[Illustration:
The figures in the upper half of this plate represent the Prison-Rod
and Whipping-Post. The Rattan, Birch, and Loose Garment belong to
ladies’ boarding schools in the last century. The Rule and Spatula
(or “Jonathan”) were used in boys’ schools. The holes in the spatula
raised blisters.
Beneath are the modern Jesuit discipline with the Whipping-Post or
Hurdle in Wandsworth House of Correction. On either side are Knouts
of leather and of twisted cord.
]
HISTORY
—OF—
FLAGELLATION
AMONG DIFFERENT NATIONS.
A NARRATIVE OF THE
STRANGE CUSTOMS AND CRUELTIES
OF THE
ROMANS, GREEKS, EGYPTIANS, ETC.
WITH
_AN ACCOUNT OF ITS PRACTICE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS_
AS A RELIGIOUS STIMULANT AND CORRECTOR OF MORALS.
ALSO ANECDOTES OF
_REMARKABLE CASES OF FLOGGING AND OF CELEBRATED FLAGELLANTS_.
=_WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS._=
NEW YORK.
MEDICAL PUBLISHING CO.
1924
COPYRIGHT, 1903.
BY
THE MEDICAL PUBLISHING CO.
Printed in U. S. A.
PREFACE.
_A period will, sooner or later, arrive, at which the disciplining and
flagellating practices even now in use, and which have been so for so
many centuries, will have been laid aside, and succeeded by others
equally whimsical. And while the men of those days will overlook the
defects of their own extravagant customs, or perhaps even admire the
rationality of them, they will refuse to believe that the practices of
which accounts are given in this work, ever were in use among mankind,
and even matter of great moment among them. The design, therefore, is
effectually to remove all doubts in that respect, by handing down to
them the flower and choice parts of the facts and arguments on the
subject._
_This book will likewise be extremely useful to the present age; and it
will in the first place be so, the subject being considered in a moral
light. The numerous cases that are produced in this book, of disciplines
which offenders of all classes, kings as well as others, have zealously
inflicted upon themselves, will supply a striking proof of that deep
sense of justice which exists in the breasts of all men; and the reader
will from such facts conclude, no doubt with pleasure, that even the
offenders of the high rank we have just mentioned, notwithstanding the
state by which they were surrounded, and the majestic countenance which
they put on, sometimes in proportion as they more clearly know that they
are wrong, are inwardly convinced that they owe compensation for their
acts of injustice._
_If considered in a philosophical light, this work will be useful to the
present age, in the same manner as we have said it would be to
posterity. The present generation will find in it proofs, both of the
reality of the singular practices which once prevailed in various
countries, and are still in full force in many others, and of the
important light in which they have been considered by mankind. They will
meet with accounts of bishops, cardinals, popes and princes, who have
warmly commended such practices; and will not be displeased to be
moreover acquainted with the debates of the learned on the same subject,
and with the honest, though opposite, endeavours of a Cerebrosus and a
Damian, a Gretzer and a Gerson._
_We may add that the principal part of the facts and anecdotes are taken
from the very rare work of the Abbe Boileau._