either of their dignity, or their merit; several of whom have been
mentioned by Father Gretzer. Among them were St. Andrew Bishop of
Fiesola, Laurence Justinian, Abbot Poppo, and especially St. Anthelm,
Bishop of Bellay, who lived about an hundred years after Dominic
the _Cuirassed_ and Rodolph of Eugubio, and gloriously trod in the
footsteps of these two holy Men. ‘Every day (it is said in that
Saint’s Life, which was written by one of his intimate friends) every
day he scourged himself, making lashes fall thick on his back and
sides, and by thus heaping stripes upon stripes, he never suffered
his skin to remain whole, or free from marks of blows[83].’

Even Sovereigns, and Great Men, in the times we speak of, adopted for
themselves the practice of voluntary flagellation.

The Emperor Henry, who lived about the year 1070, ‘never ventured
(if we may credit Reginard’s account) to put on his Imperial robes,
before he had obtained the permission of a Priest for that purpose,
and had deserved it by confession and discipline.’

William of Nangis, in the Life of St. Lewis King of France, which
he has written, relates that that Prince, after he had made his
confession, constantly received discipline from his Confessor. To
this the same Author adds the following curious account. ‘I ought not
to omit to say, concerning the Confessor the King had before Geoffrey
_de Bello loco_, and who belonged to the Order of the _Predicant_
Friars, that he used to inflict upon him, hard and immoderate
disciplines; which the King, whose skin was rather tender, had much
ado to endure. This hardship, however, he never would speak of to
this Confessor; but after his death, he mentioned the fact, somewhat
jocularly, though not without humility, to the new Confessor[84].’

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].’

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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._

[85] ... _Après, prist discipline d’eux; moult doucement la reçut.
Imprimé à Paris, par A. Gerard, le 1. Juillet, 1494._ This must have
been one of the first books that were printed.

[86] ... _ubi sancta & secreta orationum aromata Deo assiduè
accenderent; frequentibus metanœis vel genufluxionibus pio conditori
supplicarent; à tribus sæpè flagellis, vel ad pœnitentiam, vel ad
augendum meritum, corpus attererent._

I will take this occasion to inform the Reader, that Monks, or
persons of religious dispositions, do not always mean, in the
penances they impose on themselves, to atone for their sins, which
they do not by any means consider as being in proportion to the
number of their flagellations. They practise mortifications of this
kind, either for the good of other persons, or for delivering souls
from Purgatory, or in order (as the Reader may see from the words
above quoted) to increase their own merit, and, like the Fakir
mentioned in a former place, go of course to the thirty-fifth Heaven.

[87] Tit. 16. Cap. VIII. fol. 102.--_Ut non solùm viri sed & mulieres
nobiles hoc purgatorii genus inhianter acciperent; relictamque
Cechaledi, mulierem magni generis & magnæ dignitatis, retulisse se,
per præfixam hujus regulæ disciplinam, pœnitentiam centum annorum
peregisse, tribus disciplinarum millibus pro uno computatis anno._

The Widow Cechald, in her account of the wonderful penance she
performed after the example of Dominic the _Cuirassed_, has neglected
to inform us in what manner she performed it, and whether she
imitated that holy Man in every respect, and used, for instance, both
her hands at once in the operation. Be it as it may; three hundred
thousand lashes, the total amount of the hundred years penance she
went through, were certainly a very hard penance. However, as we
are not to doubt either the account which the above Widow gave in
that respect, or the declaration Cardinal Damian made after her, the
wonder is to be explained another way, and perhaps by the nature
of the instruments she made use of: they possibly were of much the
same kind as those used by a certain Lady, who was likewise much
celebrated on account of the frequent disciplines she bestowed upon
herself, and who was at last found out to use no other weapons for
performing them, than a bunch of feathers, or, as others have said, a
fox’s tail.

CHAP. XV.

  _Another difficulty. Which is the best plight to be in, for
  receiving a discipline?_

Eminent persons, in the times we speak of, did not differ from one
another only in their opinions concerning the advantages of religious
flagellations; but they also dissented with respect to the manner
of performing them, as we may likewise conclude from the Writings
and Ordinances of those times. Cardinal Damian, the great Patron of
Flagellators, prescribed to them to strip themselves naked, and when
thus perfectly free from every obstruction and impediment, to flog
themselves in company with one another: this we learn from his xliid
_Opusculum_, which he wrote to the Fathers of Mount Cassin, who were
not intirely reconciled to the thought of those flagellations. On
the other hand, an Ordinance which had been framed in the Assembly
which was held at Aix-la-Chapelle, so early as the year 817, under
the reign of Lewis _le Débonnaire_, forbad the above manner of
flagellating Monks, because it did more harm than good. ‘Let the
Monks (it is said in the 16th Canon) never be lashed naked, in the
presence of the other Monks; let them not be whipped naked, for every
trifling fault, in sight of the Brothers.’

Several religious Orders submitted to the directions of the above
Canon; St. Lanfranc, among others, ordered, in his Statutes, ‘That
Monks, guilty of offences, should be beaten with a thick rod, or
wand, over their gowns.’ The Monks of Affligen, in the Netherlands,
adopted the same Canon; and it was settled in their Ritual, as
Haeftenus informs us, that the Monks should have their gowns on, when
they were to be cudgelled.

However, the wise precautions we mention were adopted only in a
few particular places; and the regard which ought to be paid to
decency, as well as to the prudent Ordinance of the Assembly held
at Aix-la-Chapelle, was utterly forgotten in most Monasteries; the
practice recommended by Cardinal Damian being adopted in them,
upon the score of more complete mortification. Nay, so cheap did
the Framers of regulations, in several Monasteries, make their own
nakedness, as well as that of the Brothers, that in certain cases
they ordered delinquents to be stript in order to be flagellated, in
sight not only of the Congregation, but even of the whole Public.
In an Article of the Constitutions of the Abbey of Cluny, which
Udalric has collected together, it is expressly settled that the
persons guilty of the different faults enumerated therein, are ‘to
be stripped naked in the middle of the next street or public place,
so that every person who chooses may see them, and there tied up and
lashed[88].’

Among the Promoters and Recommenders of nakedness, we must not omit
to mention Cardinal Pullus, a person of no less importance than
Cardinal Damian, and who, in his life-time, was high Chancellor of
the Roman Church: in the Collection of Sentences with which this
Cardinal has obliged the World, he gives it as his opinion, that the
very nakedness of the Penitent, is a considerable increase of his
merit[89].

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

FOOTNOTES:

[88] Pars Cap. III. p. 166.--_Cunctis enim qui videre voluerint,
videntibus, & maximè in mediâ plateâ, nudatur, ligatur, & verberatur._

[89] To the above dissertation on the properest plight for receiving
flagellations, another, no less interesting, might be added, viz.
which are the fittest instruments for inflicting them? Indeed, an
infinite variety of instruments have been used for that purpose,
whether they were contrived at leisure by the ingenious persons who
were to use them, or were suddenly found out, from the spur of some
urgent occasion. Incensed Pedants, who could not quickly enough find
their usual instrument of discipline, have frequently used their hat,
their towel, or, in general, the first things they laid their hands
upon. I once saw a Gentleman flagellate a saucy young fish-women,
with all the flounders in her basket. Among Saints, some, like
Dominic the _Cuirassed_, have used besoms: others, like St. Dominic
the Founder of the Dominican Order, have used iron chains; others,
like Gualbert, have employed knotted leather-thongs; others have used
nettles, and others thistles. A certain Saint, as I have read in the
Golden Legend, had no _discipline_ of his own, but constantly took,
to discipline himself with, the very first thing that came under his
hand, such as the tongs for the fire, or the like. St. Bridget, as I
have read in the same book, disciplined herself with a bunch of keys;
a certain Lady, who hath been mentioned in a former place, used a
bunch of feathers for the same purpose; and lastly, Sancho did things
with much more simplicity, and flagellated himself with the palms of
his hands.

CHAP. XVI.

  _Confessors at length assume to themselves a kind of flagellatory
  power over their Penitents. The abuses that arise from it._

The submission of Sovereigns to receive disciplines from the hands
of their Confessors, together with the accounts of such disciplines,
which, though they might not always be true, were industriously
circulated in Public, helped much, without doubt, to increase the
good opinion which people entertained of the merit of flagellations,
as well as to strengthen the power of Confessors in general. In fact
the latter, from prescribing Disciplines, soon passed to inflicting
them upon their penitents with their own hands; and, without loss of
time, converted this newly-assumed authority into an express kind
of privilege, to which it was a most meritorious act, on the part
of penitents, readily to submit. On this occasion, I shall again
quote the old French Book, mentioned in p. 218; which, though it be
only a Romance, may serve to shew the opinions generally entertained
by people, during the times in which it was written. ‘If you are
estranged from our Lord’s love, you cannot be reconciled to him,
unless by the three following means: First, by confession of mouth;
secondly, by a contrition of heart; thirdly, by works of alms and
charity. Now, go and make a confession in that manner, and receive
discipline from the hands of thy Confessors; for it is the sign of
merit.’

The power of Confessors of _disciplining_ their penitents, became in
process of time so generally acknowledged, that it obtained even with
respect to persons who made profession of the Ecclesiastical life,
and superseded the laws that had been made against those who should
strike an Ecclesiastic. To this an allusion is made, in the lines of
that Poet of the middle age, who has put the _Summula_ of St. Raymund
into Latin verses. ‘You are guilty of sacrilege if you have violated
holy things, if you have struck a person in religious Orders, or of
the Clergy; unless it be a holy beating, such as is performed by a
Teacher with respect to his Disciple, or a Confessor with respect to
a person who confesses his sins[90].’

Attempts were, however, made to put a stop to these practices of
Priests and Confessors; and so early as under Pope Adrian I. who was
raised to the Purple in the year 772 (which by the by shews that the
power assumed by Confessors, was pretty ancient) a regulation was
made to forbid Confessors to beat their Penitents. ‘The Bishop (it
is said in the _Epitome_ of Maxims and Canons) the Priest, and the
Deacon, must not beat those who have sinned[91].’ But this regulation
proved useless: the whole tribe of Priests, as well as the first
Dignitaries of the Church, nevertheless continued to preach up the
prerogatives of Confessors and the merit of flagellations; and
Cardinal Pullus, that Chancellor of the Roman Church who has been
mentioned in the foregoing Chapter, did not scruple to declare, that
the nakedness of the Penitent, and his situation at the feet of his
Confessor, were additional merits in him in the eye of God, as being
additional tokens of his humility[92].

All these different practices of stripping and flagellating Devotees
and Penitents, at length gave rise to abuses of a very serious
nature; instances of which take place, we may say, every day. Numbers
of Confessors, in process of time, have made such religious acts as
had been introduced with a view to mortification, serve to gratify
their own lust and wantonness. They have tried to inculcate the
same notions, as to the merit of flagellations, into the minds of
their Devotees of the other sex, as they had brought even Kings and
Princes to entertain; and at last have made it a practice to inflict
such corrections on their female Penitents, and under that pretence,
to take such liberties with them, as the blessed St. Benedict, St.
Francis, St. Dominic, and St. Loyola, had not certainly given them
the example of.

Among the many instances that might be recited of the abuses here
alluded to, it will suffice to produce that of a Man who wore a
hood, and was girt with a cord (a _Cordelier_ or _Franciscan_) who
lived about the year 1566. This Man’s name was Cornelius Adriasem;
he was a native of Dort, and belonged to a Convent in Bruges, and
was a most violent preacher against the Heretics, called _Gueux_. He
had found means to persuade a certain number of Women, both married
and unmarried, to promise him implicit obedience, by certain oaths
he made them take for that purpose, and under the specious pretence
of greater piety. These Women he did not indeed lash with harsh
and knotted cords, but he used gently to rub their bare thighs and
posteriors, with willow or birch rods[93].

In order to shew how common the above practices were become, as
well as to entertain the Reader, I shall conclude this Chapter
with the following story, which is to be found in _Scot’s_ Book,
entitled, _Mensa Philosophica_. A Woman, says Scot, who was gone
to make her confession, had been secretly followed by her husband,
who was jealous of her; and he had hid himself in some place in the
Church, whence he might spy her; but as soon as he saw her led behind
the altar by the Priest, in order to be flagellated, he made his
appearance, objected that she was too tender to bear a flagellation,
and offered to receive it in her stead. This proposal the Wife
greatly applauded; and the Man had no sooner placed himself upon his
knees, than she exclaimed, ‘Now, my Father, lay on lustily, for I am
a great Sinner[94].’

