penitential fervor became
heightened into visionary and ecstatic enthusiasm, and started a
religious movement which spread throughout all Italy. Tho hermit
Marinus, who lived on an island of the Po, and his pupil Romuald (d.
1027), as well as the latter's disciples on Monte Sitrio, mutually
chastised one another with rods and lashes. Flagellation at their own
hands was a customary practise, in the first half of the eleventh
century, among tho monks of Fontavellana (near Faenza) in Umbria, a
foundation of the miracle-working hermit and penitential preacher
Dominic of Foligno (d. 1031); likewise among the hermits of Luceoli in
Umbria, who styled themselves disciples of
St. Romuald. In both places
the monk Dominicus Loricatus (d. 1030) distinguished himself by his
severe self-castigations, and they found an enthusiastic admirer and
imitator in Peter Damian (q.v.), who entered the cloister of
Fontavellana about 1035. To the far-reaching influence of Peter Damian,
who also became prominent as the literary apologist of flagellation, its
rapid extension then and afterward is preeminently due.
Tho monastic reform movement which emanated from Cluny
with the more acute sense of sin awakened by Bernard of Gairvaux, and
especially the ascetic enthusiasm propagated among the people by the
mendicant orders and their preaching of Christ's Passion speedily made
flagellation a most widely extended and impressive means of penance and
expiation. Many of tho monastic orders and sisterhoods adopted the
provision of systematic self-castigation, or flagellation, in their
rules. No doubt, mainly through the influence of the two great mendicant
orders, this ascetic practise was then further popularised in the ranks
of the laity. With most of the stricter orders (among others tho
Trappists, Carthusians, Priests of the Oratory, Fathers of Christian
Doctrine, Discalced Carmelites, Capuchins, Redemptorists, Brothers of
Charity), flagellation has continued in practise down to this day. It is
exercised for the most part as a devotional act, usually once or several
times in the week, according to a definitely prescribed ritual. Tho
opposition to the practise incited by tho monastic reformer Jan Busch
(q.v.) is an incident without parallel.
II. Flagellants.
1. The Flagellants of 1260. Venturinus of Bergamo,
1334.
The great flagellant pilgrimage of the year 1260 was tbo
first of its kind. A significant prelude thereto was the powerful
religious movement called forth in Italy in 1223 by the preaching of
repentance and pardon by a number of mendicant monks, particularly the
the Dominican Giovanni da Vicenza.
Deeper causes of both movements were the religious
excitement and penitential disposition of the populace of Bergamo,
consequent upon the phenomenal activity of St. Francis; the extreme
tension of feeling because of the passionate conflicts between papacy
and empire; and the general disorder and ruin induced by these factional
contests. The situation, again, was aggravated in 1269 by the outbreak
of a violent epidemic; and above all by the expectation that was widely
propagated by the adherents to the teaching of Joachim of Fiore (q.v.)
that in the year 1260 there would occur a general revolution of things,
especially a purification and renovation of the Church. The direct
occasion for the flagellant crusades of that year was furnished by the
advent of the venerable hermit Raniero Fasani, who as early as 1258 is
alleged to have founded the first flagellant fraternity in Perugia,
proclaiming that an impending visitation of judgment had been revealed
to him. In the autumn of 1260 the movement overflowed all of Central and
Upper Italy, still in the same year crossed the Alps and spread itself
over Upper Germany and the neighboring Slavic domains. In Germany,
however, both spiritual and temporal powers, as they perceived in the
movement elements hostile to ecclesiastical and civil order, very
decidedly opposed it as early as 1261; and with the exception of Southern
France, public flagellations and flagellant crusades north of the Alps
in the period between 1261 and 1349 manifested themselves only in quite
isolated instances. In Upper Italy, however, the penitential sermons of
the Dominican Venturinus of Bergamo gave occasion, in 1334, to an
extextensive new flagellant movement which came to a standstill in the
very next year.
2. The Flagellants of 1348-49.
The great flagellant movement of the years 1348-1349 is
very closely connected with tho apparition of the terrible pestilence
known as the
black death. Originating in the East, by 1347 the plague had found
entrance into Dalmatia. Upper Italy, and Southern France, and from these
three centers of contagion it spread toward Central Europe in 1348.
