These flagellatory claims and practices of the Western Christian Church, are, we may observe, one of the objections made against it by the Greek, or Eastern, Christians, as the learned M. Cotelier, a Doctor of the Sorbonne, observes in his Monuments of the Greek Church: ‘When they absolve a person from his excommunication (they say) he is stripped down to the waist, and they lash him with a scourge on that part which is bare, and then absolve him, as being forgiven his sin[95].’
Among the different instances of disciplines publicly inflicted by the Church, upon independent Princes, we may mention that which was imposed upon Giles, Count of the Venaissin County, near Avignon. This Count having caused the Curate of a certain Parish to be buried alive, who had refused to bury the body of a poor Man, till the usual fees were paid, drew upon himself the wrath of the Pope, who fulminated against him a sentence of excommunication. And in order to procure the repeal of it, he found it necessary to submit to a flagellation, which was inflicted upon him before the gate of the Cathedral Church of Avignon.
But no fact can be mentioned more striking, and more capable of having gratified the pride of the Clergy, at the time, than that of Henry II. King of England. This Prince having, by a few hasty angry words he uttered on a certain occasion, been the cause of the assassination of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed afterwards the greatest sorrow for his imprudence: but neither the Priests nor the Nation would take his word on that account: they only gave credit to the reality of his repentance, when he had submitted to the all-purifying trial of a flagellation; and in order the more completely to remove all doubts in that respect, he went through it publicly. The following is the account which Matthew Paris, a Writer who lived about those times, has given of the transaction. ‘But as the slaughterers of this glorious Martyr had taken an opportunity to slay him from a few words the King had uttered rather imprudently, the King asked absolution from the Bishops who were present at the ceremony, and subjecting his bare skin to the discipline of rods, received four or five stripes from every one of the religious persons, a multitude of whom had assembled[96].’
FOOTNOTES:
[95] Ἀφορισμοῦ τινὰ λύοντες, γυμνοῦσιν αὐτὸν ἕως ὀσφύος, καὶ μαστίζοντες ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ λώροις, ἀπολύουσιν ὡς συγκεχωρημένον ἐντευθεν.
[96] ... Carnemque suam nudam disciplinæ virgarum supponens, à singulis viris religiosis, quorum multitudo magna convenerat, ictus ternos vel quinos accepit.
Among the instances of Sovereigns who have been publickly flagellated, may also be reckoned that of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, whose Sovereignty extended over a very considerable part of the South of France. Having given protection in his dominions to the Sect called the Albigenses, Innocent III. the most haughty Pope that ever filled the Papal Chair, published a Croisade against him; his dominions were in consequence seized, nor could he succeed to have them restored to him, before he had submitted to receive discipline from the hands of the Legate of the Pope, who stripped him naked to the waist, at the door of the Church, and drove him up to the altar in that situation, all the while beating him with rods.
With respect to the discipline undergone by King Henry II. though he may be said to have freely submitted to it, yet it did not, at bottom, materially differ from that imposed upon Raymond, Count of Toulouse. This Prince had, no doubt, too much understanding to submit to a ceremony of this kind, out of regard for some prevailing notion of the vulgar merely, and much less out of any superstition of his own; but he thought it necessary to perform some remarkable religious act of that sort, for silencing at once the clamours of the Priests, the whole body of whom, incensed by the death of Becket, were every where endeavouring to spirit up the people to a revolt; and he may with truth be said to have submitted to being flagellated, in order to preserve his kingdom: which may serve as a proof, among others, that it is a pleasing thing to be a King.
The last instance of a Sovereign who received a correction from the Church, was that of Henry IV. of France, when he was absolved of his excommunication and heresy; and the discipline undergone by that Prince supplies the solution for an interesting question, that may be added to those above discussed; viz. Which is the most comfortable manner of receiving a flagellation?—It is by Proxy.—This was the manner in which the King we speak of, suffered the discipline which the Church inflicted upon him. His proxies were Mess. D’Ossat, and Du Perron, who were afterwards made Cardinals. During the performing of the ceremony of the King’s absolution, and while the Choristers were singing the Psalm Miserere mei Deus, the Pope, at every verse, beat, with a rod on the shoulders of each of the two proxies; which shews how essential a part of the ceremony of an absolution, flagellations have been thought to be; and also, how strictly the Church of Rome adheres to such forms as are prescribed by its Ritual, or, by the Pontifical, as it is called. Express mention was moreover made of the above beating, in the written process that was drawn of the transaction. Dominus Papa verberabat & percutiebat humeros Procuratorum, & cujuslibet ipsorum, virgâ quam in manibus habebat.