the duration and severity of which he was the sole judge, to pay, as he thought, an adequate price for every offence he might have committed, and silence a troublesome conscience whenever he pleased, should so easily gain ground, and meet with so much favour, not only from the vulgar, but also from great Men, and even Kings; to whom we may no doubt add their Ministers.
Among the superstitious notions that may be hurtful to Society, it is difficult to imagine one of a worse tendency than that here mentioned, the immediate consequence of which is to render useless all the distinctions implanted in the human mind between evil and good, and, by making offenders easy with themselves, to take off the only punishment that is left for the greater number of crimes. When notions like these were adopted by Kings, with respect to whom human laws are silent, the consequences were pernicious in the extreme; practices of this sort became as dangerous to the peace and happiness of their subjects, as they would have been conducive to them, if the disciplines we speak of, instead of being inflicted upon such high Offenders, every time they were conscious they deserved them, by the hands of Confessors aiming at Bishopricks, or under fear of dungeons, had been dealt them to the full satisfaction of a Jury composed of impartial persons, and nowise afraid to speak their minds.
These notions of the usefulness of self-flagellations, were carried to a most extravagant pitch by a Sect formed of those itinerant Disciplinants, accounts of whom have been above given. Proud of the cruel disciplines they inflicted upon themselves, they looked upon them as being of far greater merit than the practice of any Christian virtue; and they at last formed among themselves a particular Sect of Heretics, who were called Flagellants. The title of History of the Flagellants, which the Abbé Boileau has given to his Work, might seem to indicate that he intended to write an History of that Sect, and of those public processions of Disciplinants which have succeeded it: yet, he only mentions that Sect and those Processions in his usual loose manner, in his ninth Chapter, without even distinguishing the one from the other. The proper title of his book (and of this, which is imitated from it) should be, The History of religious Flagellations among different Nations, and especially among Christians.
Among the different tenets of the Hereticks we speak of, were the following. They pretended that the blood they shed, during their flagellations, was mixed with that of Jesus Christ;—that self-flagellations made confession useless;—that they were more meritorious than martyrdom, for they were voluntary, which martyrdom was not;—that baptism by water was of no use, as every true Christian must be baptized in his own blood;—that flagellation could atone for all past and future offences, and supplied the want of all other good works. To these tenets, and to several others of the same sort, they added Stories of different kinds; such as that of the abovementioned letter brought from Heaven by an Angel, to order self-flagellations; they gave out that a certain Brother of their Sect, who lived at Erford in Thuringe, was Elias; and that another, whose name was Conrad Smith, was Enoch, &c. &c.
As the principles maintained by these Hereticks, were destructive of most of the essential tenets received by the Church, this reason, together with the cruelties they practised upon themselves, and in general their fanaticism, which really was of a despicable kind, caused Pope Clement IV. to issue a Bull against them, in the year 1350; and several Princes expressly prohibited that Sect, in the places under their dominion.
From those Hereticks, must therefore be distinguished the common Fraternities of Disciplinants, which continue in these days to be established in several Countries. These Fraternities are composed of good orthodox Christians, who do not in any degree pretend that their disciplines supersede the necessity of Baptism or Confession, or of any other Sacrament; who tell no stories about Elias, or Enoch; who dutifully subscribe to all the tenets, without exception, recommended by the Church, and above all pay implicit obedience to the authority of the Heads of it. They are Associations of much the same kind with common Clubs, or if you please, like Lodges of Freemasons: they have a stock of effects and furniture belonging to the Fraternity, such as banners, crucifixes, ornaments for altars, and so on; and each contributes a certain small sum annually, for keeping the above effects in repair, and defraying the expences of paying the music, feeing Priests, and others of a like kind: they have, besides, peculiar Statutes, not unlike the Articles of a common Club.
The principal engagement of these Fraternities is to discipline themselves in times of great Solemnities; such as the Sundays in the Advent, the Sundays before Palm-Sunday, on Maunday Thursday, and certain days during the Carnival. On these days they walk about Towns in regular processions. They carry along with them banners, painted with the appropriated colour of the Brotherhood: the Brothers are equipped in a peculiar kind of dress for the occasion, all wearing, besides, masks over their faces. With this apparatus they visit different Churches, exhibiting an appearance which, when seen from some distance, is not unlike that of the trading Companies, in London, on a Lord Mayor’s Day; and their banners, together with the other ornaments they display, cut a figure not very short of the paraphernalia of the City.
