FLAGELLATION

in religion, the disciplinary or devotional practice of beating with whips. Many theories have been offered to explain the phenomenon. It has been interpreted as a driving out of evil spirits, as purification, as a form of sadism, and as an incorporation of the animal power residing in the whip, but none of these hypotheses encompasses the whole range of the custom. In antiquity and among primitive peoples, ceremonial whippings or beatings were primarily concerned with rites of initiation, purification, and fertility, which often included other forms of physical suffering. Floggings and mutilations might or might not be self-inflicted. Beatings administered by masked impersonators of gods or ancestors are a feature of many North American Indian initiations. Ritual floggings are also known from classical antiquity among the Spartans and in Rome. In the primitive Christian church flagellation apparently was used as punishment for disobedient clergy. From the 4th century, self-inflicted flagellation was practiced by both clergy and laity as the most efficacious means of penance. In the early European Middle Ages the laity became especially attracted by this devotional exercise. In the mid-13th century flagellant brotherhoods and processions composed of laymen and women, as well as clergy, began to be organized in Italy, and the practice spread into Germany and the Low Countries. In the mid-14th century people were fearful because of the plague, and from this crisis flagellation arose; the flagellants were seeking by their own efforts to mitigate the divine judgment that was felt to be at hand. They formed groups and traveled about the country on foot. In two daily public ceremonies men whipped their backs and chests with leather thongs, while women chastised themselves in seclusion. The flagellants' piety, fears, and hopes were expressed in processional hymns, fragments of which are preserved in the hymnbooks of later generations. A definite part of their ritual was the reading of a letter that proclaimed flagellationnot the ecclesiastical sacrament of penanceto be the only way to salvation. In 1349 Pope Clement VI condemned flagellation, as did the Council of Constance (141418). In Germany the flagellants became an organized sect and were a target of the Inquisition. The practice gradually subsided, but in the 16th century the Jesuits temporarily revived lay interest in self-inflicted flagellation, especially in the southern European countries. Flagellation is also practiced by some Shi'ite Muslims, who whip themselves on the holiday of 'Ashura' to commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn at the Battle of Karbala' (AD 680).