We have sometimes been reproached for using in our various writings terms which really belong to medicine: it is amusing to see ourselves justified by a theologian, the Abbé Thiers, who is accusing a colleague of having erred in that direction. ‘There is nothing to be said against medical men, when speaking of parts of the human body, using the most proper and natural terms to explain what modesty forbids us to name on other occasions: the necessity of their profession compels them so to do; but that a priest, a doctor of theology, writing a history which might well be written without the admission of impure facts, yet admits many which have no bearing on this subject, this, I feel, is beyond excuse.’
The worthy Abbé Boileau, who is hinted at here, has however denied having written an immoral work. Has he not proclaimed that the usage of lower discipline (he could hardly have been more discreet in his expression) is nearly always not only unprecedented, new, and useless, but even bad, infamous, and very shameful?
It would be unjust not to admit that it was this custom he combatted and tried to abolish. Although he was in a position to know of all the excesses which are committed in monasteries, he has nevertheless not drawn aside all the veil; there are others who have not had the same scruples, and those who are in love with truth have reason therefore to congratulate themselves.
Even had the written word failed to inform us, religious iconography would have supplied the missing facts. Glance at a 15th century manuscript preserved in the Bourgogne Library at Brussels: could words say more? There we see a monk being flogged in the presence of his brothers, and the field of operation laid bare to their view.
The same treatment was also meted out in convents: for moral offences, for negligence or slackness in the performance of religious duties, the superior punished the offender in the presence of all the other sisters so that the words of the apostle might be fulfilled: ‘Let sinners be confounded in the sight of all.’
In an assembly of ecclesiastics held at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, it was decided that monks should be flogged naked before all their brethren. It would appear that the penitence was more meritorious when it was applied in anima vili (in corpore vili would be more in keeping with the facts).
The constitution of the Carmelites stipulated that the master of the novices was to flog them gently, after having decently uncovered the bottom of the back. In some communities, shirts had to be made open at the back so that they could be opened and allow a fair field.
In several convents there were novices who were trained specially for administering discipline. The Ursulines had a mistress specialty charged to teach them how to hold the instrument, how to lengthen and shorten their arm so that the blows got home effectively, and how to maintain a decent posture.
One of the masters of the art of flagellation, Julien de la Croix, wanted the lashes to be of unequal length so that they fell in different places and widened the tormented area.