In the principal Church whence they set off, and perhaps also in those which they visit, they hear a short sermon from a Priest, on the Passion of our Saviour; and as soon as the Priest has said the words, “let us mend and grow better” (emendemus in melius) the disciplines begin with the singing of the Miserere, and are continued in the streets, as they walk in procession. By one Article of their Statutes, it is ordered that no Brother shall put a Man to discipline himself in his stead. Plenty of Indulgences are granted to those who discharge their duty on those occasions. And moreover, Bishops are ordered to inspect, in their respective Dioceses, the Fraternities there established, and examine their Statutes, in order to strike out such articles as may contain seeds of Heresy.
Fraternities of this kind obtain in most of the Catholic Countries in Europe; though with different encouragement from their different Governments.
In France they were, as hath been above said, in the greatest favour at Court, under Henry the Third: this Prince, who, before he was called to the Throne on the death of his Brother, had given every hope of an able warrior, and a great King, having inlisted in one of these Fraternities. As a powerful party was at that time set up, in France, against the authority of the Crown, and most of the people in Paris favoured that party, the King had attempted to overaw them by a display of Majesty, and being constantly accompanied when he made his appearance in public, by a numerous body of Halberdiers; but this not having succeeded, he tried to amuse the People by public shews; and in that view, as a Writer of those times says, instituted in Paris Fraternities of Penitents, in which he made himself a Brother. This expedient, however, did not succeed: these disciplining processions only served to bring sarcasms upon the Court, and the King himself; and among them that of Maurice Poncet has been recorded, who, besides other invectives he delivered from the pulpit, compared the disciplining Penitents, as hath been abovementioned, to men who should cover themselves with a wet cloth to keep off the rain. This reflection of Poncet was thought to be the more pointed, as, the very day before, the King had Walked in a procession of Penitents, during which a most heavy shower of rain had fallen, and the King with his Chancellor, and the whole train of Disciplinants, had been thoroughly soaked. The King was informed, the next day, of the jest of Poncet; and this, together no doubt with the remembrance of the rain of the day before, caused him to be much incensed against the Preacher: however, as notwithstanding his vices and weakness, he was a Man of the mildest temper, as well as of unbounded liberality, he contented himself with having the Monk sent back to his Convent.
In subsequent times, that is in the year 1601, under the reign of Henry IV. a Sentence was passed, as hath been abovementioned, by the Parliament of Paris, to abolish the Fraternity of the Blue Penitents, in the City of Bourges. The motive of the Parliament was not, however, their tender care for the skin of these Blue Penitents: but that Fraternity had been rendered a kind of political Association against the reigning King, who was during his whole life persecuted by bigotry, till he fell a victim to it at last; and they had joined several treasonable declarations and engagements, to their Statutes: for this reason the Fraternity was forbidden to meet again, under pain of being prosecuted as guilty of High Treason. From that time Brotherhoods of Penitents have been constantly discountenanced in France; and they are continued only in some Towns in the Southern Provinces, distant from the Metropolis.
But the Countries in which the processions we mention (which certainly are as extraordinary as any ceremony of which any Religion affords an instance) are most prevalent, and where they are in a manner naturalized, are, Italy, and Spain.
In the latter Country, in Spain, the flagellating Solemnities we speak of, have received a peculiar turn from the peculiar manners of the Inhabitants; and they are (which is certainly extraordinary) as well operations or scenes of gallantry, as acts of devotion. Lovers will frequently go, at the head of a procession of friends, and discipline themselves under the windows of their Mistresses: or, when they pass by chance under these windows, with a procession to which they belong, they redouble the smartness of their flagellations. All Disciplinants in general, shew attentions of the same kind to such Ladies as they meet in their way, when these Ladies appear to them possessed of some charms; and when the latter engage their attention in a peculiar manner, they never fail, especially if the procession happens to move slowly or to stop, by means of the increased briskness of their flagellations and skilful motions of their disciplines, plentifully to sprinkle them with their blood. These facts are attested by all Travellers; and Madame d’Aunoy among others, a French Lady of quality who in the last Century published a relation of her journey into Spain, a Book written with judgment, after giving an account of the same facts with those above to the friend to whom she wrote, adds that what she relates is literally true, and without any exaggeration. The Ladies who are the cause of this increased zeal of the Disciplinants, and to whom such an agreeable piece of courtship is addressed, reward the latter by raising the veil which covers their face, or even are obliged by the Bystanders to do so (destapar, as they call it) in much the same manner as the croud which stands at the door of a House where there is a masquerade, will, in this Country, oblige the masks, as they get into, or out of the House, to uncover their faces.
