FLAGELLANTS, flaj'e-lants (Lat. flagel lore, to lash or scourge), a sect which arose in 1260 at Perugia, called by the French Perouse, and spread throughout and beyond Italy. Its adherents, said to have numbered 10,000, at tempted to expiate their sins and obtain mercy by self-inflicted suffering. They ran through the cities scourging their bare shoulders and exhorting bystanders to repentance. Led by priests bearing banners and crosses, they moved in procession through the streets. They could be seen going about by night as well as by day, even in the cold of winter. They went in thou sands country to country begging alms. In 1261 they crossed the Alps in Alsatia, Ba varia, Bohemia and Poland, and found there many imitators. In 1296 a small band of Flag ellants appeared in Strassburg, who, with cov ered faces, whipped themselves through the city, and at every church. At first the Flagel lants were noted for sanctity, and made many converts even from the most abandoned classes, but doubtful characters beginning to join their ranks, they fell into disrepute, and were re strained from their processions by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and the sect gradually died away. The terror produced by the dread ful disease called the black death, which de stroyed many millions of people in Europe in the middle of the 14th century, produced a re vival of the flagellation mania, which spread over most of Europe and was attended by greater extravagances than before. In the
reign of Edward III, a band of 120 Flagellants, male and female, made their appearance in London on a missionary enterprise, but had to leave the country without having made one proselyte. In 1349 Clement VII declared the Flagellants heretics and took steps to repress them. In 1360 an effort was made in Thurin gia to revive them, under a form marked by authorities to suppress them. (See FLAGELLATION). Consult Boileau, J., (Historia Flagellantium' (Paris 1700) ; Collas, G. F., 'Geschichte des Flagellantismus, etc.' (in progress, Leipzig 1913) ; Cooper, W. M., 'Flagellation and the Flagellants) (London 1898) ; Deane, I., The New Flagellants) (in Catholic World, Vol. XXXIX, p. 300, New York 1884) ; Daring, G. C. W. A., 'Die Geisselfahrt' (Frankfort-on Main 1833) ; Forstemann, E. G., 'Die Christ lichen Geisslergesellschaften) (Halle 1828); Runge, P., ed.. 'Die Lieder and Melodien der Geissler des Jahres 1349, etc.) (Leipzig 1900); Schneller, C.,