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

FOOTNOTES:

[90]

      _Es vir sacrilegus si res sacras violasti,
      Si percussisti personam religiosam,
      Vel quem de Clero; nisi percussio sancta,
      Doctor discipulum, Confessor probra fatentem._

[91] Cap. XV. _Episcopus, Presbyter & Diaconus, peccantes fideles
diverberare non debeant._

[92] _Card. Pulli_ sententiarum _L. vii. Cap. 3. p. 220. Est ergo
satisfactio quædam, aspera tamen, sed Deo tanto gratior quanto
humilior, cum quilibet sacerdotis prostratus ad pedes, se cædendum
virgis exhibet nudum._

[93] I have in the course of this Work frequently produced the
original words of the Authors who are quoted therein, as I thought
this precaution would not be disagreeable to the critical part of
Readers. In regard to the Abbé Boileau himself, no occasion has
offered of doing the same, as he seldom introduces any fact, in
his Book, but in the words of the Writer from whom he borrows it:
however, as in relating the above story, which he has extracted
from a much longer account, he speaks for himself, I shall take
this opportunity of introducing him personally to the Reader, and
of transcribing his own words, in order to enable the Reader to
judge of the goodness of his Latin.----‘_Inter exempla tam infaustæ
notitiæ non pertimescam Historiam narrare hominis cucullati et
cordigeri, Conventus Brugensis, anno circiter MDLXVI, cui nomen
erat Cornelius Adriasem, origine Dordracensis, adversus hæreticos
Guezios stomachosissimi concionatoris, qui puellas seu fœminas
quasdam sacramento fidelitatis & obedientiæ sibi adstrictas, &
specie pietatis devotas, non quidem asperatis & nodosis funibus
verberabat, sed nudata earum femora & nates, inhonestis vibicibus
rorantes, betuleis aut vimineis virgis, ictibus molliter inflictis,
perfricabat._’

[94] ‘_Domine, tota tenera est; ego pro ipsâ recipio disciplinam: quo
flectente genua dixit Mulier, Percute fortiter, Domine, quia magna
peccatrix sum._’--_Men. Phil._ Lib. iv. Cap. 18.

The above story, related by Scot, together with the words he supposes
to have been said by the Woman, have since been turned into a French
epigram, which I have met with in the _Menagiana_, as well as in two
or three different collections of French Poetry.

      _Une femme se confessa,
      Le Confesseur à la sourdine
      Derriere l’Autel la troussa
      Pour lui donner la discipline.
      L’époux non loin d’elle caché
      De miséricorde touché
      Offrit pour elle dos & fesse.
      La femme y consentit dabord,
      Je sens, dit-elle, ma foiblesse,
      Mon mari sans doute est plus fort;
      Sus donc, mon Pere, touchez fort,
      Car je suis grande pecheresse._

The abovementioned flagellating practices of Confessors, are alluded
to in several Books; and Confessors are expressly charged with them
by several Writers, besides what is said above. Among others,
Sanlec, a _bel Esprit_ who lived under Lewis the Fourteenth, and
wrote several Satires, in one of them, which he has intitled _The
Directors_, has made the above practices of Confessors, or Directors,
the subject of his animadversion. ‘This zealous Confessor (says
Sanlec) who, for every trifling fault, with a discipline in his hand,
fustigated his female Devotees.’

      _Ce Confesseur zèlé, qui, pour les moindres fautes,
      La discipline en main fustigeoit ses Dévotes._

Among the number of those who have administered disciplines of the
kind here alluded to, a few have been so happy as to acquire much
more reputation than the others. Among these must be ranked the
abovementioned Cornelius Adriasem, whose case is related at length
by Meteren, in his Latin History of the Netherlands, published in
the year 1568, from which the Abbé Boileau has extracted it. This
Cornelius Adriasem (or Adriansen) was a loud declaimer against the
faction called the _Gueux_, whom the Abbé calls Hereticks, but who
were, in fact, the same party who opposed the Spanish Government
in those parts, and afterwards succeeded in overthrowing it, and
founded the Republic of Holland. As the above Reverend Father had
thus strongly opposed a powerful, numerous, as well as incensed
party, in the State and the Church, the discovery that was made
of his frailties, afforded matter of much triumph, as well as
made a great noise, and supplied his enemies with an opportunity
of inveighing afterwards against him, which they did not neglect,
as we may conclude from Meteren’s account of the fact, which he
relates at great length, and with much spleen and dulness. However,
new names were coined to express that particular kind of discipline
which Cornelius Adriansen used to serve upon his female penitents:
those who loved to deduce their new appellations of things from
Greek words, called it the _Gynopygian_ discipline; and others,
who, proceeding upon a more liberal plan, thought that the proper
appellation of any particular practice, ought to be derived from
the name of some person who has eminently distinguished himself by
it, called the discipline in question, from the name of the above
Gentleman, the _Cornelian_ discipline: a name by which it still
continues to be expressed in those quarters.

The devisers of the appellation just now mentioned, did not however
mean to say, that Cornelius Adriansen was the inventor of the above
kind of discipline, or even the first man of note who had recourse to
it: or, if such was their meaning, they were wrong. In fact, Abelard,
who certainly is a well-known character, also used to administer
flagellatory corrections to his pupil Heloisa, whose name is not less
illustrious than that of her Master. The Canon Fulbert, as every
one knows, had intrusted him with the care of her education; and as
the Canon was very desirous she should become distinguished by her
learning, he had permitted him to correct her, whenever she should
fail in performing her duty. Abelard, in time, made an extensive use
of the power that had thus been conferred upon him; though, to say
the truth (and as himself confesses in one of those Latin letters he
wrote to her after their separation) he, at last, did not so much use
it, when she had been guilty of faults, as when she too obstinately
refused to commit any.--_Sed & te nolentem (says he) sæpiùs minis
atque flagellis ad consensum trahebam._

As Cornelius Adriansen was preceded in the career we mention, by
a character as distinguished as himself, so has he been followed
by another who was no less so, and who made no less noise in the
world. The person I mean, is the celebrated Jesuit, Father Girard;
and among the number of his pupils or penitents, was Miss _Cadiere_,
who certainly may also be looked upon as an illustrious character.
The Cornelian disciplines which the Father used to serve upon her,
were one of the subjects of the public complaint she afterwards
preferred against him, about the year 1730; which gave rise to a
criminal lawsuit or prosecution that made a prodigious noise, as it
was thought to be a kind of stroke levelled at the whole Society of
the Jesuits, and was known to have been stirred up by Monks belonging
to Orders who were at open enmity with them. The _Demoiselle Cadiere_
likewise brought against Father Girard a charge of sorcery, and of
having bewitched her; in order, no doubt, to apologize for her having
peaceably submitted to the licentious actions of which she accused
the Father, as well as to those disciplines with which she reproached
him, which she circumstantially described in the original complaint,
or charge, which she preferred against him; for Judges are persons
who will not understand things by half words; one must speak plain to
them, and call every thing by its proper name.

Among those who have distinguished themselves in the same career of
flagellation, Readers (I mean those who possess some patriotism and
love of their Country) will, no doubt, be much pleased to find one
who belonged to this Nation; I mean to speak of the Reverend Zachary
Crofton, Curate of St. _Botolph’s_, _Aldgate_, who, on a certain
occasion, served a Cornelian discipline upon his Chambermaid, for
which she afterwards sued him at Westminster.

The aforesaid Zachary Crofton, as Bishop Kennet relates in his
Chronicle, from Dr. Calamy’s notes, was formerly a Curate at
Wrenbury, in Cheshire (it was a little before the Restoration) and
he used to engage with much warmth in the religious and political
quarrels of his times: his refusal to take the _engagement_, and
endeavours to dissuade others from taking it, caused him to be
dismissed from his place. He was, however, afterwards provided with
the Curacy of St. Botolph’s, Aldgate; but as his turn for religious
and political quarrels still prevailed, and he had written several
pamphlets, both English and Latin, about the affairs of those
times, he was sent to the Tower, and deprived of his Curacy: he was
afterwards cast into prison likewise in his own County, and when
he procured his liberty, set up a Grocer’s shop. While he was in
the above Parish of St. Botolph, ‘he gave,’ as Dr. Calamy relates,
‘the correction of a school-boy to his servant-maid,’ for which she
prosecuted him in Westminster-hall. This fact the Doctor relates
as an instance of the many scrapes into which Zachary Crofton’s
warm and zealous temper brought him; and he adds that, on the last
mentioned occasion, ‘he was bold to print his defence.’----Indeed
this fact of Parson Crofton’s undauntedly appealing to the Public
in print concerning the lawfulness of the flagellation he had
performed, places him, notwithstanding what Dr. Calamy may add as to
the mediocrity of his parts, at least upon a level with the Geniuses
abovementioned, as well as any other of the kind that may be named,
and cannot fail for ever to secure him a place among the most
illustrious Flagellators.

In fine, to this list of the persons who have distinguished
themselves by the flagellations they have atchieved, I think I cannot
avoid adding that Lady, mentioned by Brantôme, who (perhaps as an
exercise conducive to her health) took great delight in performing
corrections of this kind, with her own hands. This Lady, who was
moreover a very great Lady, would often, as Brantôme relates, cause
the Ladies of her Houshold to strip themselves, and then amuse
herself in giving them slaps upon their posteriors, pretty lustily
laid on: with respect to those Ladies who had committed faults, she
made use of good rods; and in general, she used less or greater
severity, according (Brantôme says) as she proposed to make them
either laugh or cry. The following are Brantôme’s own words.

‘_J’ai ouï parler d’une grande Dame de par le monde, voire
grandissime, qui ne se contentant pas de lasciveté naturelle, & étant
mariée & étant Veuve, pour la provoquer & exciter davantage, elle
faisoit depouiller ses Dames & filles, je dis les plus belles, & se
delectoit fort à les voir, & puis elle les battoit du plat de la main
sur les fesses, avec de grandes clacquades & blamuses assez rudes;
& les filles qui avoient delinqué en quelques chose, avec de bonnes
verges.----Autres fois, sans les depouiller, les faisoit trousser
en robes, car pour lors elles ne portoient point de calecons, &
les clacquettoit sur les fesses, selon le sujet qu’elles lui en
donnoient, pour les faire ou rire, ou pleurer._’

It is no easy matter to point out what precise views the Lady in
question had, when she served the abovementioned flagellations.
Brantôme, who had much travelled, and was grown much acquainted with
the wickedness of the world, insinuates that she was actuated by
motives of rather a wanton kind; but since it is extremely difficult
to believe that thoughts like those Brantôme supposes, could be
entertained, I shall not say by a Lady, but by a person of the
high rank of the Lady in question, I will endeavour to account for
her conduct in a different manner; and I shall consider my time as
exceedingly well employed, if I can clear her from the aspersion
thrown upon her by the above Gentleman.

In the first place, it is very possible, that (as hath been above
insinuated) she considered the flagellations in question as an
exercise advantageous to her health: and Physicians have often made
worse prescriptions.

In the second place, she might, without looking farther, be prompted
by a desire of doing justice; for Brantôme makes express mention of
Ladies who had committed faults: now, such a conduct on the part of
the Lady we speak of, would reflect much honour upon her, and shew
that she did not disdain to superintend her own family.

Perhaps also it might be, that the abovementioned flagellations were
of the same jocular kind merely, with those which, as hath been
related in the sixth Chapter of this Book, were in use in Rome,
and were often practised in the presence of the Emperor Claudius,
and sometimes upon that Emperor himself. Nor is the circumstance
mentioned by Brantôme, of the high Lady in question sometimes
using pretty great severity, contrary to this supposition: it is a
well-known fact that Great people, when they do their inferiors the
honour to play with them, will often carry the joke too far, farther
than the latter have a liking to: jokes or tricks of this kind, gave
rise to the French common saying, _Jeux de Princes, qui plaisent à
ceux qui les font_. ‘Tricks of Princes, which please those (_only_)
by whom they are played.’