How the Spanish Ladies can be pleased with feats of that kind, is certainly difficult to understand; unless it be that, with Ladies, the bare intention of shewing them courtesy, is enough to procure their good-will; or perhaps also it may be, that the extreme gracefulness with which the disciplines we mention, are performed, has the power of rendering them pleasing to the Ladies. An opinion of this kind has been delivered by the Author of Hudibras:
“Why may not whipping have as good
A grace, perform’d in time and mood,
With comely movement, and by art,
Raise a passion in a Lady’s heart?”
This power of the graces to render whipping agreeable, is certainly a strong argument in their favour, and well worth adding to those urged in their behalf, in a certain celebrated publication of late times.
That Disciplinants in Spain, flagellate themselves with the extreme gracefulness we mention, is a fact about which no doubt is to be entertained: nay, there are Masters in most Towns, whose express business is to teach the time, mood, comely movements and arts, above described, and in short to shew how to perform disciplines with elegance.——Fielding, in one of his Works, has inserted an advertisement of the celebrated Broughton which had just made its appearance, by which the latter offered his services to the public, to instruct them in the art of boxing, and all the mysteries of it: that Author thought posterity would be extremely glad to meet with that interesting and incontrovertible monument of the manners of the times in which he wrote: an advertisement from one of the Spanish flagellating Masters we speak of, would, in like manner, be extremely proper to be produced in this place; and if I do not insert here the copy of any such advertisement, the reader may be persuaded that it is solely because I have none in my possession.
When the Gentlemen who propose to discipline themselves in honour of their Mistresses, are of considerable rank, the ceremony is then performed with great state and magnificence. Madame D’Aunoy relates that the day the Duke of Vejar disciplined himself, an hundred white wax-candles were carried before the procession: the Duke was preceded by sixty of his friends (vassals perhaps, or dependents) and followed by an hundred, all attended by their own pages and footmen; and besides them there were no doubt abundance of Priests and crucifixes.
As these Spanish Gallants have no less honour than devotion, battles frequently take place between them, for the assertion of their just prerogatives; and this, for instance, seldom fails to be the case when two processions happen to meet in the same street: each party think they are intitled to the most honourable side of the way; and a scuffle is the consequence. This happened at the time of the procession of the abovementioned Duke of Vejar: another procession, conducted by the Marquis of Villahermosa, entered the same street, at the other end of it: the light-armed troops, otherwise the servants with their lighted long wax-candles, began the engagement, bedaubing the clothes, and singeing the whiskers and hair of each other; then the body of Infantry, that is to say the Gentlemen with their swords, made their appearance, and continued the battle; and at last the two noble Champions themselves met, and began a fight with their disciplines (another instance of Penitents using their disciplines as weapons, is, if I mistake not, to be found in Don Quixote) the two noble Champions, I say, began a smart engagement with each other; their self-flagellations were for a while changed, with great rapidity, into mutual ones; and their weapons being demolished, they were about to begin a closer kind of fight, when their friends interfered, and parted them: the high sharp and stiff cap of one of the two Combatants, which had fallen in the dirt, was taken up, properly cleansed, and again placed upon his head; and the two processions went each their own course, dividing as chance determined it. The whole ceremony was afterwards concluded with splendid entertainments which each of the Noble Disciplinants gave in their Houses, to the persons who had formed their respective processions; during which abundance of fine compliments were paid them on their piety, their gallantry, and their elegance in giving themselves discipline.
If such acts both of devotion and courtship are performed in Spain, by persons of the first rank, much more may we think that practices of the same kind prevail among the vulgar: and on this occasion I shall produce an extract from the Spanish Book intitled, the Life of Friar Gerund de Campazas. As this Novel, which is of a humorous kind, was written in later times by a native of the Country, and a Man of learning (a Father Jesuit, I think) an extract from it may give a surer insight into the above singular customs of the Spaniards, than any relation of Travellers perhaps can.
