FLAGELLANTS
91
FLAGELLANTS
absolve one another, to cast out evil spirits, and to
work miracles. They asserted that the ordinary ec-
clesiastical jurisdiction was suspended and that their
pilgrimages would be continued for tliirty-three and a
half years. Doubtless not a few of them hoped to
estabhsh a lasting rival to the Catholic Church, but
very soon the authorities took action and endeavoured
to suppress the whole movement. For, while it was
thus growing in Cermany and the Netherlands, it had
also entered France.
At first this fiituus novits ritus was well received. As early as 1348, Pope Clement VI had permitted a similar procession in Avignon in entreaty against the plague. Soon, however, the rapid spread and heretical tendencies of the Plagellants, especially among the turbulent peoples of Southern France, alarmetl the authorities. At the entreaty of the University of
fourteenth century, too, the great Dominican, St. Vin-
cent Ferrer, spread this penitential devotion through-
out the north of Spain, and crowds of devotees fol-
lowed him on his missionary pilgrimages through
France, Spain, and Northern Italy.
In fact, the great outburst of 1.349, while, perhaps, more widespread and more formidable than similar fanaticisms, was but one of a series of popular up- heavals at irregular intervals from 1260 until the end of the fifteenth century. The generating cause of these movements was always an obscure amalgam of horror of corruption, of desire to imitate the heroic expiations of the great penitents, of apocalyptic vision, of despair at the prevailing corruption in Church and State. All these things are smouldering in the minds of the much-tried populace of Central Europe. It needed but a sufficient occasion, such as the accvunulated
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Processk
in the Chro
N OF Flagellants at Tournai, 13-49
licle of Gillon li Muisis (1353). Library of Brussels
Paris, the pope, after careful inquiry, condemned the tyranny of some petty ruler, the horror of a great
movement and prohibited the processions, by letters plague, or the ardent preaching of some saintly ascetic,
dated 20 Oct., 1349, which were sent to all the bishops to set the whole of (Jhristendom in a blaze. Like fire
of France, Cermany, Poland, Sweden, and England.
This condemnation coincided with a natural reaction
of public opinion, and the Flagellants, from being a
powerful menace to all settled public order, foimd
themselves a hunted and rapidly dwindling sect. But,
though severely stricken, the I'lagellant tendency was
by no means eradicated. Throughout the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries there were recrudescences of
this and similar heresies. In Germany, about 1360,
there appeared one Konrad Schmid, who called him-
self Enoch, and pretended that all ecclesiastical
the impulse ran through the people, and like fire it
died down, only to break out here and there anew. At
the beginning of each outbreak, the effects were gener-
ally good. Enemies were reconciled, debts were paid,
prisoners were released, ill-gotten goods were restored.
But it was the merest revivalism, and, as always,
the reaction was worse than the former stagna-
tion. Sometimes the movement was more than sus-
pected of being abused for political ends, more often
it exemplified the fatal tendency of emotional pietism
to degenerate into heresy. The Fl.iycllant movement
authority was abrogated, or rather, transferred to was but one of the manias that afflicted the end of the
himself. Thousands of young men joined him, and lie
was able to continue his propagani la till 13()!l, wlicii the
vigorous measures of the In(|uisition resulted in his
suppression. Yet we still hear of trials and condemna-
tions of Flagellants in 1411 at Erfurt, in 1446 at Nord-
hausen, in i4")3 at Sangerhausen, even so late as 14sl
at Ilallierstadt. Again the "Albati" or "Bianchi"
are heard of in Provence about 13'.lil, with their proces-
sions of nine days, during which they beat themselves
and chanted the "Stabat Mater". At the end of the
Middle iVges; others were the dancing-mania, the Jew-
baiting rages, which the Flagellant processions encour-
aged in 1349, the child-crusades, and the like. And,
according to the temiierainent of the peoples among
whom it spread, the niovenii'iit became a revolt and a
fantastic iieresy, a rush of devotion .settling soon into
pious practices and good works, or a mere spectacle
that aroused the curiosity or the pity of the onlookers.
Although as a dangerous heresy the Flagellants are
not heard of after the fifteenth century, their practices
