Basel. Tauler had gained great fame as a
preacher, and had reached the age of fifty-two, when Nicolas, who had
been one of his hearers, visited him, and convinced him that he was
nothing better than a Pharisee. In obedience to the direction of
Nicolas, Tauler shut himself up for two years, without preaching or
doing any other work as a clergyman, and even without studying. When, at
the end of that time, he came forth again to the world, and first tried
to preach, he burst into tears and quite broke down; but on a second
trial, it was found that he preached in a new style, and with vastly
more of warmth and of effect than he had ever done before. Tauler was
born in 1294, and died in 1361.

In these times many were very fond of trying to make out things to come
from the prophecies of the Old Testament and of the Revelation, and some
people of both sexes supposed themselves to have the gift of prophecy.
And in seasons of great public distress, multitudes would break out into
some wild sort of religious display, which for a time carried everything
before it, and seemed to do a great deal of good, although the wiser
people looked on it with distrust; but after a while it passed away,
leaving those who had taken part in it rather worse than better than
before. Among the outbreaks of this kind was that of the _Flagellants_,
which showed itself several times in various places. The first
appearance of it was in 1260, when it began at Perugia, in the middle of
Italy, and spread both southwards to Rome and northwards to France,
Hungary, and Poland. In every city, large companies of men, women, and
children moved about the streets, with their faces covered, but their
bodies naked down to the waist. They tossed their limbs wildly, they
dashed themselves down on the ground in mud or snow, and cruelly
_flagellated_ (or flogged) themselves with whips, while they shouted out
shrieks and prayers for mercy and pardon.

Again, after a terrible plague called the Black Death, which raged from
Sicily to Greenland about 1349,[86] parties of flagellants went about
half-naked, singing and scourging themselves. Whenever the Saviour's
sufferings were mentioned in their hymns, they threw themselves on the
ground like logs of wood, with their arms stretched out in the shape of
a cross, and remained prostrate in prayer until a signal was given them
to rise.

[86] See page 191.

These movements seemed to do good at first by reconciling enemies an