Probably attempts to avert the threatening disaster by organizing
flagellant processions were first made in Italy. From Upper July the
movement tben took its course, as precursor of the plague, by way of
Hungary into Germany, then into Holland, Bohemia, Poland, Denmark, and
even England, and reached its climax in the summer of 1349. The populace
was already highly stirred up by apocalyptic expectations, and the
plague was regarded as the premonitory sign of the great revolution of
all things. Flagellation seemed the fitting preparation for the coming
kingdom of God, and a substitute for tho clergy, grown faithless to
their charge. An apocalyphal letter of Christ, originating in a much
earlier age, and purported to have fallen to the earth at Jerusalem,
which with menace of frightful vindictive judgment called men to
repentence, was everywhere read aloud by the wandering flagellants, and
appears to have been one of the most effective instruments in their
hands for extending their doctrine of penance by flagellation. In more
than one instance the flagellants took a hostile stand against the
clergy. They also were active in the persecutions of the Jews in
1348-49, though these, indeed, were already incited before the
flagellants' appearance. Probably here also apocalyptic anticipations of
a general convulsion were a contributing factor.
As in 1260, so again in 1348-49 the flagellants formed
themselves into fraternities, which usually bound their members to a
penitential season of thirty-three days and a half. At auch times they
gnerally wandered far away from their homes in extended processions.
Admission to the brotherhood had to be preceeded by an act of
confession, reconciliation with enemies, and formal promise of
unconditional obedience to the fraternity superior. All intercourse,
even all conversation, with women was forbidden in most of the
fraternities. The flagellants generally wore white undergarments,
with mantles and hats marked with red crosses; whence they were commonly
known in Germany as Kreuzbrüder
("Brethren of the Cross"; Crucifratres, Cruciferi).
Self-castigation was performed twice a day, preferably in public squares,
amid the intonation of hymns and according to a definitely prescribed
ceremonial. Their hymns especially attracted the attention of their
contemporaries. Quite a number of those of the German flagellants are
recorded in the chronicles of Hugo von Reutlingen and Fritsche Closener,
as well as in the Limbuger Chronik (cf. P. Runge and H.
Pfannenschrnied, Die Lieder under Melodien der Geissler
des Johns 1349, Leipsic, 1900). There does not appear to have been a
very close connection between the hymns of the Italian flagellaants and
those of their German brethren; but the German flagellant hymns became
the basis of the hymns of the Bohemian, Polish, and Walloon flagellants,
Beside the pilgrim flagellants, there also arose penitential
associations which bound their members to the act of self-castigation at
the brotherhood's above. In the Netherlands there were penitential
associations, organized according to parishes, which practised
flagellation on Sunday and festivals, and attended to the burial of the
dead (see Alexiants).
The effect of the movement of 1348-49 was powerful. In
many towns for several weeks running, and almost daily, there would
appear new companies of pilgrims to the number of several hundred
persons. At last processionis of flagellant women and children appeared.
For the Church, whose influence over the multitudes for the time being
was completely paralyzed by the flagellation movement, it became a
simple act of self-defense to oppose the movement with the sharpest
weapons. On Oct. 20, 1349, Pope Clement VI. issued a bull, condemning
the Flagellants and their cause in the severest terms and demanding
their suppression; self-castigatioin was to be tolerated only within
bounds of ecclestiastical regulation. The popular ferment subsided as
suddenly as it had risen. By the early fifties of the same century,
flagellation in Germany was nearly everywhwere suppressed, and such as
remained loyal to the cause were driven back into privacy as proscribed
sectaries.
3. The Albati or Bianchi of 1399.
In 1399, a new flagellation movement of wide extent
broke out in the Romance countries in the appearance of the so-called
"Whites" (Albati, Bianchi); from Provence the movement spread
over France, Spain, and Italy. The impulse in this case was given by
fictitious revelations of future divine judgments, and the alleged
command of the Virgin Mother. The movement waa much enhanced by the
avent of the well-known Spanish Dominican and popular saint, Vincent
Ferrar (q.v.), who prophesied the immediate approach of the end of all
things. Endless throngs of flagellants followed him in the wanderings
through France, Spain. and Upper Italy in the years betweeu 1400 and
1417. These flagellant crusades filled the Council of Constance with no
small anxiety; Jean Gerson, in 1417. presented to the Council a memorial
in which he pronounced decidedly not only against the flagellant
processions, but also against the self-castigation for the laity in
general.
4. Flagellants in Thuringia about 1360. Konrad
Schmid.
