An instance of much the same nature with the facts above recited, is to be found in one of Osbertus’s Books. A certain English Count having contracted an unlawful marriage with one of his near relations, not only parted afterwards with her, but requested besides to be disciplined in the presence of St. Dunstan, and of the General Assembly of the Clergy. ‘Terrified (says Osbertus) by the greatness of his offence, his obstinacy ceased; and after having renounced his unlawful wedlock, he imposed upon himself the task of penitence. As Dunstan was then presiding over a meeting of the Clergy of the Kingdom, which was holden according to custom, the Count came into the middle of the Assembly, bare-footed, clothed with wool, and carrying rods in his hands; and threw himself, groaning and weeping, at the feet of St. Dunstan. This instance of piety moved the whole Assembly, and Dunstan more than the rest. However, as his wish was thoroughly to reconcile the Man with God, he preserved an appearance of severity in his looks, suitable to the occasion, and for a whole hour persevered in denying his request: when, at last, all the Prelates having joined in the entreaties of the Count, St. Dunstan granted him the indulgence he was suing for.’ From the above fact, we might conclude that flagellations voluntarily submitted to, had become, even before the æra of Cardinal Damian, a settled method of atoning for past sins, since St. Dunstan lived about an hundred years before the Cardinal; that is, about the year 950.
Instances of Sovereigns, and Great Men, requesting to undergo flagellations, must have been pretty common in the days we mention, frequent allusions being made to it, in old books: among others, in that old French Romance intitled, The History of the Round Table, and the Feats of the Knight, Lancelot du Lac. King Arthur is supposed in it, to have summoned all the Bishops who were in his army, to his Chapel; and there to have requested of them, a correction of the same kind as that undergone by the Count mentioned by Osbertus[85].
From the times we mention, we find numerous proofs of self-flagellations being used in Convents: and indeed it would have been a very extraordinary circumstance, if, while the persons above-named adopted that practice, Monks had rejected it. In the liiid Article of the Statutes of the Abbey of Cluny, which were collected by Peter Maurice, sirnamed the Venerable, who was raised to the dignity of Abbot in the year 1122, the following account is given. ‘It was ordained (it is said in that Article) that that part of the Monastery which is on the left, beyond the left Choir, should remain open to no strange persons, whether Ecclesiastical or Lay, as it was formerly, and nobody admitted into it, except the Monks. This was thus settled, because the Brothers had no place, except the old Church of St. Peter, in which they could practise such holy and secret exercises as are usual with religious persons, they therefore claimed the use of the above new part of the Church, both for the night and the day, that they might constantly therein make offerings of the perfumes of their prayers to God, supplicate their Creator by frequent acts of repentance and genuflexions, and mortify their bodies by often inflicting upon themselves three flagellations, either as penances for their sins, or as an increase of their merit[86].’
The practice in question gained so much credit, about those times, in Monasteries, that St. Bruno, who, a few years after the death of Cardinal Damian, founded the Carthusian Order, thought it necessary to restrain his Monks in that respect; not unlikely, perhaps, with the view to check the pride which they used to derive from such exercises. In one of the statutes laid by that Saint, which Prior Guigues has collected, the following regulation is contained. ‘In regard to such disciplines, watchings, and other religious exercises as are not expressly enjoined by our Institution, let nobody among us perform them, except it be by the Prior’s permission.’
So much were flagellations grown into fashion in the days we mention, such attractions did they even seem to possess, that Ladies of high rank would also inlist among the abovementioned Whippers, and almost vied with Dominic the Cuirassed, Rodolph de Eugubio, St. Anthelm, and Abbot Poppo, in regard to the regularity with which they performed such meritorious exercises. Among those Ladies, particular mention is made of St. Maria of Ognia, of St. Hardwigge, Dutchess of Poland, of St. Hildegarde, and above all of the Widow Cechald, who lived in the very times of Cardinal Damian, and performed wonderful feats in the same career, as we are informed by St. Antonius, in the second Volume of his History. The following is the account given by St. Antonius, upon the authority of Cardinal Damian himself. ‘Not only Men, but also Women of noble birth eagerly sought after that kind of Purgatory; and the Widow of Cechaldus, a Woman of great birth and dignity, gave an account, that in consequence of an obligation she had previously imposed upon herself, she had gone through the hundred years penance, three thousand lashes being the number allotted for every year[87].’
FOOTNOTES:
[83] The abovementioned Anthelm, I think I have read, lived to a very great age. The famous self-flagellator Dominic the Cuirassed, lived eighty-four years; St. Romuald, notwithstanding the flagellations he received from himself and his Monks, attained, it is said, the age of an hundred and twenty years; and Leon of Preza, another illustrious self-flagellator, lived, according to some accounts, to the age of an hundred and forty. If so, it would thence result, that self-flagellations, besides the other great advantages they possess, are also attended with that of being conducive to health.
[84] ... Jocando ridendo hoc alteri Confessori suo humiliter recognovit.