In fine, since the flagellations in question were often carried
on, as appears from the account of Brantôme himself, in a manner
really very jocular, even so much so as to make the Ladies laugh,
it is natural to suppose that they were then executed by the
common and perfectly free consent of the whole company. The Ladies
possibly proposed to represent among themselves the festival of
the _Lupercalia_, which has been described in a former Chapter:
intending to represent it as it was performed in the times of Pope
Gelasius, they stripped themselves in the manner Brantôme has
related: the great Lady, in consideration of her high birth and
station, was permitted to fill the part of the _Lupercus_; the
wielding of the _discipline_ was of course exclusively left to her:
nor was this peculiar advantage which the other Ladies granted her,
in that kind of farce they agreed to act among themselves, materially
different from the favour which certain Clergymen used to grant to
their Bishop, when they played at Whist with him, who allowed his
Lordship the privilege of naming the trump.

In regard to the Gentlemen who have been mentioned above, it is
however pretty evident that (owing, no doubt, to the good-nature
inherent in their sex) they used no kind of severity in those
disciplines they used to bestow; except indeed Parson Crofton,
who, from the circumstance of his writing a pamphlet, and a quarto
pamphlet too, in defence of the flagellation he had performed, seems
really to have been in earnest, both when he planned, and when he
served it.

Thus Abelard, in one of the abovementioned Letters he wrote to his
Pupil, while she lived retired in the Monastery of _Paraclet_,
expressly says that the blows he gave her, were such blows as
friendship alone, not anger, suggested: he even adds that their
sweetness surpassed that of the sweetest perfumes,----_verbera
quandoque dabat amor, non furor, gratia, non ira, quæ omnium
unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent_.

Father Girard, as is evident from the whole tenor of the declaration
of Miss Cadiere herself, had as little intention as Abelard, to do
any kind of injury to his pupil or penitent; and Cornelius Adriansen,
as appears from Meteren’s account, used to proceed with the same
caution and tenderness for his disciples, as the two above-mentioned
gentlemen, and contented himself, as the Abbé Boileau observes, with
gently rubbing them with his instruments of discipline;--_molliter
perfricabat_.

That Confessors should contract sentiments of friendship for their
female penitents, like those mentioned by Abelard, is however nowise
surprizing. La Fontaine says, that

  _Tout homme est homme, & les Moines sur tous._

“Every Man is a Man, and Monks above all others.” He might at least
have said, “Every Man is a Man, and Monks as well as others;” and to
this have added, that their virtue, especially that of Confessors,
is exposed to dangers of a peculiar kind. In fact, the obligation
which those who perform that office are under, to hear, with seeming
indifference, the long confessions of Women of every age, who
frequently enter into numerous particulars concerning the sins which
they have either committed, or had distant wishes to commit, is no
very easy talk for Men who, as hath just now been observed, are
after all nothing but Men; and they are, under such circumstances,
frequently agitated by thoughts not very consonant with the apparent
gravity and sanctity of their looks. Nay, raising such thoughts in
them, and in general creating sentiments of love in their Confessors,
are designs which numbers of female penitents, who at no time
entirely cease being actuated by womanish views, expressly entertain,
notwithstanding the apparent ingenuity of their confessions, and
in which they but too often succeed, to their own, and their frail
Confessors, cost. Thus, it appears from Miss Cadiere’s declarations,
that she had of herself aimed at making the conquest of Father
Girard, though a Man past fifty years of age, being induced to it,
by his great reputation both as a Preacher and a Man of parts; and
she expressly confessed that she had for a long while been making
interest to be admitted into the number of his penitents.

Indeed, these dangers to which Confessors are exposed from their
continual and confidential intercourse with the Sex, (for, to the
praise of Women be it spoken, they are infinitely more exact than
Men in making their confessions) are much taken notice of in the
books in which directions are given to such Priests as are designed
for that employment; and they are warned against nothing so much
as an inclination to hear preferably the confessions of the other
Sex.----St. Charles Borrommee, as I have read in one of those books,
prescribed to Confessors to have all the doors wide open, when they
heard the confession of a Woman; and he had supplied them with a set
of passages from Psalms, such as, _Cor mundum crea in me Domine_, and
the like, which he advised them to have pasted on some conspicuous
place within their sight, and which were to serve them as ejaculatory
exclamations by which to vent the wicked thoughts with which they
might feel themselves agitated, and as kinds of _Abracadabras_, or
_Retrò Satanas_, to apply to, whenever they should find themselves on
the point of being overcome by some too sudden temptation.

Numbers of Confessors however, whether it was that they had forgotten
to supply themselves with the passages recommended by St. Charles
Borrommee, or that those passages really proved ineffectual in
those instants in which they were intended to be useful, have, at
different times, formed serious designs upon the chastity of their
penitents; and the singular situation in which they were placed,
both with respect to the Public, and to their penitents themselves,
with whom, changing the grave supercilious Confessor into the wanton
lover, was no easy transition, have led them to use expedients of
rather singular kinds, to attain their ends. Some, like Robert
d’_Arbrissel_, (and the same has been said of Adhelm, an English
Saint who lived before the Conquest) have induced young Women to lie
with them in the same beds, giving them to understand, that, if they
could prove superior to every temptation, and rise from bed as they
went to it, it would be in the highest degree meritorious. Others,
Menas for instance, a Spanish Monk whose case was quoted in the
proceedings against Father Girard, persuaded young Women to live with
him in a kind of holy conjugal union, which he described to them, but
which did not however end, at last, in that intellectual manner which
the Father had promised. Others have persuaded Women that the works
of matrimony were no less liable to pay tithes than the fruits of the
earth, and have received these tithes accordingly. This scheme was,
it is said, contrived by the Fryars of a certain Convent in a small
Town in Spain, and La Fontaine has made it the subject of one of his
_Tales_, which is entitled _The Cordeliers of Catalonia_, in which
he describes with much humour the great punctuality of the Ladies in
that Town, in discharging their debts to the Fathers, and the vast
business that was, in consequence, carried on in the Convent of the
latter.

Lastly, other Confessors have had recourse to their power of
flagellation, as an excellent expedient for preparing the success
of their schemes, and preventing the first suspicions which their
penitents might entertain of their views.

In order the better to remove the scruples which the modesty of
these latter caused them at first to oppose, they used to represent
to them, that our first Parents were naked in the garden of Eden;
they moreover asked, whether people must not be naked, when they
are christened; and shall not they likewise be so, on the day of
Resurrection? Nay, others have made such a state of nakedness, on the
part of their penitents, a matter of express duty, and have supported
this doctrine, as the Author of the _Apologie pour Hérodote_ relates,
by quoting the passage of Jesus Christ, in which he says, _Go, and
shew thyself to the Priest_.

However, instances of the wantonness of Priests like this latter,
in which a serious use was made of passages from the Books on which
Religion is grounded, in order to forward schemes of a guilty nature,
certainly cannot, in whatever light the subject be considered, admit
of any justification: though on the other hand, when the national
calamities produced by sophisms of this kind and the arts of Men of
the same cloth, are considered, one cannot help wishing that they
had constantly employed both these sophisms and their artifices in
pursuits like those above-mentioned, and that, ensnaring a few female
penitents (who were not perhaps, after all, extremely unwilling to be
ensnared) and serving flagellations, had been the worst excesses they
ever had committed.

CHAP. XVII.

  _The Church at large also claims a power of publicly inflicting the
  discipline of flagellation. Instances of Kings and Princes who have
  submitted to it._

As it was the constant practice of Priests and Confessors, to
prescribe flagellation as a part of the _satisfaction_ that was owing
for committed sins, the opinion became at last to be established,
that, receiving this kind of correction, was not only an useful, but
even an indispensable act of submission: without it penitence was
thought to be a body without a soul; nor could there be any such
thing as true repentance. Hence the Church itself at large, became
also in time to claim a power of imposing castigations of the kind we
mention, upon naked sinners; and a flagellation publicly submitted
to, has been made one of the essential ceremonies to be gone through,
for obtaining the inestimable advantage of the repeal of a sentence
of excommunication: the Roman Ritual expressly mentioning and
requiring this test of the culprit’s contrition.

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].’

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

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._

As a farther indulgence to the King who was thus disciplined by
proxy, and very likely also out of regard for the age in which the
ceremony was performed, the two Gentlemen who represented him, were
suffered to keep their coats on, during the operation; and the lashes
seem moreover not to have been laid upon them, with any great degree
of vigour. However, some persons at the Court of France, either out
of envy against the two above Gentlemen, on account of the commission
with which the King had honoured them, or with a view to divert
themselves, had, it seems, circulated a report, that, on the day of
the ceremony, the 17th of September 1595, they had been made actually
to strip in the Church, and undergo a dreadful flagellation. This
report M. D’Ossat contradicts in one of his Letters, the collection
of which has been printed; and he says, that the discipline in
question was performed to comply with the rules set down in the
_Pontifical_, but that ‘they felt it no more than if it had been a
fly that had passed over them, being so well coated as they were.’

Very express mention of the above discipline was nevertheless made,
as hath been above observed, in the written process drawn on the
occasion; though the French Ministers would not suffer it to be
joined with the Bull of absolution which was sent to the King for
his acceptation, and in which no such account was contained. This,
another French Author observes, did not prevent the Italians from
deriving triumph from the event, and saying that the King of France
had been disciplined at Rome.

From the above two instances of Henry II. of England, and Henry IV.
of France (the authenticity of which is beyond any doubt) we find
that two crowned Heads, Kings of the two most powerful States in
Europe, both of the name of Henry, have publicly submitted to the
discipline of flagellation, either in their own person, or by proxy:
the one, to preserve his Crown; and the other, in order to qualify
himself for taking possession of it. I desire the judicious Reader to
ponder well all these facts, and not to charge me with having chosen
too unimportant a subject to treat in this Work.

It may be added, that an instance of a Sovereign submitting to a
flagellation, may be seen in our days, at every vacancy of the See
of Wurtzburgh; a sovereign Bishoprick in Germany. It is an antient
custom in the Chapter of that Church, that the person who has been
elected to fill the place of the late Bishop, must, before he can
obtain his installation, run the gantlope, naked to the waist,
between the Canons, who are formed in two rows, and supplied with
rods. Some say this custom was established in order to discourage
the German Princes from being Candidates for the above Bishoprick;
but perhaps also the Canons who established the same, had no other
design than procuring the pleasure to themselves and successors, when
they should afterwards see their equal become their Sovereign, of
remembering that they had cudgelled him.

Other facts, besides that of Henry the Second, shew that the power
of the Clergy was carried as far, at least, in England, as in any
other Country. Bishop Goodwin relates, that in the reign of Edward
I. Sir Osborn Gifford, of Wiltshire, having assisted in the escape
of two Nuns from the Convent of Wilton, John Peckham, who was then
Archbishop of Canterbury, made him submit, before he absolved him
of his excommunication, to be publicly whipped, on three successive
Sundays, in the Parish Church of Wilton, and also in the Market and
Church of Shaftsbury[97].

[97] See Dr. Berkenhout’s _Biographia Litteraria_, Art. _John
Peckham_.

CHAP. XVIII.

  _The glory of flagellations completed: they are made use of for
  curing heresy._

Among all the instances contained in this Book, of the extensive
advantages of flagellations, we certainly ought not to omit
mentioning the application that has been made of them to the
information of Heretics; the holy personages whose office it was to
convert them, having frequently recurred to them as an excellent
expedient, either for opening the eyes of such as absolutely refused
to believe, or for confirming the faith of those who did as yet
believe but imperfectly. As one instance of that use of flagellations
we speak of, we may mention that of Bonner, Bishop of London, who,
though he had, under the reign of Henry VIII. consented to the schism
which then took place in the Church, made it his constant practice,
under Queen Mary, to fustigate the Protestants with rods with his
own hands, at least if we are to credit the account given by Bishop
Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, in England[98].

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

FOOTNOTES:

[98] I do not remember to have met with the above fact in Burnet:
Mr. Hume, who also mentions it, quotes, it seems, another Author:
however, Bishop Burnet relates a fact of much the same nature, which
is that of Mr. James Bainham, a Gentleman of the Temple, who was
accused of favouring the new opinions: Chancellor More caused him
to be fustigated in his own (More’s) house, and thence sent him to
the Tower. The Abbé Boileau, from whose text I have really borrowed
the instance of Bishop Bonner, had however no occasion to look out
of his own Country, for instances of Heretics who have been reformed
by flagellations: though, to say the truth, that instance, together
with that of Chancellor More, which is here added to it, are the more
interesting, in that they evince the great merit of flagellations,
since the Divines of all Countries have alike resorted to them.

CHAP. XIX.

