504 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
was the reading of a letter which, so it was asserted, was originally written on a table of stone and laid by an angel on the altar of St. Peter's in Jerusalem. i It represented Christ as indignant at the world's wickedness, and, more especially, at the desecration of Sunday and the prevalence of usury and adultery, but as promising mercy on condition that the Flagellants gather and make pilgrimages of penance lasting 33|- days, a period corresponding to the years of his earthly life.
The letter being read, the drill began in earnest. It consisted of their falling on their knees and on the ground three times, in scourging themselves and in certain significant gestures to indicate to what sin each had been specially addicted. Every soldier carried a whip, or scourge, which, as writers are careful to report, was tipped with pieces of iron. These were often so sharp as to justify their comparison to needles, and the blood was frequently seen trickling down the bodies of the more zealous, even to their loins. ^ The blows were executed to the rhytlimic music of hymns, and the ruddy militiamen, — milites rubicundi, — as they were sometimes called, believed that the blood which they shed was one with Christ's blood or was mixed with it. They found a patron in St. Paul, whose stigmata they thought of, not as scars of conscience but bodily wounds. 3 At each genuflection they sang a hymn, four hymns being sung during the progress of a drill. The first calling to the drill began with the words : —
Nun tretet herzu wer b'dsen welle Fliehen icir die heisse Ilolle. Lucifer ist bos Geselle Wen er habet mil Pech er ihn label. Darum fliehen \oirmit ihm zu sein. Wer unser Busse loolle pfleyen Der soil (jtlten and wieder geben.
1 Fredericq, II. 119, III. 22, etc. Runge, iry2 sqq.
2 Pointillons de fer ; acAileisferreis ; habentes in flue nodos aculeatos ; quasi acus acuti infixi. Fredericq, J. 197, II. 120 sqq.. III. 19, 20, 3.j, etc. Le sang leur couloit parmy les 7-ains, Fredericq, III. 19. Hugo of Keutlingeu also speaks of the sharp iron tips. Runge, p. 25.
3 Si sanguis istorum militum est Justus, et unitus cum sanguine Christi, etc. Fredericq, III. 18. Dicebant quod enrum sanguis per flagclla effus^ls cum (Jhristi sanguine miscebatur, II. 125.
§ 58. HERETICAL AND UNCHURCHLY MOVEMENTS. 505
Now join us all who will repent
Let's flee the fiery heat of hell.
Lucifer is a bad companion
Whom he clutches, he covers with pitch.
Let us flee away from him.
Whoso will through our penance go
Let him restore what he's taken away.^
In falling flat on the ground, they stretched out their arms to represent the arms of the cross. The fourth hymn, sung at the third genuflection, was a lament over the punishment of hell to which the usurer, the liar, the murderer, the roadrobber, the man who neglected to fast on Friday and to keep Sunday, were condemned, and with this was coupled a prayer to Mary.
Das Hilf uns Maria Konigin, Dass loir deines Kindes Huld gevnn. Mary, Queen, help us, pray. To win the favor of thy child.^
Each penitent indicated his besetting sin. The hard drinker put his finger to his lips. The perjurer held up his two front fingers as if swearing an oath. The adulterer fell on his belly. The gambler moved his hand as if in the act of throwing dice.
During the ravages of the Black Death a contingent of 120 of these penitential warriors crossed the channel from Holland and marched through London and other English towns, wearing red crosses and having their scourges pointed with pieces of iron as sharp as needles.^ But they failed to secure a following.
• It was inevitable that the Flagelhintssliould incur opi^ogition from the Uhurch autlToritie^T The mediaeval Church as little tolerated independence in ritual or organization as in doctrine. In France, they were opposed from the first. The University of Paris issued a deliverance against them, and Philip VI. forbade their manoeuvres on French soil under pain of death. A harder blow was struck by the head of Christendom, Clement VI., who fulminated his sweeping bull
1 Hugo von Reutlingen, p. 36.
2 Hugo von Reutlingen, in Runge, p. 38.
2 So Robert of Avesbury, Bolls Series, p. 407 sqq.