‘Anthony was then studying at Villagarcia, and already in the fourth class, as hath been said, and in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The fortnight vacation for the Holy and Easter Week arrived, and he went home to his own town, as is the custom for all those students whose home is within a short distance. The Devil, who never sleeps, tempted him to play the penitent on Maunday Thursday; for, as our young Penitent was now well shot up and his beard grown, he looked lovingly upon a Damsel that had been a neighbour of his, ever since they went to School together to the clerk of the Parish, to learn the horn-book; and in order to court her in the most winning manner, he thought it expedient to go forth as a disciplinant: as this, the Reader is to know, is one of the gallantries with which the Women of Campos are most pleased; for it is a very old observation there, that the greatest part of the marriages are concerted on the day of the cross of the May, on the evenings on which there is dancing, and on Maunday Thursday: some of the Women being so very devout and compunctious, that they are as much delighted with seeing the instruments of discipline applied, as with the rattling of the castanets.
‘The rogue of an Anthony was not ignorant of this inclination of the girls of his Town, and therefore went out as disciplinant, on Maunday Thursday, as we have above said. At a league’s distance he might, notwithstanding his mask, and his hood which hung down almost to his waist, have been known by Catanla Rebollo, which was the name of his sweetheart, neighbour, and old school-fellow; for, besides that there was no other cap in the whole procession so spruce or so stiff-standing as his, he wore as a mark, a black girdle which she had given him, upon his taking leave of her on Luke’s-day, to go to Villagarcia. She never took her eyes from him, during the time he was passing near her; and he, who knew it well, took that opportunity to redouble the briskness of his discipline, making her, by the way, unobserved by others, two little amorous obeisances by nodding his cap: which is one of the tender passes that never fail to win the hearts of the marriageable girls, who are very attentive to it; and the bumkin who knows how to do it with most grace, may pick and choose among them, though at the same time he may not be the most expert at the rural games and exercises.
‘At length, as Anthony had made too much haste to give himself a plentiful bleeding, one of the Majordomos who superintended the procession, bade him go home and take care of himself, before the procession was over. Catanla took herself after him, and being a neighbour, followed him into the house, where there stood ready the wine, rosemary, salt and tow, which is all the apparatus for these cures. They well washed his shoulders, and applied the pledgets; after which he put on his usual clothes, and wrapped himself up in his grey cloak. They afterwards went to see the procession, except Catanla, who said she would stay with him, and keep him company, &c.’
The disciplining ceremonies above described, are, as hath been observed, also admitted in Italy; and they are performed there with no less regularity and applause, than in Spain. Most Travellers into that Country give some account of them: Doctor Middleton, for instance, describes at some length in his Letter from Rome, two processions of that kind, to and in the Church of St. Peter, of which he had been a witness.
But, as the ceremonies we speak of, have been made in Spain, expeditions of gallantry, in which nicety of honour and amorous prowess are displayed by turns, so in Italy, they have been turned into perfect farces, and scenes of mimickry.
Father Labat, who has published a relation of a Journey to Spain and Italy, in which he gives accounts of disciplining processions in both Countries, recites that in one of these processions he saw at Civita Vecchia, there were in the first place to be seen at the head of that procession several figures or persons who represented Jesus Christ in the different stages or acts of his condemnation: these different figures are commonly expressed by technical or cant Latin words; and among those which Father Labat mentions as having made part of the above procession, was an Ecce Homo, which is a figure intended to represent Jesus Christ when he made his appearance before Pilate, clad in purple robe, with a reed in his hand, and a crown on his head.
Another personage afterwards made his appearance, who represented our Lord going to the place of his death: eight Executioners surrounded him, who teased him, and pulled the chains with which he was loaded; and a Simeon of Cyrene walked behind him, who assisted him in carrying his cross. Several Men followed, who were likewise loaded with heavy crosses, and were meant, I suppose, to represent the Robbers who suffered on that day. Among these different figures were abundance of Roman Soldiers, armed with casques and bucklers.
After these came a number of persons who, by their tears and groans, expressed the deep affliction they felt: and then the train of the Disciplinants made their appearance, who manifested their grief in another manner, that is, by their flagellations. Among the latter were two particular figures who were thoroughly naked, except those parts which must absolutely be covered, for which purpose they wore a kind of short apron. These two figures, who were called the two St. Jeroms, on account of the blows with which they at times beat their breast, possessed a kind of skill not very unlike that exerted by Dominic the Cuirassed, who could discipline himself with both his hands at once: they performed both the upper and the lower discipline at the same time, and lashed themselves from head to foot, with large scourges they had provided for the occasion. However, as the two latter personages exhibited rather a striking appearance, they were, the ensuing year, ordered to do like the other Penitents, and to wear breeches.