  _The subject of the merit of flagellations, continued. Holy
  persons, though without any public authority, have used them
  occasionally, in order to give weight to their admonitions._

The general esteem for flagellations, which had led people to
consider them as an infallible method of atoning for past sins, also
induced them to think they would be extremely useful to strengthen
those admonitions with which it is the duty of good Christians
to assist each other. Hence we find that Saints, who, like other
persons, have been pretty free with their advices to other men, have
frequently assumed a power to corroborate them by flagellations.

Among those instances of corrections bestowed by Saints upon persons
who did not ask them for their advice, none can be quoted more
remarkable than that of St. Romuald, who, on a certain occasion,
severely flagellated his very Father, whose conduct he disapproved,
as Cardinal Damian relates, who, we may observe, greatly approves
the action of the Saint. The following is the account given by the
Cardinal. ‘After he had received permission for that purpose from
his Superiors, he set out upon his intended journey, without either
horse or cart, but only with a stick in his hand, and with his feet
bare; and, from the remotest borders of France, at last reached
Ravenna. There finding his Father determined to return to the World,
he put him in the stocks; he tied him with heavy chains, dealt hard
blows to him, and continued using him with this pious severity, till,
by the favour of God, he had brought his soul back to a state of
salvation[99].’

To those flagellations bestowed by Saints upon persons who did not
ask for them, we may safely add those with which they have, at
different times, served such Ladies, as, smitten with their charms
(with the Saints charms, I mean) have ventured to make them proposals
totally inconsistent with their virtue. These proposals the Saints
not only constantly rejected magnanimously, but moreover seldom
dismissed the Ladies who attempted them, without making them feel the
points of their disciplines. This was the manner in which St. Edmund,
who was afterwards Bishop of Canterbury, behaved on an occasion
like those we mention, as the learned Claude Despence, a Parisian
Theologian, relates in his Book on _Continence_. St. Edmund, the
above Writer says, during the time he was pursuing his studies in
Paris, was solicited by a young Woman to commit with her the sin of
fornication; he thereupon bade her come to his study, where, after
tearing off her clothes, he flagellated her naked, so severely, that
he covered her whole body with stripes[100].

Brother Mathew, of Avignon, a Capuchin Friar who lived about the year
1540, and spent many years in Corsica with a reputation of sanctity,
gave just such another capital instance of virtue as that exhibited
by St. Edmund. The Saint having been charitably received in a certain
Castle in Piedmont, where he was then begging about the Country, a
young Lady, extremely handsome, and of noble birth, came during the
night, stripped to her shift, to visit him, in the room that had
been assigned to him, and approaching the bed in which he was asleep,
solicited him to commit the carnal sin. But the holy Friar, instead
of answering her, ‘took up his discipline, made with sound and
well-knotted Spanish small cords, and flagellated her so briskly upon
her thighs, her posteriors, and back, that he not only made her blush
with shame, but moreover left upon her skin numberless visible marks
of the lecture he gave her[101].’

To these instances of the holy severity with which Saints have
treated such Ladies as ventured to make attempts upon their virtue,
may be added that of Bernardin of Sienna, according to the account
given by Surius; for the virtue of Saints has been exposed to more
dangers than the vulgar think of. ‘One day (says Surius) as Bernardin
was gone abroad to buy some bread, a Woman, the Wife of a Citizen
of Sienna, called him to her house: as soon as he had got into
it, she locked the door, and said, Unless you now let me have my
wish, I declare I will cover you with shame, and say that you have
offered violence to me. Bernardin, finding himself drawn into such a
dangerous situation, prayed to God, within himself, not to forsake
him; for he greatly detested that crime. God did not disregard his
prayer; he presently suggested to him to tell the Woman, that since
she would absolutely have it so, she must strip off her clothes. To
this the Woman made no objection; and she had scarcely done when
Bernardin exhibited his whip, which he happened to have about him,
and laying fast hold of her, began to exert it vigorously; nor did he
give up fustigating her, till her lustful ardour was extinguished.
She loved the holy Man the better for that afterwards; and so did her
Husband, when he knew how things had been transacted[102].’

[Illustration: _Page._ 264.]

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

FOOTNOTES:

[99] ... “_In ligno pedes ejus fortiter strinxit, gravibus eum
vinculis alligavit, verberibus duris afflixit, & tamdiù corpus ejus
piâ severitate perdomuit, donec ejus mentem ad salutis statum Deo
medente reduxit._”

[100] ... “_Eam ad musæum suum excivit, ibique spoliatam virgis
cæcidit, ac nudatum corpus vibicibus conscribillavit._”

[101] Here an opportunity occurs of giving a second specimen of the
Latin of the Abbé Boileau; the first was produced in p. 232.

... _Eandem flagello nodis asperato, ex funibus Ibericis compacto,
tamdiù diverberavit, totque vibicibus sulcos sanguinolentos in
femoribus, clunibus, ac scapulis diduxit, ut non solùm suffuso vi
pudoris, verum etiam effuso vi doloris, sanguine, fugaverit._

[102] ... _Eâ causâ impensiùs mulier amavit sanctum virum, itemque
maritus cjus, ubi comperit rem ab es gestam._

The accounts of the advances Ladies have made to the above holy
personages, must certainly give pleasure to the judicious and
sensible Reader. Considering the opinion entertained by a number of
persons, that Rakes, Coxcombs, and in general the most worthless part
of the male sex, are commonly the most welcome to the favours of the
Ladies, I think it reflects much honour upon them all, that several
have gone the greatest lengths in favour of Saints, and have set
aside, out of love for them, those rules of reserve and decency which
Ladies are otherwise so naturally inclined to respect.

In regard to the manner in which the Saints themselves used the
Ladies, it is certainly somewhat singular: however, I must postpone
giving my opinion about it, till a few remarks are made, on what more
precisely constitutes the subject of the foregoing Chapters, which
is the great merit and dignity of flagellations. In fact, we find
that Great Men, Conquerors, and Kings, have publicly submitted to
receiving them; and they have moreover occasionally inflicted them
with their own hands. The Reader may remember the method mentioned
at pag. 54 of this Work, which was adopted by the Grecian Heroes,
for conveying to their vanquished Opponents, a proper sense of
their superiority and indignation. And the same magnanimous kind of
admonition was also commonly made use of by the Romans, in regard to
those Kings or Generals whom they had taken in war.

Caligula, a Roman Emperor, did not disdain, as we read in Suetonius,
to use the same kind of correction, for silencing those who happened
to make a noise near him in the Theatre, and thereby prevented him
from attending to the play, and especially to his favourite Actor:
the culprit was instantly stripped; and the Emperor himself did the
rest[103].

Another Emperor we may name here, viz. Peter the First, of Russia. He
frequently condescended to bestow, with his own imperial hands, that
kind of Russian flagellation, the _Knout_: at other times, when he
could not attend to the business, he trusted the care of it to his
Buffoon Witaski; who was moreover invested with an unlimited power of
cudgelling those who came to pay their court to his Czarian Majesty.

The instances of flagellations above produced, have however been
confined to actions of Kings, Conquerors, Emperors, and Saints, or
to cases of great emergency, in which whole Nations were concerned,
such as the confutations of heresies, and the acquisition of
Sovereignties and Kingdoms; but if we descend into the different
spheres of private life, we shall find their advantages to have also
been very extensive.

Thus, flagellations have been useful to several persons, to make
their fortunes. Not to mention here the common story about those
who have been flagellated, when Boys, in the room of the Heir to
the Crown, we find that the two abovementioned Gentlemen, Messrs.
D’Ossat and Du Perron, who had had the honour to be disciplined at
Rome, on the account of their Royal Master, were afterwards, through
his interest, promoted to the high dignity of Cardinals, besides
obtaining considerable emoluments.

Others, though they have not gained such substantial advantages as
places and pensions, have acquired, which in the opinion of many
judicious persons is not less valuable, extensive reputations.
Some have acquired such reputations, by the flagellations they
have inflicted,--among these are to be ranked Cornelius Adriansen,
Zachary Crofton, and the Lady mentioned by Brantôme; and others,
by the flagellations they have undergone; such was Titus Oates, so
well known in the History of this Country; Bishop Burnet expressly
observing, that _this treatment did rather raise Oates’s reputation,
than sink it_. (A. 1685.)

In the intercourse of private life, though among persons
distinguished from the vulgar, flagellations, being employed as
corrections, have also proved of very great service.

Thus _bon-mots_, at the expence of other persons, satires, lampoons,
have, on numberless occasions, been confuted by flagellations. The
Reader surely has not forgotten the case of Miss de Limeuil, which
has been recited in a former place; nor that of the Court Buffoon
which is introduced in the same Chapter: and to these instances might
be added that of the Poet Clopinel, the Continuator of that old and
celebrated Romance, the _Roman de la Rose_, who was once very near
being flagellated by the Ladies of the Court of France, for his
having tried his wit at the expence of the Sex in general, as will be
related in another place.

Indeed, to discuss the subject of the usefulness of flagellations in
a manner adequate to its importance and extensiveness, would lead
us into narratives without end: I will therefore, for the sake of
shortness, content myself with adding a few facts to those before
recited; as, besides supplying interesting consequences, they are
sufficiently authenticated.

The first, which is very useful to prove that _the secrets of Ladies
ought never to be betrayed_, is that of the flagellation which was
inflicted on a certain Surgeon, who gave a loose to his tongue, at
the expence of a great Lady to whom his assistance had been useful.
The Lady I mean, was Wife to the Prince who became afterwards King
of France, under the name of Henry IV: she was herself much more
nearly allied to the Crown than the Prince her Husband, and would
have mounted the Throne in her own right, if it had not been for the
Salic Law. The Princess in question was learned, witty, handsome;
and she had, in particular, such a fine arm, that it was commonly
reported that the Marquis of Canillac, under whose guard she lived
for a while as state prisoner, fell in love with her on the sight of
it. With these qualifications she united gay, amorous dispositions,
having even been suspected to love the great Duke of Guise, who
afterwards nearly possessed himself of the Crown; and she had besides
a turn for political intrigues. During the celebrated civil wars
of the _League_, being in the City of Agen, she attempted to make
herself mistress of the place; but the opposite party having found
means to raise an insurrection against her, she was obliged to fly,
accompanied by a body of about 80 _Gentlemen_ and 40 soldiers: her
flight was even so precipitate, that she was obliged to get on
horseback without having time to procure a pillion, and in that
situation she rode a great number of miles, behind a gentleman, being
continually exposed to the greatest danger, for she passed through
a body of a thousand _Harquebusiers_, who killed several of her
followers: having at last reached a place of safety, she borrowed a
dry shift from a servant maid, and thence pursued her journey to the
next Town, named _Usson_, in _Auvergne_, where she recovered from
her fears. However, the great fatigue she had undergone, threw her
into a fever that lasted several days; and moreover, the want of that
comfortable accommodation which has been just mentioned, a pillion,
during her long precipitate flight, had caused that part of her body
on which she sat, to be in a sad condition. A Surgeon was therefore
applied to, to procure her relief; and such was the epulotick,
sarcotick, cicatrizive, incarnative, healing, consolidant, sanative,
nature of the salves he employed, that she was cured in a short time;
and thus far the Surgeon certainly deserved her thanks: but as he
afterwards indulged himself in idle stories concerning the cure he
had performed, the Princess, who heard of it, grew much incensed
against him, and caused him to be served with that kind of correction
which is the subject of the present dissertation; that is to say, she
caused him, as Scaliger assures, to be served with a flagellation
(_elle-lui fit donner les étrivieres_.)

Nobody certainly will think that the revenge taken by the above
Princess was improper; on the contrary, all persons will agree that
it was a very becoming satisfaction, and which she owed to herself.
It is true, every body looks with detestation upon the action of
the Princess of _Gonzaga_, commonly called _the fair Juliet_, who
caused a Gentleman to be assassinated, who had assisted her in
making her escape from the Town of Fondi, which the celebrated
Corsair Barbarossa had surprised during the night, with a view, as
it is said, to seize upon her person, in order to make a present
of her to the Grand-Signior,--being incensed at the remembrance of
the Gentleman having seen her run in her shift, across the fields,
by moon-light. But without making any remark on the difference of
the treatment the above Ladies had recourse to, it will suffice to
observe that no comparison can be made between the case of the above
Gentleman, and that of the Surgeon: the latter had been guilty of an
indiscretion of the blackest kind, and which none but a talkative
Frenchman could have committed; a thing with which we are not told
the Gentleman in question had been charged;--and when we reflect
on the enormity of his fault, instead of judging that he was too
severely used, we find he was treated with excessive mildness.

