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 enlist among the above-mentioned 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, 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.”
The Widow Cechald, in her own 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. VI.—_Confessors assume to themselves a kind of flagellatory power
over their Penitents._
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 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 previously
mentioned, which, though it be only a romance, may serve to show 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.”
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 shows that the power assumed
by confessors was pretty ancient) a regulation was made to forbid
confessors beating 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.” 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.
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 took 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.
In order to show how common the above practices were become, as well as
to entertain the reader, I give 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 laid 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.’”