In the same train we describe, were also the family of Joseph, with a number of female mourners, and among them Mary Magdalen, with the Virgin Mary; and, lastly, to crown the whole, there was in the procession a figure fitted with a red-haired wig, and a red beard, who represented Judas, and held up with great triumph in his hand, a purse, in which he shook and jingled a few pieces of money, which were supposed to be the reward he had received for betraying our Saviour.
In fine, what much increases our surprise concerning the flagellating ceremonies and processions we describe, is the great severity and earnest zeal with which those who perform them, lay these disciplines upon themselves; different, in that, from the Priests of the Goddess of Syria mentioned in pag. 87, who, as the Emperor Commodus, and after him Philip Beroald, shrewdly suspected, only performed sham flagellations. The cruel severities exercised upon themselves by the modern Penitents, are facts about which all Writers of Relations agree; all mention the great quantity of blood which these Flagellants lose, and throw to and fro with their disciplines. It is commonly reported, I do not know with what truth, in the places where such processions use to be performed, that those who have been accustomed for several years to discipline themselves in them, cannot leave it off afterwards, without danger of some great disorder, unless they get themselves bled at that time of the year at which those ceremonies use to take place[116]. Madame D’Aunoy says that the first time she saw one of these processions, she thought she should faint away; and she concludes the account she has given of the gallant flagellating excursions that have been abovementioned, with saying that the Gentleman who has thus so handsomely trimmed himself, is often laid up in his room for several days afterwards, and so sick that he cannot go to Mass on Easter Sunday. All the above facts shew how much hardship, practice really may bring Men to bear: and the feats of the above Penitents are not, after all, much more surprising than the prowess of the illustrious Buckhorse, in this Country, who submitted to receive boxes upon any part of his body, and as stoutly applied as people chose to lay them on, for six-pence apiece: he only covered his stomach with his arms across it; and the whole was meant as an advantageous exercise for those who proposed to improve themselves in the art of boxing.
A remarkable instance of this power of use, to enable us to bear hardships, and even blows, occurs among the Chinese. It appears, from the accounts of Travellers, that there are Men, in China, who make it their trade, being properly fee’d for it, to receive bastinadoes in the room of those who are sentenced to it by the Mandarine; in the same manner as there are Men about the Courts of Law, in this Country, ready to bail upon any occasion. As the bastinadoe is inflicted on the spot, while the Mandarine is dispatching other business, the thing is to bribe the Officer who is to superintend the operation: the real Culprit then flips out of the way; the Man who is to do duty for him comes forth, suffers himself to be tied down to the ground, and receives the bastinadoe; which is laid on in such earnest, that a fresh Man, or Executioner, is employed after every ten or twelve strokes.
However, there is perhaps something in all this, arising from the peculiar constitution and frame of the body, besides practice and resolution. This disposition to bear blows without being disturbed, is greatly valued by Boxers, who set it almost upon a par with skill, agility, and real strength. I hope the Reader will thank me if I inform him that this advantageous capability to receive blows without minding them, is technically called by Boxers, a Bottom: at least as it seems from certain publications of those days when the art of boxing was encouraged by the Public in a higher degree than it is at present.
The use that has been made of flagellations in public shows and processions, the different Edicts of Princes for prohibiting or permitting such ceremonies, the Bulls issued by different Popes to approve or condemn them, and the decisions and regulations of a number of Men invested with the first dignities in the Church on the subject of voluntary discipline, are not the only circumstances that prove the great importance of which these practices have gradually grown to be in the Christian World: we ought not to omit to say that they have been the cause of much difference in opinion among the Learned; for something essential would certainly be wanting to the glory of flagellations, had they not been the cause of dissentions among Men, and if at least Treatises pro and con had not been written on occasion of them.