Indeed, the more we consider the circumstances of the whole affair,
the more we are affected by the treacherous conduct of that miserable
Surgeon. A wretch whom the Princess had distinguished in so
flattering a manner from all the other persons of the same profession
to whom she might have equally applied,--a scoundrel, a rascal, a
fellow, whom she had with so much affability acquainted with the
disagreeable situation in which she found herself, and to whom she
had, no doubt, afterwards given such a bountiful and magnificent
reward, for such a man to betray the secret of the Princess, and give
a loose to his prating tongue at her expence! He certainly richly
deserved the flagellation that was bestowed upon him, and, I hope
those whose duty it was to serve him with it, were animated with the
same sense of his guilt with which this article is written. To this
I shall add nothing, except that it is very likely that, conformably
to what has been observed in a former Chapter, the flagellation
inflicted on the above Surgeon, or Barber, was inflicted in the
Kitchen.

Flagellations have also been of service for punishing iniquitous
Judges. I could wish to have many instances of that kind to relate:
however, I will produce the following one. The story made its
appearance in a news-paper, some years ago, at the time of the
great paper-war that was waged about the American affairs, before
the beginning of actual hostilities. The Writer who sent it to the
_Gazetteer_, had adopted the signature of _A Boston Saint_; and as
it made the whole of his first Essay, he had meant it, it seems,
as a sort of specimen to introduce himself by, to the notice of the
Public: he continued to write under that signature; and proved equal,
at least, to any of those who drew their pens on the occasion, and
even was decisively superior in point of local knowledge of the
Colonies. The Story, which will be inserted in that Writer’s own
words, gives a curious insight into the puritanical manners that
prevailed in the New-England Provinces. Now, that they have the
seat of their Government among them, these manners will undergo an
alteration: they cannot be much longer the leading fashion of the
Country.

“About forty years ago, many of the Chief Saints, at Boston, met with
a sad mortification: yea, a mortification in the flesh.

“Captain St. Loe, Commander of a ship of War, then in Boston Harbour,
being ashore, on a Sunday, was apprehended by the Constables, for
walking on the Lord’s day. On Monday he was carried before a Justice
of the peace: he was fined; refused to pay it; and for his contumacy
and contempt of authority, was sentenced to sit in the Stocks, one
hour, during the time of Change. This sentence was put in execution,
without the least mitigation.

“While the Captain sat in durance, grave Magistrates admonished
him to respect in future the wholesome laws of the Province; and
Reverend Divines exhorted him ever after to reverence and keep holy
the Sabbath-day. At length the hour expired; and the Captain’s legs
were set at liberty.

“As soon as he was freed, he, with great seeming earnestness, thanked
the Magistrates for their correction, and the Clergy for their
spiritual advice and consolation; declaring that he was ashamed of
his past life; that he was resolved to put off the old Man of Sin,
and to put on the new Man of Righteousness; that he should ever pray
for them as instruments in the hands of God, of saving his sinful
soul.

“This sudden conversion rejoiced the Saints. After clasping their
hands, and casting up their eyes to heaven, they embraced their new
Convert, and returned thanks for being made the humble means of
snatching a soul from perdition. Proud of their success, they fell
to exhorting him afresh; and the most zealous invited him to dinner,
that they might have full time to complete their work.

“The Captain sucked in the milk of exhortation, as a new-born babe
does the milk of the breast. He was as ready to listen as they were
to exhort. Never was a Convert more assiduous, while his station
in Boston Harbour lasted: he attended every Sabbath-day their most
sanctified Meeting-house; never missed a weekly lecture; at every
private Conventicle, he was most fervent and loudest in prayer. He
flattered, and made presents to the Wives and Daughters of the Godly.
In short, all the time he could spare from the duties of his station,
was spent in entertaining them on board his Ship, or in visiting and
praying at their houses.

“The Saints were delighted with him beyond measure. They compared
their wooden Stocks to the voice of Heaven, and their Sea-convert to
St. Paul; who, from their enemy, was become their Doctor.

“Amidst their mutual happiness, the mournful time of parting arrived.
The Captain received his recall. On this he went round among the
Godly, and wept and prayed, assuring them he would return, and end
his days among his friends in the Lord.

“Till the day of his departure, the time was spent in regrets,
professions, entertainments, and prayer. On that day, about a dozen
of the principal Magistrates, including the Select-men, accompanied
the Captain to Nantasket Road, where the Ship lay, with every thing
ready for sailing.

“An elegant dinner was provided for them on board; after which many
bowls and bottles were drained. As the blood of the Saints waxed
warm, the crust of their hypocrisy melted away: their moral see-saws;
and Scripture-texts, gave place to double-entendres, and wanton
songs: the Captain encouraged their gaiety; and the whole Ship
resounded with the roar of their merriment.

“Just at that time, into the Cabin burst a body of Sailors, who, to
the inexpressible horror and amazement of the Saints, pinioned them
fast. Heedless of cries and intreaties, they dragged them upon deck,
where they were tied up, stripped to the buff, and their breeches
let down; and the Boatswain with his Assistants, armed with dreadful
cat-o’-nine-tails provided for the occasion, administered unto them
the law of Moses in the most energetic manner. Vain were all their
prayers, roarings, stampings, and curses: the Captain in the mean
time assuring them, that it was consonant to their own doctrine and
to Scripture, that the mortification of the flesh tended towards the
saving of the Soul, and therefore it would be criminal in him to
abate them a single lash.

“When they had suffered the whole of their discipline, which had
flayed them from the nape of the neck to the hams, the Captain took
a polite leave, earnestly begging them to remember him in their
prayers. They were then let down into the boat that was waiting
for them: the Crew saluted them with three cheers; and Captain St.
Loe made sail. The Boston Select-men, to this day, when they hear
of the above, grin like infernal Dæmons, out of sympathy to their
predecessors[104].”

Another use that has been made of flagellations among polite people,
and distinguished from the vulgar, has been to repress the aspiring
views of rivals who pretended (unjustly, as the others thought) to an
equality in point of birth, wit, beauty, or other accomplishments.
On this occasion we might relate the treatment that was inflicted by
two Ladies of noble family, near the Town of Saumur, in France, on
the daughter of a wealthy Farmer, whose beauty had caused her to be
invited to an entertainment that was given in a neighbouring Castle,
or Manor: an affair which attracted the notice of the Public, at the
time (A. 1730) as we may judge from the account of it being contained
in the collection of _Celebrated Causes_ decided in the French
Courts of Law. But our attention is called off by another much more
interesting instance of the same kind, which happened in the reign of
Lewis the Fourteenth, and made a very great noise. I mean to speak of
the flagellation that was served by the Marchioness of Tresnel, on
the _Dame_, or Lady, of Liancourt: a fact which by all means deserves
a place in this Chapter, as being in itself an extremely illustrious
instance of flagellation. Indeed, one advantage the Author is proud
of, which is, that he has inserted nothing vulgar in this Book,
nothing but what is worthy the attention of persons of taste and
sentiment.

The Story is as follows. The Lady of Liancourt was originally born
of Parents in middling circumstances. Having had the good luck to
marry a rich Merchant, she had address enough to prevail upon him
to leave her, at his death, which happened a few years after their
marriage, the bulk of his fortune; and, being now a rich, handsome
Widow, she married the _Sieur_, or Lord, of Liancourt; a man of
birth, whose fortune was somewhat impaired by his former expensive
way of living. The Lady of Liancourt used to reside, during the
summer, at the Castle, or Estate, of her Husband, near the town of
Chaumont: and in the same neighbourhood was situated the Estate
of the Marquis of Tresnel. The manner of living of the Lady of
Liancourt, together with the reputation of her wit and beauty,
excited the jealousy of the Marchioness of Tresnel, who, on account
of her birth, considered herself as being greatly superior to the
other: and a strong competition soon took place between the two
Ladies, which became manifested in several places in a remarkable
manner, especially at Church, where the Marchioness went once so
far as violently to push the other Lady from her seat: the Lady of
Liancourt, on the other hand, was said to have written a copy of
verses against the Marchioness; and in short, matters were carried
to such lengths between them, that the Marchioness resolved to damp
at once the pretensions of her rival, and for that purpose applied
to that effectual mode of correction which, as hath been seen in
the course of this Book, so many great and celebrated personages
have undergone, namely, a flagellation. Having well laid her scheme
in that respect, and resolved that her rival should undergo the
correction, not by proxy, like King Henry the Fourth, but in her
own person, the Marchioness, one day she knew the Lady of Liancourt
was to visit at a Castle a few miles distant from her own, got into
her coach and six, accompanied by four Men behind, and three armed
Servants on horseback; and care had been previously taken to lay in a
stock of good disciplines, which were placed in the coach-box. Having
arrived too late at the place on the highway at which she proposed
to meet her antagonist, the Marchioness alighted at the house of the
Curate of the Parish, in order to wait for her return, and staid
there, under some pretence, several hours, till at last a Servant who
had been left on the watch, came in haste, and brought tidings that
the Lady Liancourt’s coach was in sight: the Marchioness thereupon
got into her coach with the utmost speed, and arrived just in time
to throw herself across the way, and stop the other Lady; when the
Servants, who had been properly directed beforehand, without loss
of time took the latter out of her coach, immediately proceeding
to execute the orders they had received: and, from the complaint
afterwards preferred by the suffering Lady, it really seems that
they endeavoured to discharge their duty in such a manner as might
convince their Mistress of their zeal in serving her.

The affair soon made a great noise, and the King, who heard of it,
immediately sent express orders to the Husbands of the Ladies to
take no share in the quarrel. The Lady of Liancourt applied to the
ordinary course of law, and brought a criminal action against the
Marchioness, before the Parliament of Paris; the consequence of which
was, that the latter was condemned to ask her pardon in open Court
upon her knees, and to pay her about two thousand pounds damages,
besides being banished from the whole extent of the jurisdiction of
the Parliament. The Servants, who are generally very severely dealt
with in France, when they suffer themselves to become the instruments
of the violence of their Masters, were sent to the Gallies. And Miss
De Villemartin, who had been co-spectatress of the flagellation, in
the same coach with the Marchioness, and had shared her triumph, was
summoned to appear personally in Court, there to be _admonished_,
and condemned to pay a fine of twenty livres, ‘for the bread of the
prisoners[105].’

That part of the bodies of their enemies, to which Captain St.
Loe, and the above-named Marchioness, directed the corrections and
insults by which they proposed to humble them, naturally leads us to
remark the opposite lights in which that part has been considered by
Mankind, and to notice the fantastical and contradictory disposition
of the human mind.

The part we mention, which, to follow the common definition that is
given of it, is that part on which Man sits, is, of itself, extremely
deserving of our esteem. It is, in the first place, a characteristic
part and appendage of Mankind: it is formed by the expansion of
muscles which, as Anatomists inform us, exist in no other animal, and
are intirely proper to the human species.

Nor does that part confer upon Man a distinction from animals, that
is of an honorific kind merely, like the faculty of walking in an
erect situation, which, as Ovid remarks, enables him to behold the
Sun or the Stars, as he goes forward: but, by allowing him to sit,
it enables him to calculate the motions, whether real or apparent,
of those same Stars, to ascertain their revolutions, and foreknow
their periodical returns. It puts him in a condition to promote the
liberal Arts and Sciences, Music, Painting, Algebra, Geometry, &c.
not to mention the whole tribe of mechanic Arts and manufactures.
It even is, by that power of _assiduity_ (or of being _seated_) it
confers upon Man, so useful to the study of the Law, that it has been
looked upon as being no less conducive to it than the head itself,
with which it has, in that respect, been expressly put upon a par;
and it is a common saying in the Universities abroad, that, in order
to succeed in that study, a Man must have an _iron head_, and _leaden
posteriors_; to which they add, a _golden purse_, to buy books
with:--_caput ferreum, aurea crumena, nates plumbeæ_.

Nor does the part of the human body we mention, only serve to make
Man a learned and industrious animal; but it moreover contributes
much to the beauty of the species, being itself capable of a great
degree of beauty.