The procedure of the Church against the German
flagellant brotherhoods in the period after 1349 had its equal in the
fact that out of these associations there grew up a heretical flagellant
sect, the combating of which occupied the Church till the end of the
Middle Ages. This sent possessed an especially strong organization in
Thuringia about 1360 through the apocalyptical Konrad Schmid. He
calculated the date of the final judgment as the about 1369, and his
numerous adherents Konrad undertook to prepare themselves for the event
by penitential flagellation. It is probable that Schmid and his
followers were also strongly influenced by the doctrines of the
Waldenses, which were widely disseminated in Thuringia. The Thuringia
flagellants are alleged to have rejected all sacraments and the entire
ceremonial and hierarchical system of the Church; there was to arise
instead a chiliastic kingdom, to whose government Schmid believed
himself called. In 1369 many flagellants, among them Schmid himself,
were burned at the stake. But his followers thenceforth identified him
with Enoch and Elijah, and expected him shortly to hold the final
judgment in place of Christ. From the close of the fourteenth century
the Church repeatedly interposed with sanguinary severity against the
Thuringian flagellants; but they furtively held their ground until the
end of the fifteenth century.
5. Later Italian Brotherhoods
The Italian flagellant associations, after their first
appearance in 1260, complied in all points with the rules of the Church,
and experienced no small measure of Church favor. Flagellant
associations were organized in nearly all the cities of Italy; in many
cities, as for instance, in Gubbio, Perugia, and Fabriano, no fewer than
three, in Padua six, existed side by side at the same time. The
direction of a number of these brotherhoods, though not of all, was
vested in the mendicant orders. A good many of them devoted themselves
also to the care of the poor and the sick, and maintained hospitals. The
Italian llagellants occupy an important position in the history of
Italian literature as creator of the popular religious lyric and the
spiritual drama. Even the early flagellants of 1260 had sung religious
hymns in tbe popular speech (lauds), Subsequently the vernacular
spiritual song was religiously cultivated in the flagellant
brotherhoods, more and more crowding out the Latin hymns, and
soon becoming the most richly developed literary form in the Italian
language. At. an early period certain dramatic elements found their way
into tlie spiritual popular song, the singers, for instance, turning
with appeals and questions to Christ or Mary, and receiving answers from
them. From this point it was but a slight step to complete dramatisation
of the
laude, and the creation of tbe popular religious play. The stage
presentation of these dramatic laude, whose them, of course,
purported to be first and foremost the history of the life and Passion
of Christ, is to be rated henceforth among the principal services of the
Italian flagellant brotherhoods. See Religious Dramas.
5. Later manifestations and Developments.
From the sixteenth century onward, the Society of Jesus
wrought with impassioned seal toward the diffusion of self-castigation,
especially in the Marianite sodalities under Jesuit direction. In close
touch with the Jesuits were also the French penitential and flagellant
brotherhoods of the sixteenth century, which had much influence in the
political life of France under King Henry III (1574-89). In Germany,
too, owing mainly influence of the Jesuits and Capuchins, the
self-castigation of laymen was again widely espoused in the sixteenth
century. The most notable German scholar of the Jesuit Order, Jacob
Gretachcr (q.v.), compiled (1606-13) a comprehensive history history and
vindication of self-castigstion, with a view to promoting its diffusion
as widely as possible. Thanks again to the Jesuits' propaganda,
flagellation celebrated brilliant triumphs, after the sixteenth century,
in parts beyond Europe; especially in India, Persia, Japan, the
Philippines, and particularly in the American provinces of Spain. Indeed
even to the present day flagellation has stoutly asserted itself in
South America, Mexico, and in the southwestern portion of tho United
States; tlie brotherhoods
(Hermanos penitentes) of New Mexico and Colorado recently numbered
their members by thousands, and pushed their fanaticism to the point of
crucifying their members, insomuch that Leo XIII. felt prompted to
interpose against their processions. In South America, flagellation of
laymen is still in many places a customary and regular practise, in
specified churches, and according to ritual forms. In like manner the
practise of nlf-castigation in public maintained itself to the
nineteenth century and in some cases to quite recent date, in East
India, the Asores and the Canary Islands, Italy, md the southern Tyrol.
Flagellation of laymen u private at present is confined to somewhat
narrow circles; thoroughgoing directions with regard to the most
suitable kind of flagellation and the instruments to be applied are
givien by C. Capelirmann in his Pastoralmendicin (12th ed.,
Aachen, 1898, p. 175). In the Greek Church flagellation has appeared
only here and there in certain monastic circles. Some Russian sects,
however, are said to practice it in their so-called services after a
fashion reminding of the dervishes.
Herman Haupt