Some among the Learned have, it seems, blamed the pious exercises here alluded to, without restriction: such were the Cardinal Stephen, and Peter Cerebrosus, who have been mentioned in a former place, as well as certain learned Ecclesiastics in Rome, against whom Cardinal Damian likewise wrote. Others have condemned the cruelty with which the same exercises were sometimes performed: among them was Gerson, whose arguments, together with those of the Advocate-General Servin in his speech against the Blue Penitents of Bourges, are recited at some length in the Abbé Boileau’s ninth Chapter.
Debates have, moreover, taken place among the Learned, concerning the precise views with which disciplines ought to be performed, as well as on the properest occasions. And disputes have in particular run high, concerning the degree of efficaciousness of such pious exercises: on which the Reader may remember what has lately been said of the doctrines advanced by the Hereticks called Flagellants.
Differences in opinion have also prevailed with respect to the manner in which disciplines are to be executed: some asserting that penitents ought to inflict them upon themselves with their own hands; and others being equally positive that they ought to receive them from the hands of other persons; this was one of the arguments of Gerson.
In fine, debates have taken place concerning the properest situation for penitents to be in, when undergoing such mortifications. Some have objected to the disciplining persons laying themselves bare for that purpose, as being contrary to decency; while others, at the head of whom was Cardinal Damian, have strenuously declared for a state of unlimited nakedness. The following is one of the arguments of the Cardinal on the subject.
‘Tell me, whoever you may be, who are actuated by so much pride as to deride the Passion of our Saviour, and who, refusing to be stripped along with him, ridicule his nakedness, and call his sufferings mere dreams or trifles, tell me, pray, what you prepare to do, when you shall see this heavenly Saviour, who was publicly stripped and fastened to a cross, clad with majesty and glory, accompanied by an innumerable multitude of Angels, surrounded by incomparable and inexpressible splendours, and infinitely more glorious than all visible and invisible things? what will you do, I say, when you shall see him whose ignominy you pretend to despise, seated upon a Tribunal exalted and surrounded by fire, and judging all Mankind in a manner both equitable and terrible? Then will the Sun lose its lustre; the Moon will be involved in darkness; the Stars will fall from their places; the foundations of mountains will be shaken; only a few scarce gloomy rays will be sent from the skies; the earth and air will be consumed by impetuous fires, and all the elements confounded together: what, once more, will you do, when all these things shall happen? of what service to you will these clothes and garments be, with which you now are covered, and which you refuse to lay aside, to submit to the exercise of penitence? with what presumptuous audaciousness do you hope to partake of the glory of Him whose shame and ignominy you now refuse to share?’——The above is certainly the best argument I have hitherto read in favour of nakedness; and it reconciles me to Cardinal Damian, whom I find to have been no bad Writer.
This necessity of nakedness to complete the merit of Penance, has been insisted upon by other Men of importance besides him whom we have just spoken of; and without alledging any further authority on this subject, it will suffice to observe that the greatest personages have submitted to that part of Penitence we mention; several instances of which have been produced in a former Chapter.
Nay, the more complete was this privation of clothes, the more merit there was thought to be in it: hence we find that several Offenders have proportioned their freedom from habiliments, to the greatness of the sense they entertained of their offences; and on this occasion may be recited the penance performed by Fulk, surnamed Grisegonnelle, about the year 1000.
This Fulk, who was a very powerful Man in France, being the Son of the great Seneschal of the Kingdom, had been a most bad and violent Man in those times of feudal Anarchy, when force was almost the only law that existed, and the Nobles and Lords were rather Heads of Robbers, than persons invested with any precise dignity. Among other crimes the above Fulk had committed, he had killed with his own hand Conan, Duke of Britanny. He had performed three pilgrimages to the Holy Land; and on the last, meaning to render his penance complete and perfectly unexceptionable, he caused himself to be drawn naked upon a hurdle, with a halter round his neck, through the streets of Jerusalem. Men who had been directed so to do, lashed him by turns, with scourges; and a person appointed for that purpose, cried at certain intervals, Lord! have mercy on the traitor and forswearer Fulk. He lived very devoutly afterwards, and founded several Monasteries. An account of this Fulk, and his penance, is to be found in Moreri’s Dictionary.
Others have carried their notions on the present subject still farther, and have thought that bare freedom from habiliments, had some sanctity peculiar to it, and possessed, of itself, a great degree of merit. The Cynic Philosophers in Greece, among whom Diogenes was particularly remarkable, frequently made, we find, their appearance in public, without even a single rag to cover their nakedness; and the Indian Philosophers called Gymnosophists, constantly appeared in the same light kind of dress, as we learn from their appellation itself, which signifies naked Sages.