Without mentioning the opinion of different savage Nations on that
account, who take great pains to paint and adorn that part, we see
that the Greeks, who certainly were a well-cultivated and polite
People, entertained high notions of its beautifulness. They even
seem to have thought that it had the advantage, in that respect,
of all the other parts of the human body; for, though we do not
find that they ever erected altars to fine arms, fine legs, fine
eyes, or even to a handsome face, yet, they had done that honour to
the part we mention, and had expressly erected a Temple to Venus,
under the appellation of Venus _with fair posteriors_ (Ἀφροδίτη
Καλλίπυγη): the above Temple was built, as some say, on occasion of
a quarrel that arose between two Sisters, who contended which of
the two was most elegantly shaped in the part we mention; a quarrel
that happened to make a great noise. To this we may add, by the by,
that so little did the Greeks in general think that the part we
allude to, was undeserving of attention, that they sometimes drew
from it indications of the different tempers of people; and they,
for instance, gave the appellation of a _Man with white posteriors_
(Πύγαργος) to a Man whom they meant to charge with having too much
softness and nicety.

The Latins entertained the same notions with the Greeks, as to the
beauty of that part, or those parts, on which Man sits. Horace more
than once bestows upon them the appellation of _fair_ (_pulchræ_):
he even in one place expressly declares it as his opinion, that, for
a Mistress to be defective in those parts (_depygis_) is one of the
greatest blemishes she can have,--is a defect equal to that of being
with a flat nose (_nasuta_) or a long foot, and is in short capable
of spoiling, where it exists, all other bodily accomplishments.
(_Hor. Sat. 2. Lib. I._)

Among the Moderns, notions of the same kind have prevailed. Rabelais,
a well-known Writer, places one of his best stories to the account
of a certain Nun, whom he calls _Sister_, or _Sœur Fessue_; which he
would not certainly have done, if he had not been of opinion that the
size and exact shape of those parts of the Nun’s body from which he
denominated her, were in the number of her greatest perfections.

In times posterior to Rabelais, other Writers among the French, have
expressed opinions exactly alike. La Fontaine, if I mistake not,
speaking in one of his Tales, of a certain Beauty whose charms he
means to extoll, exclaims, ‘Breasts, Heaven knows, and a rump fit for
a Canon!’

  _Tetins, Dieu fait, & croupe de Chanoine!_

And the celebrated Poet Rousseau, happening, in one of his Epigrams,
to speak of the abovementioned Temple which the Greeks had erected to
Venus, declares that it would have been that Temple of Greece which
he would have frequented with the greatest devotion.

Nay, other persons have thought, that, besides the above advantages,
the part we mention was moreover capable of dignity, and partaking
of the importance of its owners. This is an opinion which the Poet
Scarron (to continue to draw our examples from French Authors)
clearly expressed, in a copy of verses he wrote to a certain Lady,
whose Husband having lately been made a Duke, she had thereby
acquired a right to be seated in the Queen’s Assembly, or, as they
express it, had been given the _Tabouret_ (a stool.) ‘To the no small
pleasure of all (said Scarron, who, we may observe, had assumed a
right to say every thing he pleased) and of your own legs, your
Backside, which is without doubt one of the handsomest Backsides in
France, like a Backside of importance, has at last, at the Queen’s,
received the _Tabouret_.’

      _Au grand plaisir de tous & de vôtre jarret,
      Vôtre cû, qui doit être un des beaux cûs de France,
      Comme un cû d’importance,
      A recu chez la Reine enfin le tabouret._

Favourable sentiments of the kind just mentioned, seem also to
have been entertained by the celebrated Lord Bolingbroke, whose
distinguished character as a Statesman, a Politician, and a
Philosopher, render him extremely fit to be quoted in this place:
it was on that part of his Mistress’s body we are alluding to, his
Lordship, then a Secretary of State, chose to write, and to sign, one
of the most important dispatches of his Ministry, and on which the
repose of Europe depended at that time[106].

In fine, others have carried their notions still farther, and have
thought that the part in question was capable, not only of beauty
and dignity, but even of splendor. Thus, Mons. Pavillon, a French
_Bel Esprit_ under the reign of Lewis XIV. who filled the office of
King’s General Advocate at Metz, who was one of the forty Members
of the French Academy, and Nephew to a Bishop, wrote a copy of
verses that is inserted in the Collection of his _Works_, which he
intitled, _Métamorphose du Cû d’Iris en Astre_. ‘The Metamorphose of
Iris’s Bum, into a Star.’ By a Star of that kind, the Duke of York,
afterwards King James II., was dazzled, when he became enamoured with
Miss Arabella Churchill, a Maid of Honour to the Duchess, at the time
that Lady had a fall from her horse, in a party of hunting: and to
his Royal Highness being so dazzled, the first advancement of the
great Duke of Marlborough, then Mr. Churchill, the Lady’s Brother,
became owing; together with the capital advantages that accrued to
this Nation, from his getting afterwards into great employments.

Yet, on the other hand, we find that that same part, which has
been thought by some to possess so many accomplishments, and has
accordingly become the subject of their respect and their admiration,
has been made by others, the object of their scoffs, and expressly
chosen as a mark to direct their insults to.

The facts that have been recited a few pages before this, might be
produced as confirmations of this remark. The prevailing vulgar
practice, in cases of provocation, of threatening, or even serving,
the part in question with kicks, might also be mentioned on this
occasion. But it will be better to observe in general, that, among
all Nations, the part we are speaking of, has been deemed a most
proper place for beatings, lashings, and slappings.

That this notion prevailed among the Romans, we are informed by the
passages of Plautus, and of St. Jerom, that are recited in the sixth
Chapter of this Book (p. 94, 95.) The same practice was also adopted
by the Greeks, as may be proved by the instance of the Philosopher
Peregrinus, which has been mentioned in the same Chapter. And under
the reign of the Emperors, when the two Nations (the Greek and Roman)
had, as it were, coalesced into one, the same notions concerning
the fitness of the same part, to bear verberations and insults,
continued to prevail. Of this we have a singular instance in the
manner in which the statue of the Emperor Constantine was treated,
at the time of the revolt of the Town of Edessa: the inhabitants,
not satisfied with pulling that statue down, in order to aggravate
the insult flagellated it on the part we mention. Libanius the
_Rhetor_ informs, us of this fact, in the Harangue he addressed
to the Emperor Theodosius, after the great revolt of the City of
Antioch; in which he mentions the pardon granted by Constantine for
the above indignity, as an argument to induce the Emperor to forgive
the inhabitants of the last-mentioned City: a request, however, which
Libanius was not so happy as to obtain.

Among the French, notions of the same kind likewise prevail. Of this,
not to confine ourselves to particular facts, we may derive proofs
from their language itself; in which the verb that is derived from
the word by which the part here alluded to, is expressed, signifies
of itself, and without the addition of any other word, to beat or
verberate it: thus, Mons. de Voltaire supposes his Princess Cunegonde
to say to Candide,--_Tandis qu’on vous fessoit, mon cher Candid_;
by which, however, that Author does not mean expressly to say that
Candide was flagellated upon the part we speak of, by order of the
Inquisition; he only uses the above word to render his story more
jocular. From the above French word _fesser_, has been again derived
the noun _fessade_, signifying a verberation on the same part; the
same as the word _claque_ (or _clack_, as they pronounce it) which
originally meant a flap in general, but, by a kind of _antonomatia_
(a particular figure of speech) is now come expressly to signify a
slap on the part in question. Among the Italians, the practice of
verberating the same part, also obtains, if we are to trust to proofs
likewise derived from their language; and from the word _chiappa_,
they have made that of _chiappata_, the meaning of which is the same
with that of the French word _claque_.

If we turn our eyes to remote Nations, we find they entertain notions
of the same sort. Among the Turks, a verberation on the part we
speak of, is the common punishment that is inflicted either on the
Janissaries, or Spahis; I do not remember which of the two. Among
the Persians, punishments of the same kind are also established; and
we find in Chardin, an instance of a Captain of the outward gate of
the King’s Seraglio, who was served with it, for having suffered
a stranger to stop before that gate, and look through it. And the
Chinese also use a like method of chastisement, and inflict it, as
Travellers inform us, with a wooden instrument, shaped like a large
solid rounded spoon.

Among the Arabians, the part here alluded to, is likewise considered
as a fit mark for blows and slaps. We find an instance of this, in
one of the Arabian Tales, called _The one thousand and one Nights_:
an original Book, and which contains true pictures of the manners
of that Nation. The story I mean, which is well worth reminding the
reader of, is that of a certain Cobler, whose name, if I mistake not,
was Shak-Abak. This Cobler having fallen in love with a beautiful
Lady belonging to some wealthy Man, or Man of power, of whom he had
had a glance through the window of her house, would afterwards keep
for whole hours every day, staring at that window. The Lady, who
proposed to make game of him, one day sent one of her female slaves
to introduce him to her, and then gave him to understand, that if he
could overtake her, by running after her through the apartments of
her house, he would have the enjoyment of her favours: he was besides
told, that in order to run more nimbly, he must strip to his shirt.
To all this Shak-Abak agreed; and after a number of turns, up and
down the house, he was at last enticed into a long, dark, and narrow
passage, at the farthest extremity of which an open door was to be
perceived; he made to it as fast as he could, and when he had reached
it, rushed headlong through it; when, to his no small astonishment,
the door instantly shut upon him, and he found himself in the
middle of a public street of Bagdat, which was chiefly inhabited
by shoemakers. A number of these latter, struck at the sudden
and strange appearance of the unfortunate Shak-Abak, who, besides
stripping to his shirt, had suffered his eye-brows to be shaved, laid
hold of him, and, as the Arabian Author relates, soundly lashed his
posteriors with their straps.

If we turn again to European Nations, we shall meet with farther
instances of the same kind of correction. It was certainly adopted in
Denmark, and even in the Court of that Country, towards the latter
end of the last Century, as we are informed by Lord Molesworth, in
his _Account of Denmark_. It was the custom, his Lordship says,
at the end of every hunting-match at Court, that, in order to
conclude the entertainment with as much festivity as it had begun, a
proclamation was made,--if any could inform against any person who
had infringed the known laws of hunting, let him stand forth and
accuse. As soon as the contravention was ascertained, the culprit
was made to kneel down between the horns of the stag that had been
hunted; two of the Gentlemen removed the skirts of his coat; when the
King, taking a small long wand in his hand, laid a certain number
of blows, which was proportioned to the greatness of the offence,
on the culprit’s breech; whilst, in the mean time (the Noble Author
adds) the Huntsmen with their brass horns, and the dogs with their
loud openings, proclaimed the King’s Justice, and the Criminal’s
punishment: the scene affording diversion to the Queen, and the whole
Court, who stood in a circle about the place of execution[107].

Among the Dutch, verberations on the posteriors are equally in use;
and a serious flagellation on that part, is the punishment which
is established at the Cape of Good Hope, one of their Colonies, as
Kolben informs us in his _Description_ of it, for those who are found
smoaking tobacco in the streets: a practice which has frequently been
there the cause of houses being set in fire.

In Poland, a _lower_ discipline is the penance constantly inflicted
upon fornicators, in Convents, previously to tying them together by
the bond of matrimony; or sometimes afterwards.

In England, castigations of the same kind, not to quote other
instances, are adopted among that respectable part of the Nation,
the Seamen, as we find in Falconer’s Marine Dictionary; and a
_Cobbing-board_ is looked upon as a necessary part of the rigging of
his Majesty’s ships.

Among the Spaniards, they so generally consider the part of the
human body of which we are treating here, as the properest to bear
ill usage and mortification, that in every place there is commonly
some good Friar who makes his posteriors answerable for the sins
of the whole Parish; and who, according as he has been fee’d for
that purpose, flogs himself, or at least tells his Customers he
has done so: hence the common Spanish saying, which is mentioned
in the History of Friar Gerundio de Campazas, _Yo soi el culo del
Frayle_;--‘I am as badly off as the Friar’s backside;’ which is
said by persons who think that they are made to pay, or suffer, for
advantages they are not admitted to share.

Nor is the above method of self-correction confined to Spanish
friars only: it is likewise adopted by a number of religious Orders
of Men, established in the other Countries of Europe. It is also by
correlations directed to the same part, that is to say, by Cornelian
disciplines, that numbers of pious Confessors, zealous for the
purity of the morals of their female penitents, endeavour to procure
their improvement. Nay, it is upon the same part we speak of, upon
that part to which the Greeks had erected a Temple, that the whole
tribe of Nuns and female Devotees constantly choose to practice
those mortifications and _lower disciplines_ by which they seek to
atone for their sins; and several among them really treat that part,
by which they perhaps have the best chance to create themselves
admirers, with wonderful severity.

