[1] By the admission of Oklahoma as a state in 1907 the number of
stars became 46, arranged from the top in horizontal rows thus: 8, 7,
8, 7, 8, 8 = 46.
FLAGELLANTS (from Lat. _flagellare_, to whip), in religion, the name
given to those who scourge themselves, or are scourged, by way of
discipline or penance. Voluntary flagellation, as a form of exalted
devotion, occurs in almost all religions. According to Herodotus (ii.
40. 61), it was the custom of the ancient Egyptians to beat themselves
during the annual festival in honour of their goddess Isis. In Sparta
children were flogged before the altar of Artemis Orthia till the blood
flowed (Plutarch, _Instit. Laced._ 40). At Alea, in the Peloponnese,
women were flogged in the temple of Dionysus (Pausanias, Arcad. 23). The
priests of Cybele, or _archigalli_, submitted to the discipline in the
temple of the goddess (Plutarch, _Adv. Colot._ p. 1127; Apul., _Metam._
viii. 173). At the Roman Lupercalia women were flogged by the celebrants
to avert sterility or as a purificatory ceremony (W. Mannhardt, _Mythol.
Forsch._, Strassburg, 1884, p. 72 seq.).
Ritual flagellation existed among the Jews, and, according to Buxtorf
(_Synagoga judaica_, Basel, 1603), was one of the ceremonies of the day
of the Great Pardon. In the Christian church flagellation was originally
a punishment, and was practised not only by parents and schoolmasters,
but also by bishops, who thus corrected offending priests and monks (St
Augustine, _Ep. 159 ad Marcell._; cf. _Conc. Agd._ 506, can. ii.).
Gradually, however, voluntary flagellation appeared in the _libri
poenitentiales_ as a very efficacious means of penance. In the 11th
century this new form of devotion was extolled by some of the most
ardent reformers in the monastic houses of the west, such as Abbot Popon
of Stavelot, St Dominic Loricatus (so called from his practice of
wearing next his skin an iron _lorica_, or cuirass of thongs), and
especially Cardinal Pietro Damiani. Damiani advocated the substitution
of flagellation for the recitation of the penitential psalms, and drew
up a scale according to which 1000 strokes were equivalent to ten
psalms, and 15,000 to the whole psalter. The majority of these reformers
exemplified their preaching in their own persons, and St Dominic gained
great renown by inflicting upon himself 300,000 strokes in six days. The
custom of collective flagellation was introduced into the monastic
houses, the ceremony taking place every Friday after confession.
The early Franciscans flagellated themselves with characteristic rigour,
and it is no matter of surprise to find the Franciscan, St Anthony of
Padua, preaching the praises of this means of penance. It is incorrect,
however, to suppose that St Anthony took any part in the creation of the
flagellant fraternities, which were the result of spontaneous popular
movements, and later than the great Franciscan preacher; while Ranieri,
a monk of Perugia, to whom the foundation of these strange communities
has been attributed, was merely the leader of the flagellant brotherhood
in that region. About 1259 these fraternities were distributed over the
greater part of northern Italy. The contagion spread very rapidly,
extending as far as the Rhine provinces, and, across Germany, into
Bohemia. Day and night, long processions of all classes and ages, headed
by priests carrying crosses and banners, perambulated the streets in
double file, reciting prayers and drawing the blood from their bodies
with leathern thongs. The magistrates in some of the Italian towns, and
especially Uberto Pallavicino at Milan, expelled the flagellants with
threats, and for a time the sect disappeared. The disorders of the 14th
century, however, the numerous earthquakes, and the Black Death, which
had spread over the greater part of Europe, produced a condition of
ferment and mystic fever which was very favourable to a recrudescence of
morbid forms of devotion. The flagellants reappeared, and made the state
of religious trouble in Germany, provoked by the struggle between the
papacy and Louis of Bavaria, subserve their cause. In the spring of 1349
bands of flagellants, perhaps from Hungary, began their propaganda in
the south of Germany. Each band was under the command of a leader, who
was assisted by two lieutenants; and obedience to the leader was
enjoined upon every member on entering the brotherhood. The flagellants
paid for their own personal maintenance, but were allowed to accept
board and lodging, if offered. The penance lasted 33-1/2 days, during
which they flogged themselves with thongs fitted with four iron points.
They read letters which they said had fallen from heaven, and which
threatened the earth with terrible punishments if men refused to adopt
the mode of penance taught by the flagellants. On several occasions they
incited the populations of the towns through which they passed against
the Jews, and also against the monks who opposed their propaganda. Many
towns shut their gates upon them; but, in spite of discouragement, they
spread from Poland to the Rhine, and penetrated as far as Holland and
Flanders. Finally, a band of 100 marched from Basel to Avignon to the
court of Pope Clement VI., who, in spite of the sympathy shown them by
several of his cardinals, condemned the sect as constituting a menace to
the priesthood. On the 20th of October 1349 Clement published a bull
commanding the bishops and inquisitors to stamp out the growing heresy,
and in pursuance of the pope's orders numbers of the sectaries perished
at the stake or in the cells of the inquisitors and the episcopal
justices. In 1389 the leader of a flagellant band in Italy called the
_bianchi_ was burned by order of the pope, and his following dispersed.
