them for the night. The women embroidered banners for them, and
all were anxious to augment their pomp; and at every succeeding
pilgrimage their influence and reputation increased.

It was not merely some individual parts of the country that
fostered them: all Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Silesia,
and Flanders, did homage to the mania; and they at length became
as formidable to the secular as they were to the ecclesiastical
power. The influence of this fanaticism was great and
threatening, resembling the excitement which called all the
inhabitants of Europe into the deserts of Syria and Palestine
about two hundred and fifty years before. The appearance in
itself was not novel. As far back as the eleventh century, many
believers in Asia and Southern Europe afflicted themselves with
the punishment of flagellation. Dominicus Loricatus, a monk of
St. Croce d'Avellano, is mentioned as the master and model of this
species of mortification of the flesh; which, according to the
primitive notions of the Asiatic Anchorites, was deemed eminently
Christian. The author of the solemn processions of the
Flagellants is said to have been St. Anthony; for even in his time
(1231) this kind of penance was so much in vogue, that it is
recorded as an eventful circumstance in the history of the world.
In 1260, the Flagellants appeared in Italy as Devoti. "When the
land was polluted by vices and crimes, an unexampled spirit of
remorse suddenly seized the minds of the Italians. The fear of
Christ fell upon all: noble and ignoble, old and young, and even
children of five years of age, marched through the streets with no
covering but a scarf round the waist. They each carried a scourge
of leathern thongs, which they applied to their limbs, amid sighs
and tears, with such violence that the blood flowed from the