The above Dissertation, which, before I engaged in it, I did not
think would prove so long, or so interesting, has till now kept
me from delivering my opinion concerning those flagellations with
which certain holy Men have served those Ladies who ventured to
make amorous applications to them: a satisfaction which, before I
conclude, I must give the Reader, as having pledged my word for it.
Now, to fulfill my engagement in that respect, I declare that I
totally disapprove such flagellations; and I am firmly of opinion
that this kind of treatment ought to be ranked among those actions of
Saints, which, as hath been observed in a former place, are not fit
for all persons to imitate.

In fact, we find that several Authors, among those who best knew the
world, and were excellent Judges of propriety, who had occasion to
describe situations like those in which the above Saints were placed,
have made their personages act in quite a different manner from that
in which the Saints behaved; and on this occasion we may mention the
conduct of Parson Adams, one of the Heroes of _Fielding_, in that
celebrated night he spent at Lady Booby’s. If, in the first instance,
he, as must be confessed, gave Mrs. Slipslop that remembrance in her
guts mentioned by the Author, it was not till she had herself given
him a dreadful cuff on his chops; besides that he did not know yet
her sex, nor what she meant. But when he afterwards found himself
in the same bed with Fanny, which, as he thought, was his own bed,
he shrunk, as it were, and retired to the farthest extremity of it,
where he lay quiet, and above all manifested no thought whatever of
flagellating her; which if he had done, Joseph would not certainly
have thanked him for it.

Don Quixote, in _Cervantes_, when the lovely Maritornes came
during the night to his bed, and threw herself into his arms, had
no thought of employing either whips or straps for dismissing the
amorous Fair-one; and certainly if he had applied to an expedient
of this kind, he would have had no right to complain of the boxes
and kicks with which the Muleteer presently after belaboured him in
the dark. But, like a gallant and exceedingly well-bred Knight, he
excused himself from the nature of the anterior engagements he was
under, and above all did not forget to pay proper compliments to
the Lady’s beauty and great perfections. Indeed, the speech which
the Knight addressed to the fair Maritornes, may be proposed as a
pattern of compliment for occasions of the kind. ‘Oh! thou most
lovely temptation! Oh that I now might but pay a warm acknowledgment
for the mighty blessing which your great goodness would lavish on
me! Yes, most beautiful Charmer, I would give an empire to purchase
your more desirable embraces; but Fate has put to it an invincible
obstacle; I mean my plighted faith to Dulcinea _del Toboso_, the sole
mistress of my wishes, and absolute sovereign of my heart. Oh! did
not this oppose my present happiness, I could never be so insensible
a Knight as to lose the benefit of this extraordinary favour you now
condescend to offer me.’

Nor ought the Gentleman, after delivering the above speech, or
some other equally respectful, to stop there; it would be moreover
extremely proper for him to desire the Lady to do him the honour to
sit upon his bed, and then enter into a fuller explanation of his
conduct, and of the nature of those prior engagements by which he is
so fatally tied.

This done, and the Lady being perfectly convinced of the propriety of
his conduct, he should rise from his bed, and offer to attend her,
I do not say to the bottom of the stairs, and so far as the street
door, for that might be the means of discovering the secret of the
affair to other persons and endangering the Lady’s reputation, but to
the remotest door of his own apartment. I would moreover have him, in
his passage to that door, keep the Lady’s hand tenderly squeezed in
his own, and all the while manifest, by the nature of his gestures
and exclamations, the grief under which he labours. And lastly, when
he had reached the furthest place to which he may safely conduct her,
he ought to take leave of her by a low and most respectful bow, in
order completely to convince her, that the kindness she had ventured
to shew him, has not, in the least, lowered her in his esteem.

Such, dear Reader, is the manner in which, for my own part, I have
always acted on those delicate occasions we are speaking of. However,
I do not pretend to dictate to others the manner in which they
ought to behave, nor insist upon any of the above circumstances in
particular. All I intreat of you, is, by all means to forbear to use
those sudden and harsh flagellations that were recurred to, by St.
Edmund, St. Bernardin of Sienna, and Brother Mathew. Such a treatment
savours too much of ingratitude: nay, to have recourse to it, is
cruel in the extreme; it is heaping distress upon the distressed.
Nor are you to expect that the Lady will love you the better for it
afterwards, as was the case with St. Bernardin of Sienna; on the
contrary, such a proceeding on your part, if it were once known,
would irreparably destroy your reputation with the whole Sex, and
you may depend, no proposal or application of the like kind would
be made to you ever after. Now, though you may be ever so firmly
determined to reject all proposals like these; yet, as every Lady
will tell you, it is no unpleasing thing to have them made to you:
besides that you do not know but you may afterwards alter your
resolution.

[103] He punished differently, on a certain occasion, a Roman Knight
who had been guilty of the abovementioned fault. He sent him, without
delay, to carry a letter to Africa; without allowing the time to call
at his house, and take leave of his family.

[104] _Gazetteer_--_Tuesday_, Dec. 20, 1774. The main circumstances
of the same fact are also to be found in Dr. Burnaby’s _Travels
through the middle Settlements of North America_, published in the
year 1775.

[105] _Causes célèbres_, Vol. IV.

[106] Miss Gumley.--She became a few years afterwards, Countess of
Bath. His Lordship, no doubt, boasted of the fact, as it seems to
have made some noise at the time.

[107] See Lord Molesworth’s _Account of Denmark_, IVth Edit. p. 108,
109.

CHAP. XX.

  _The fondness of people for flagellations, gives rise to a number
  of incredible stories on that subject._

The supporters of the practice of flagellation did not confine their
endeavours in recommending it, to setting the example of it, like
Rodolph of Eugubio, or Dominic the Cuirassed, or to supporting it by
arguments and voluminous writings, like Cardinal Damian; but they
mixed their accounts with numbers of stories of an extravagant kind;
whether their enthusiasm in favour of the practice in question,
induced them to believe such stories to be true, or they thought that
their very incredibility would be extremely fit to bring into credit
with the vulgar, a doctrine in favour of which they were themselves
so prepossessed.

Thus, flagellations were given out by some, as having the power of
rescuing souls from Hell itself; a thing which even Masses, though
constantly used to draw them out of Purgatory, were not thought to be
able to perform. As an instance of the stories that were circulated
on that account, may be produced the following, related by one
_Vincent_, who lived in the year 1256.

‘Archbishop Umbert (says Vincent) recited, that in the Monastery of
St. Sylvester, in the duchy of Urbino, in Italy, a certain Monk died;
and the Brothers continued singing Psalms by his body, from the first
evening crowing of the Cock, till two o’clock in the morning, and as
soon as they began, in the Mass they celebrated for his sake, to sing
the _Agnus Dei_, behold! the dead Man suddenly rose. The Brothers,
greatly astonished, came near him, to hear what he had to say; when
he began to throw forth abuses and curses against God; he spit on the
Cross that was offered him to kiss; he uttered the most opprobrious
expressions against the immaculate Mother of God, and said, Of what
service to me is your singing psalms, and offering sacrifices? I
have been in the flames of Hell, where my Lord and Master Lucifer
placed a brass crown, glowing with inextinguishable heat, on my
head, and laid a coat of the same metal, with which himself was
covered, on my shoulders: this coat was not long enough to reach
down to my heels, but it was so violently heated, that drops seemed
to fall from it to the ground. The Brothers having then continued to
exhort him to repent of his sins, he anathemised them, and denied,
in a sacrilegious manner, all the mysteries of our Redeemer. The
Monks thereupon prayed for him heartily, and after stripping off
their clothes, flagellated themselves, uttering every manner of
supplication in his behalf; when behold! that desperate Man recovered
the use of his reason; he confessed the omnipotence of our Saviour;
he renounced the errors of Satan, adored the Cross, and intreated
to be admitted to the Sacrament of Confession and Penitence. Now,
the crime of which he accused himself was that of having committed
fornication, after he had renounced the world; a thing which he had
kept secret to his death. He thus continued to live, praising and
blessing God, to the next day, when he again gave up the ghost.’

Besides stories of the same kind with that above, which were
contrived to heighten the merit of flagellations, the admirers of
that practice have excogitated others, in order to terrify those
who declined adopting it, or attempted to confute it by arguments.
As a specimen of this, we may quote the report that was circulated
concerning Cardinal Stephen, which hath been mentioned in a former
place (p. 214) that he had died suddenly, for having despised the
exercise in question.

Another story, contrived in the same view we speak of, is to be
found in Thomas _de Chantpré’s_ Book, in which it is related of a
certain Hugh, a Canon of St. Victor, that, having on account of his
weak state of health, constantly forbore, during his life-time, the
use of flagellations, he paid dearly afterwards for this tender care
he had taken of his skin; for at his passage into Purgatory, the
whole tribe of Devils lashed him with scourges. ‘Hugh (says Thomas
de Chantpré) was one of the Regular Monks in the Monastery of St.
Victor, in Paris. He was called the second St. Austin, that is to
say, the second Man in point of learning since St. Austin; but though
he deserved much praise in that respect, yet, the same cannot be said
of his constant refusal to practice flagellations and disciplines,
for his quotidian misdeeds, either in private, or in the Chapter,
in company with the Brothers: he was, as I have been informed, of a
tender frame of body, and had, besides, been too much indulged in
his childhood. Now, because he took no pains to overcome by exercise
the defect of his nature, or rather his bad habit, very fatal
consequences ensued to him, as I am going to relate. Being near his
death, a brother Canon, who was his intimate friend, intreated him
to shew himself again to him, after he was dead. I will, says he, if
the Master of life and death consents to it. As Hugh was making this
promise, he died; nor was it long before he returned to his friend,
who was still in expectation of him, and said, Here I am; make haste
to ask what question you intend to ask, for I cannot stay. The
other, who, though he was exceedingly pleased, yet was not a little
frighted, said, How is it with you, my dear friend? It is well with
me, said Hugh; but because I have refused, while I was alive, to
receive discipline, there has hardly been a single Devil in the whole
infernal empire, but who gave me a smart lash, as I was in my way to
Purgatory.’

Others, in order to bring flagellations into still greater credit,
have supposed that the Devils themselves were so sensible of the
merit that was in them, that they would occasionally practise them
upon each other. Thus, St. Allen relates that the Holy Virgin Mary
having resolved to rescue a certain James Hall, an Usurer, from the
claws of the Dæmons, these unclean spirits, a great number of whom
were present, no sooner saw her make her appearance, than they took
to blaspheming, flagellated each other, and ran away.

The Devil himself has also, on certain occasions, prescribed
flagellations, as an atonement for sins; which is certainly wonderful
enough. It is related in the Life of St. Virgil, that a Man possessed
by the Devil, was fustigated with four rods, by the Devil’s
prescription, for having stolen four wax-candles from the Saint’s
altar. ‘I am not come (said the possessed Man) of my own accord;
but I have been compelled to it: I have carried off the wax-candles
and offerings that were on the tomb of the Man of God; and if they
are not speedily returned, my Master will come with seven spirits
worse than himself, and will for ever continue in me. However, when
the candles, of which they had been a long while in search, were
found again, by the Devil’s assistance, and brought back, the Devil
directed them to fustigate the unhappy Man with as many besoms as
there were candles.’

To these instances of flagellations voluntarily practiced among
Devils, we ought not to omit to add one, in which the Devil was
smartly flagellated in spite of his teeth, by a Saint, and a female
Saint too; a fact which cannot fail to give the greatest pleasure
to the Reader, who remembers the deplorable accounts that have been
given in a former Chapter, of the wanton flagellations he has himself
inflicted upon Saints. The name of the female Saint who thus gave
the Devil his due, was _Cornelia Juliana_, as the Reverend Father
Jesuit, Bartholomew Fisen, relates, in his book on the _Ancient
Origin of the Festival of the body of Christ_. ‘One day (says he) the
other Nuns heard a prodigious noise in the room of Cornelia Juliana,
which turned out to be a strife she had with the Devil, whom, after
having laid hold of him, she fustigated unmercifully; then, having
thrown him upon the ground, she trampled him under her foot, and
continued ridiculing him in the most bitter manner[108].’ The above
Reverend Father has neglected to inform us, how the Devil came to be
in Juliana’s room; but it is most likely he was come upon his usual
antic errand of flagellating Saints, and meant to serve Juliana in
the same manner: fortunately she was upon the watch, and proved too
many for him. As for the dreadful noise that was to be heard in the
Saint’s room, it was the natural consequence of the hard struggle
that took place between her and the Devil, while they were thus
striving who should flog the other.