In 1417, however, the Spanish Dominican St Vincent Ferrer pleaded the
cause of the flagellants with great warmth at the council of Constance,
and elicited a severe reply from John Gerson (_Epistola ad
Vincentium_), who declared that the flagellants were showing a tendency
to slight the sacramental confession and penance, were refusing to
perform the _cultus_ of the martyrs venerated by the church, and were
even alleging their own superiority to the martyrs.
The justice of Gerson's protest was borne out by events. In Germany, in
1414, there was a recrudescence of the epidemic of flagellation, which
then became a clearly-formulated heresy. A certain Conrad Schmidt placed
himself at the head of a community of Thuringian flagellants, who took
the name of Brethren of the Cross. Schmidt gave himself out as the
incarnation of Enoch, and prophesied the approaching fall of the Church
of Rome, the overthrow of the ancient sacraments, and the triumph of
flagellation as the only road to salvation. Numbers of Beghards joined
the Brethren of the Cross, and the two sects were confounded in the
rigorous persecution conducted in Germany by the inquisitor Eylard
Schoneveld, who almost annihilated the flagellants. This mode of
devotion, however, held its ground among the lower ranks of Catholic
piety. In the 16th century it subsisted in Italy, Spain and southern
France. Henry III. of France met with it in Provence, and attempted to
acclimatize it at Paris, where he formed bands divided into various
orders, each distinguished by a different colour. The king and his
courtiers joined in the processions in the garb of penitents, and
scourged themselves with ostentation. The king's encouragement seemed at
first to point to a successful revival of flagellation; but the practice
disappeared along with the other forms of devotion that had sprung up at
the time of the league, and Henry III.'s successor suppressed the Paris
brotherhood. Flagellation was occasionally practised as a means of
salvation by certain Jansenist convulsionaries in the 18th century, and
also, towards the end of the 18th century, by a little Jansenist sect
known as the Fareinists, founded by the brothers Bonjour, _cures_ of
Fareins, near Trevoux (Ain). In 1820 a band of flagellants appeared
during a procession at Lisbon; and in the Latin countries, at the season
of great festivals, one may still see brotherhoods of penitents
flagellating themselves before the assembled faithful.
For an account of flagellation in antiquity see S. Reinach, _Cultes,
mythes et religions_ (vol. i. pp. 173-183, 1906), which contains a
bibliography of the subject. For a bibliography of the practice in
medieval times, see M. Rohricht, "Bibliographische Beitrage zur Gesch.
der Geissler" in _Briegers Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte_, i. 313.
(P. A.)
FLAGELLATA, the name given to the Protozoa whose dominant phase is a
"flagellula," or cell-body provided with one, few or rarely many long
actively vibratile, cytoplasmic processes. Nutrition is variable:--(1)
"Holozoic"; food taken in by ingestion, by amoeboid action either
unspecialized or at one or more well-defined oral spots, or through an
aperture (mouth); (2) "Saprophytic"; food taken in in solution through
the general surface of the body; (3) "Holophytic"; food-material formed
in the coloured plasm by fixation of carbon from the medium, with
liberation of oxygen, in presence of light, as in green plants. Fission
in the "active" state occurs and is usually longitudinal. Multiple
fission rarely occurs save in a sporocyst, and produces microzoospores,
which in some cases may conjugate with others as isogametes or with
larger forms (megagametes). "Hypnocysts" to tide over unfavourable
conditions are not infrequent, but have no necessary relation to
reproduction. Many have a firm pellicle which may form a hard shell:
again a distinct cell-wall of chitin or cellulose may be formed:
finally, an open cup, "theca," of firm or gelatinous material may be
present, with or without a stalk: such a cup and stalk are often found
in colonial species, and are subject to much the same conditions as in
Infusoria. The nucleus is simple in most cases; but in Haemoflagellates
it is connected with a second nucleus, which again is in immediate
relation with the motile apparatus; the former is termed the
"tropho-nucleus," the latter the "kineto-nucleus."
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Flagellata.
1. _Chlamydomonas pulvisculus_, Ehr. (_Chlamydomonadidae_)
free-swimming individual.
a = nucleus.
b = contractile vacuole.
c = starch corpuscle.
d = cellulose investment.
e = stigma (eye-spot).
2. Resting stage of the same, with fourfold division of the
cell-contents. Letters as before.
3. Breaking up of the cell-contents into minute biflagellate
swarm-spores, which escape, and whose history is not further known.
4. _Syncrypta volvox_, Ehr. (_Chrysomonadidae_). A colony enclosed by
a common gelatinous test c.
a = stigma.
b = vacuole (non-contractile).
5. _Uroglena volvox_, Ehr. (_Chrysomonadidae_). Half of a large
colony, the flagellates embedded in a common jelly.
6. _Chlorogonium euchlorum_, Ehr. (_Chlamydomonadidae_).
a = nucleus.
b = contractile vacuole.
c = starch grain.
d = eye-spot.
7. _Chlorogonium euchlorum_, Ehr. (_Chlamydomonadidae_). Copulation of
two liberated microgonidia.
a = nucleus.
b = contractile vacuole.
d = eye-spot (so-called).