Sages of the same kind still continue to exist in the same quarters we speak of; and we have likewise had, in our parts of the World, particular Sages or Sectaries, who have attributed no less merit to a state of nakedness. Such were the Adamites, mentioned by St. Austin. These Adamites, thinking they would effectually assimilate themselves to our first Parents before their fall, if they appeared in the same habit, would put themselves in a compleat state of nature during certain solemnities of their own, and either ventured to make their appearance in the public streets in that condition, or did the same, both Men and Women together, in private conventicles or houses, which, if it was winter time, they took care to have well warmed beforehand.
About the year 1300, a Sect of the same kind, called the Turlupins (which word rather seems to have been a nickname, than a serious appellation of that sect) made their appearance in France, again declaring themselves, as well by their example as by their words, for freedom from accoutrements. To these the Picards, a century afterwards, succeeded in Germany, who carrying their opinion on the sanctity of nakedness, and their abhorrence of such unhallowed thing as clothing, farther than the Adamites had done, made at all times their appearance in a perfect state of nature. A certain party of Anabaptists, adopting the doctrine of these Picards, tried, on the thirteenth day of February in the year 1535, to make an excursion in the streets of Amsterdam, in the hallowed state we mention; but the Magistracy, not taking the joke so well as they ought to have done, used these Adventurers in rather a severe manner.
In fine, to the instances of nakedness we have just recited, we ought not to omit to add that of Brother Juniperus, a Friar of the Franciscan Order: and the merit of this Friar was the greater in that, different from the abovementioned partisans of nakedness, he performed his own processions alone, with great assurance and composure.
‘Another time he entered the Town of Viterbo; and while he stood within the gate, he put his breeches on his head, and, his gown being tied round his neck in the shape of a load, he walked through the streets of the Town, where he suffered many tricks from the inhabitants; and still in the same situation, he went to the Convent of the Brothers, who all exclaimed against him; but he cared little for them, so holy was this good little Brother[117].’
This account of Brother Juniperus, is extracted from the Book called “Of the Conformities” (De Conformitatibus) or rather from that called the Alcoran of the Cordeliers, which is an extract from the former: for this Book of the Conformities exists, it is said, no longer; or at least only two or three Copies of it are to be come at, in certain Libraries, the name of which I have forgotten. The Book in question, which is well known from other old Books that mention it, was a compilation made by Franciscan Monks: the design of it, besides reciting pious Anecdotes relative to the Order, was to investigate the conformities between Jesus Christ, and their Founder St. Francis; and the advantage commonly was, in these comparisons, modestly given to the latter. After the period of the Reformation, the Monks of the Order we speak of, became somewhat ashamed of the performance, and have since succeeded in suppressing it, only two or three copies, as hath been above observed, being now left: a Protestant Minister, who procured sight of one of them, has, in this Century, done the Cordeliers or Franciscans the charitable service of giving an extract from the most remarkable Articles to the World, under the abovementioned title of the Alcoran of the Cordeliers.
However, these stark-naked processions performed by the Cynic Philosophers, by the Adamites, the Turlupins, the Picards, and by Brother Juniperus, never met, we find, with any great and lasting countenance from the Public; and, as beatings without nakedness, that is mere bastinadoes, have generally been considered as being but dull and unmeritorious acts of penance, and accordingly never experienced any degree of encouragement, so, nakedness without beatings, has been but indifferently practiced or relished. But when flagellations have been employed, then has the scene become cheered and enlivened; then have Penitents entertained sufficient consciousness of their merit, to continue their exercises with perseverance and regularity; then have numerous converts contributed to perpetuate the practice; then have the World thought the affair worth engaging their attention, and public shews, ceremonies, and solemnities, have been instituted.
Ceremonies of this kind have, however, been planned with different success, by which I mean with different degrees of ingenuity, among different Nations.
The flagellating Solemnities, for instance, that took place in Lacedæmon, are not in any degree intitled to our approbation; very far from it. The cruel advantage that was taken in them, of the silly pride of Boys, to prevail upon them to suffer themselves to be cut to pieces, rendered such ceremonies a practice of really a brutish kind; and it is difficult to decide whether there was in them more inhumanity, or stupidity. The same is to be said of the Solemnities of a similar kind that were performed among the Thracians.
