FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190  
191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   >>  
went to make up the ascetic ideal; on the other hand, the fondness for whipping bare flesh and for being whipped has a distinctly pathologic character. The subject is rather too unsavoury to dwell upon, but it has long been established that there is a close connection between the whipping of certain parts of the body and the production of intense sexual pleasure.[183] And it is also clear that the life led by monks and nuns was such as to encourage sexual aberrations of various forms. Moreover, when once the practice of whipping became a public spectacle, and assumed an epidemic form, imitation, combined with intense religious faith, would operate very powerfully. In the fourteenth century Europe was visited by the Black Plague. In countries utterly devoid of sanitation, where baths were practically unknown and personal habits of the filthiest, the plague found a fruitful soil. Nearly a quarter of the population died, and corpses were so numerous that huge pits were dug and hundreds buried together. It was amid the general terror and demoralisation caused by this visitation that the sect of the Flagellants arose. Calling themselves the Brotherhood of the Flagellants, or the Brethren of the Cross, wearing dark garments with red crosses front and back, they traversed the cities of the Continent carrying whips to which small pieces of iron were fixed. England appears to have been the only country in which they failed to establish themselves. Elsewhere their numbers grew with formidable rapidity. At Spires two hundred boys, under twelve years of age, influenced probably by the example of the children's crusade, formed themselves into a brotherhood and marched through some of the German cities. In Italy over 20,000 people marched from Florence in one of these processions; from Modena, over 25,000. Some of them professed to work miracles. Everywhere, while the mania lasted, they were warmly welcomed, the inhabitants of towns and cities ringing the bells and flocking in crowds to hear the preaching and witness the whippings. The proceedings of the Flagellants in all countries were very similar. They marched from town to town, men and women and children stripped to the waist--sometimes entirely naked--praying incessantly and whipping each other. "Not only during the day, but even by night, and in the severest winter, they traversed the cities with torches and banners, in thousands and tens of thousands, headed by their pries
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190  
191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   >>  



Top keywords:

cities

 

whipping

 

marched

 
Flagellants
 

thousands

 
sexual
 

children

 
countries
 

intense

 

traversed


twelve

 

garments

 

brotherhood

 

formed

 
crusade
 
influenced
 
Elsewhere
 

England

 

appears

 

pieces


Continent
 

carrying

 

country

 
rapidity
 

formidable

 

Spires

 

numbers

 

failed

 
crosses
 
establish

hundred
 

stripped

 
praying
 

proceedings

 
whippings
 

similar

 

incessantly

 

banners

 

torches

 

headed


winter

 

severest

 

witness

 

preaching

 

Modena

 

professed

 

processions

 
people
 

Florence

 

miracles