The Saints who inhabit Paradise have also been supposed to have
occasionally recourse to flagellations; not, to be sure, to inflict
them any longer upon themselves; but to chastise, at the request of
their friends, those who persecuted them. This misfortune happened
to a certain Servant of the Emperor Nicephorus, who, not satisfied
with exacting unjust tributes from the common people with great
rigour, offered afterwards to use Monasteries in the same manner.
‘The Emperor (says the Author from whom this fact is extracted) sent
one of the Grooms of his bed-chamber to receive the usual tribute.
As he was a Man exceedingly eager after money and unlawful gain, he
committed great oppressions both on the common citizens, and the
inhabitants of the Monastery of St. Nicon; for the government of
cities, and the care of levying duties, are usually intrusted, not
to the just and mild, but to hard-hearted and inhuman persons. The
Monks, who were possessed of no money, endeavoured to sooth the above
cruel unmerciful Man by their discourses; but he, thirsty after gold,
was as deaf to their prayers, as the asp to conjurations, and made no
more account of their remonstrances, than, to use the words of the
Scripture, of _the crackling of thorns under a pot_. On the contrary,
his wrath and insolence increasing farther, he caused several of them
to be thrown into a jail, and prepared to plunder the Monastery.
The remaining Monks then applied to their Saint for assistance, who
presently made them experience the happy effects of it; for during
the following night, he appeared to the Groom, with a threatening
indignant aspect, and lashed him severely; then speaking to him,
told him, for his words ought to be recorded, _Thou hast thrown the
Heads of the Monastery into chains; if thou dost not release them
instantly, thy death shall be the consequence_.’

The Virgin Mary herself, has also been said to have applied to
corrections of the same kind as those here alluded to, in order to
avenge the injustices done to those whom she protected; and she,
for instance, caused a certain Bishop to be flagellated in her
presence, who had taken his prebend from a Canon, who was indeed, but
an indifferent person to fill his office, but who paid much devotion
to her, and with his eyes cast down, sung every day before her Altar
certain words contained in the _Angelic salutation_. The illustrious
Cardinal Damian informs us of this fact, in his _Opusc._ xxxiii.
_Cap._ iii. which is entitled, _The blessed Virgin directs that his
prebend should be returned to a Clergyman who used to pay devotion
to her_. ‘The same Stephanus (says Cardinal Damian) related to me
another fact of much the same kind. I remember, he said, that there
was a certain Clergyman, who was a dunce, an idle man, a dullard; to
this add that he was endowed with no religious gift, and possessed
no canonical gravity. Yet, amidst the dead ashes of his useless
life, some small particles of pious fire continued to subsist, so
that he would every day approach the altar of the holy Mother, and,
inclining his head with reverence, sing the following both _angelic_
and _evangelic_ line, _Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with
thee; blessed art thou among Women_. The new Bishop, however, who
soon discovered the incapacity of the Man, thought it wrong that an
useful office should be left to an useless person, and he took from
him the prebend he had obtained from the preceding Bishop. But as the
Canon was thereby reduced to great poverty, having no other means
of supporting himself, the blessed Virgin interfered in his behalf.
During the dead of night she appeared to the Bishop, preceded by a
Man who carried a discipline in one of his hands, and a burning torch
in the other, and ordered him to chastise the Bishop by some lashes
of it; then addressing this latter,--Why, said she, did you take from
a Man who used to pay daily homages to me, a clerical advantage it
was not you who had conferred on him? The Bishop, filled with terror,
and soon awaking from his sleep, presently returned the prebend to
the Clergyman, and afterwards greatly honoured as a Man whom God
loved, a person who, he thought, was unknown to him.’

FOOTNOTES:

[108] _Corneliæ sodales ingentem aliquando audierunt strepitum ex
ejus cubiculo, & contentionem Julianæ adversus dæmonem, quem manibus
comprehensum quanti poterat cædebat; in terram deinde prostratum
pedibus obterebat, lacerabat sarcasmis._

CHAP. XXI.

  _A remarkable instance of a flagellation performed in honour of the
  Virgin Mary._

So well established was the opinion that Saints, and especially
the Virgin Mary, were to be appeased by flagellations, and such
was, in general, the fondness of people during a certain period of
time, for that pious mode of correction, that a Franciscan Monk,
who wore a hood, and was girt with a cord, did not scruple, under
the Pontificate of Sixtus IV, to expose to the open day, in the
public market-place, the bare rump of a Professor in Divinity,
and lashed him with his hand, in sight of a croud of astonished
spectators, because he had preached against the immaculate conception
of the blessed Virgin. The fact is related in a Sermon written by
Bernardinus _de Bustis_, which, together with his whole Work in
honour of the Virgin (_Opus Mariale_) he dedicated to Pope Alexander
VI, and seems therefore to be a fact well enough authenticated: the
following is the manner in which Bernardinus gives the account.

‘He laid hold of him, and threw him upon his knees; for he was
very strong. Having then taken up his gown; because this Minister
had spoken against the holy _Tabernacle_ of God, he began to lash
him with the palm of his hand upon his huge breech, (the Author’s
expression is, upon his _square tabernacles_) which was bare; for
he wore neither drawers nor breeches: and because he had attempted
to slander the blessed Virgin, by quoting perhaps Aristotle in the
book of _Priors_, this Preacher confuted him by reading in the book
of his Posteriors; which greatly diverted the Bystanders. Then a
certain female Devotee exclaimed, saying, Mr. Preacher, give him four
more slaps for my sake: another presently after said, Give him also
four more for me; and so did a number of others: so that if he had
attempted to grant all their requests, he would have had nothing else
to do for the whole day[109].’

Nay, so proper did Bernardinus de Bustis think the above correction
to have been, so well calculated did he judge it, to appease the holy
Virgin’s wrath, that he did not scruple to declare, in the sequel
of his Sermon, that the Monk who inflicted it, had possibly been
actuated by an inspiration from the Virgin herself. ‘Perhaps (says
he) was it the Virgin herself, who induced him so to do, moreover
granting him an exemption from the censures incurred, according to
the Laws of the Church, by those who strike an Ecclesiastic, and
relaxing the rigour of these laws in his favour[110].’

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

FOOTNOTES:

[109] _Apprehendens ipsum, revolvit super ejus genua; erat enim valdè
fortis. Elevatis itaque pannis, quia ille Minister contrà sanctum
Dei tabernaculum locutus fuerat, cœpit cum palmis percutere super
quadrata tabernacula, quæ erant nuda, non enim habebat femoralia vel
antiphonam; & quia ipse infamare voluerat beatam Virginem, allegando
forsitan Aristotelem in Libro Priorum, iste Prædicator illum
confutavit legendo in libro ejus Posteriorum: de hoc autem omnes qui
aderant, gaudebant. Tunc exclamavit quædam devota mulier, dicens,
Domine Prædicator, detis ei alias quatuor palmatas pro me; & alia
postmodum dixit, detis ei etiam quatuor; sicque multæ aliæ rogabant;
ità quòd si illarum petitionibus satisfacere voluisset, per totum
diem aliud facere non potuisset._----In Opere Mariali, _Serm. viii._
de Conceptione Beatæ Virginis, _circ. fin._

[110] There prevails, as may have been perceived, a kind of
competition between the Abbé Boileau and me, who shall find out
the best story, which is extremely for the benefit of the Reader.
However, the story above quoted from Bernardinus _de Bustis_, with
which we are supplied by the Abbé’s book, is so good in itself, so
full of Attic salt, so well in the true Monkish style, that I despair
of producing any thing that can match it. I will try, therefore, to
make up in number what I may want in point of intrinsic merit; and,
instead of one story, I will relate two; which, that I may keep as
near to my model as may be (for here it inspires me with uncommon
emulation) will both have Friars for their object, and be of the same
turn with the above.

The first is contained in the book of the _Apologie pour Hérodote_,
the Author of which says he heard it from a Gentlewoman of Lorrain,
who had been an eye-witness to it. A Monk, one day, preached in a
Country Church, upon the subject of Hell. He took much pains to
inspire his Congregation with a great aversion for the place, and
made as frightful a description of it as he could; but now and then,
pretending that proper expressions failed him, he stopped suddenly,
and then exclaimed,--In short, Hell is as horrid as the breech of the
Bell-ringer of the Parish; which saying, he uncovered the posteriors
of the latter, who had placed himself there for that purpose, and
had agreed with the Friar to act that farce with him.

The second story I propose to relate, which I do not remember where I
have read, perhaps in the same book above quoted, is that of another
jolly Predicant Friar, who laid a wager he would make one half of
his Congregation laugh, and the other cry. As for making his hearers
cry, it was what he had often succeeded in doing, being a very good
preacher. On the appointed day, he accordingly came to Church,
provided with an excellent Sermon, with that, of his stock, which he
knew was most likely to produce the desired effect, and he presently
after began reciting it; for they never read their Sermons. But,
before I proceed farther, I must inform the Reader that the pulpit in
which he preached, stood in the middle of the Church; and, besides
leaving the door behind him open, he had found means to adjust his
gown and breeches in such a manner, that he might let the latter
fall down whenever he pleased. When he had gone through the greater
part of his preaching, and his hearers were very near being in the
necessary disposition to make him win one half of the wager, he, on a
sudden, let his breeches drop upon his heels, and exhibited, to use
the expression of Bernardinus _de Bustis_, his square tabernacles to
the full view of that part of the Congregation who were seated behind
the pulpit. With respect to him, however, pretending to perceive
nothing of the matter, and to be wholly taken up with his Sermon,
he went on with it as before: and as he had now reached the latter
part of it, consequently that which contained his most interesting
descriptions as well as strongest arguments, he exerted so much
eloquence in it, and such a power of declamation, that that part of
the Congregation who were placed in front of the pulpit, were really
melting in tears, while those who sat behind, minding less what
they heard than what they saw, were in a situation of mind quite
different; and it is needless to say that the Friar won the wager.

To the above stories a number of others of the same kind might be
added; which, though it might be a hard matter to vouch for their
truth, yet are related by different Authors in a very serious manner,
and such as shews that they hoped their accounts would be believed.
Thus, the Author of the _Apologie pour Hérodote_, says he had heard
the story he mentions, from a person who had been an eye-witness
to it. And Bernardinus _de Bustis_, not only pretends he greatly
approves the fact he relates, which he represents as having been
peculiarly agreeable to the Virgin, but has moreover inserted it in a
Sermon which he published, and dedicated to a Pope.

From the above stories, as well as from many others related in the
same manner, we are therefore at least to conclude, that they bear
great resemblance to a number of facts which commonly happened in
the times of the Authors who relate them; and we may thence admire
the singular licence of manners which prevailed among Monks and the
Clergy in general, during a certain period of time: a licence which
we find to have especially obtained when, being the dominant, or
rather the sole Christian Church that existed, they were without
rivals or competitors; and it may really be said, that the event of
the Reformation proved, in several respects, as much a reformation
for them, as for those who expressly adopted it.

CHAP. XXII.

  _Another Story of a female Saint appeased by a flagellation._

And not only the Virgin Mary, but other female Saints, inhabitants
of Paradise, have also been thought to be extremely well disposed
to be appeased, when they had received offence, by flagellatory
corrections. The following Story is to be found in the Book intitled,
_Itinerarium Cambriæ_, wrote by Sylvester Geraldus, a native of the
Country of Wales, who wrote about the year 1188.

‘In the Northern borders of England, and on the other side of the
river Humber, in the Parish of Hooëden, lived the Rector of that
Church, with his Concubine. This Concubine, one day sat rather
imprudently, on the tomb of St. Osanna, sister to King Osred, which
was made of wood, and raised above the ground in the shape of a seat.
When she attempted to rise from the place, her posteriors stuck to
the wood in such a manner, that she never could be parted from it,
till, in the presence of the people who ran to see her, she had
suffered her clothes to be torn from her, and had received a severe
discipline on her naked body, and that, to a great effusion of blood,
and with many tears and devout supplications on her part: which done,
and after she had engaged to submit to farther penitence, she was
divinely released[111].’

[Illustration: (end of chapter mark)]

FOOTNOTES:

[111] ... _Quæ cum recedere vellet, fixis ligno natibus, evelli non
potuit, &c.--Itinerarii Cambriæ, Lib. I._

This opinion of Catholic Divines concerning the great power of