Less exceptionable than those just mentioned certainly were the ceremonies exhibited by the Egyptians, and by the Syrian Priests of Bellona; since it is evident that no kind whatever of compulsion took place in them, in regard to any person.
The same observation is to be made in favour of the processions of modern Flagellants, in which every one has the scourging of his own skin; and at the same time it must be owned that the gallantry and courtship paid to the fair Sex, which so eminently prevail in those processions, are circumstances that greatly recommend them. On the other hand, the gloomy affectation of sanctity which is mixed with the festivity and pageantry of those disciplining solemnities, gives the whole an air of hypocrisy, which is in some degree disgusting, and the degree of real cruelty with which they are attended, cannot but compleat the aversion of such persons as use has not reconciled to the thought of them.
The festival of the Lupercalia that was performed in Rome, had indeed greatly the advantage of all the ceremonies of the kind that ever were instituted. It really deserved to have been contrived, or continued, by a People more polite and refined than the Romans, especially in early times, are represented to us to have been.
Among other excellencies the Festival we speak of possessed, it was performed but once a year, and only continued a few days: for, ceremonies of this kind ought to occur but seldom, and be only of short duration; and it was like a short time of Saturnalia, during which each Sex kindly exhibited to the sight of the other those personal charms and advantages which they wisely kept hidden during the rest of the whole year.
In the second place, the real design of the whole transaction was pretty openly and candidly acknowledged: and if we except the few religious rites by which the ceremony was begun, which served to give dignity to it, and the notion of the power of the slaps of the Luperci to render Women fruitful, which served to give importance to the whole solemnity, it was agreed fairly enough on all sides, that no more was meant than temporary pastime and amusement.
In the third place, no cruelty whatever took place in the performance of the Festival we speak of, nor was it possible any should; and from the lightness and the breadth of the straps which the Luperci employed, we may judge of their tender anxiousness not to do, through zeal or other cause, any injury to the fair objects who made application to them.
When one of the three bands of Luperci (out of which every Man who wanted an excellent shape or elegant address, was no doubt irremissibly blackballed) had been let loose out of the Temple of the God Pan, and after the coming of a Lupercus into any particular street had been announced by the flourishes of the haut-boys, the clarinets, the trumpets, kettle-drums, and other musical instruments that were stationed near the entrance of it (for we are absolutely to suppose that music contributed to embellish so charming a festival) some one of the amiable persons who proposed to receive benefit from the Lupercus’s services, moved out of the croud, and threw herself into his way.
On sight of her, the whole fierceness of the Lupercus became softened. However kindled his spirits might have been by the religious rites by which the ceremony was begun, by the course he had just performed, and the sight of the multitude of spectators who lined the streets, whatever in short might be that state of fever in which Festus seems to represent him, the februans Lupercus, at the sight of the lovely creature who obstructed his passage, felt his agitation succeeded by sensations of the most benevolent sort.
So far from entertaining designs of a severe of cruel nature, he scarcely possessed sufficient power to raise his arm, and perform with a faint hand the office that was expected from him. His bosom was filled with the softest passions. Intirely lost in the contemplation of the lovely object that made application to him, already did he begin to have thoughts of employing remedies of a more obvious and natural kind,—already, forgetting all Mankind, did he attempt to inclose her in his arms; when the acclamations of the spectators and the sudden explosion of the musical instruments, at once recalled him to himself; he flew from the amiable person who had thus so thoroughly engaged his attention, and hastened to other objects equally amiable, who likewise came to crave his assistance. If I was called upon to give my vote for any ceremony of the kind here mentioned, I would give it for the festival of the Lupercalia, especially with the improvements that had been made in it about the time of Pope Gelasius. (See [p. 94].)
[116] In a certain Spanish book, the name of which I do not remember, a Man is reproached with having besmeared himself with sheep’s blood, in order to make people believe he had flagellated himself in a distinguished manner.
[117] Aliâ vice intravit Viterbium, & dùm esset in portâ, fœmoralibus positis in capite, habitu in modum fardeli ligato ad collum, sic nudus ad plateas ivit civitatis, ubi multas verecundias perpessus est; & nudus ad locum fratrum ivit, omnibus contrà eum clamantibus, ipso tamen de us parùm curante, tam sanctus fuit iste fratricellus.