FLAGELLANTI. — The Rule of St Benedict considers the case in which it may be necessary to resort to flagellation in order to punish rebellious and guilty monks (Reg., chs. 2, 28, 30). Among ascetic practices of mortification, voluntary flagellation also took hold as penance for one’s own sins. In the 11th century, s. Pier Damiani and s. Domenico Loricato, his disciple, defended this custom in monasteries for oneself
TRANS-
ON THE TRANSFER OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE TO THE GERMANS.
Also
ON THE ELECTION OF BISHOPS.
ras, subd equis ad glidem penitent.
MATTIA FLACCIO ILLY-
RICO AUTHOR
collected, inspired and regn. in lit. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100
R A S I L R A E
1 5 6 6.
(Int. Enc. Coll.)
FLACIO (VLACIC), MATTIA – Frontispiece of De translatione Imperii Romanum ad Germanum, Basel 1560 – Ex libris preserved in the Vatican Library.
They became its promoters. In imitation of the monks, the laity too adopted such a practice, especially on the occasion of public calamities, in order to avert divine wrath. Collective public manifestations of this kind of penance, however, are known for the first time only in the thirteenth century, particularly when, in 1260, Ranieri Fasani, a hermit, began calling the citizens of Perugia to penance; dressed in sackcloth, girded with a rope, and holding a scourge of thongs in his hand, through preaching and example he moved the people to scourge themselves publicly, forming a numerous Company, called that of the Disciplinati of Christ, which soon spread from the city into the countryside and surrounding regions.
In October, processions of disciplinati led by Fasani are encountered at Imola; from there the movement spread to Bologna, and in November to Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza, and Tortona, and descended to Genoa. On 30 November, Asquino, dean of Aquileia, arrived at Cividale in Friuli with naked penitents who scourged themselves; within twenty days they had become numerous throughout Friuli. While the men did this publicly by day, the women did the same at night in their homes, or gathered at dusk in the churches. The movement, through France and Austria, reached Germany and even Poland; it was repeated here and there several times during that century, everywhere bringing about improvements in morals, pacification of spirits, the return of exiles, and the restitution of what had been wrongfully taken. Its lasting subsequent consequence was the foundation, in many regions of Italy, of numerous confraternities known by the names of F., Battuti, Disciplinati, and Frusati. Their members, for the most part laymen, organized themselves in order to practise, according to their particular statutes, discipline in their churches or chapels, sing their laudi, and engage in well-defined exercises of piety and works of charity: alms for the poor, with special regard for the ashamed, regular visits to the sick and prisoners, companionship with and suffrage for the dead. In these duties they were to spend bequests and revenues from properties entrusted to them by the piety of the faithful, and especially of their fellow confraternity members. It may rightly be asserted that, in this respect, such confraternities were an extremely important channel of charitable assistance in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Of particular importance were the hospitals founded and directed by them in the cities of Italy; some of these still exist and bear the scourges in their coat of arms. In Rome, in 1267, the Confraternity later called that of the Confalone arose; it had confraternities of the same denomination affiliated with it in various parts of Italy, including very distant regions. No less famous than the preceding one was the Company of the Disciplinati of the Most Holy Savior, established near the Lateran; it too became an archconfraternity and in Rome assumed responsibility for several hospitals, later united into one at the Lateran itself.
In Siena, the celebrated Hospital of S. Maria della Scala was entrusted to the care of the Disciplinati. These companies were often under the protection and guidance of the major mendicant Orders; this fact quite probably helped keep them free from heretical infiltrations. Indeed, although at their origin they may have been influenced by Joachimite elements, and although some manifestation of fanaticism (which must not be judged by modern criteria) can be observed especially at the beginning, all this must be clearly distinguished from what could be observed particularly abroad and which led Clement VI, on 20 October 1349 (in the aftermath of the great plague), to condemn the F. Movements analogous to that of 1260 occurred in 1334 through the efforts of the b. Venturino da Bergamo (v.), who travelled from northern Italy as far as Rome, and then in 1309 through the efforts of the Bianchi (v.), whose beneficial activity was connected with that of the preceding age, expanding and reviving it in many places. In northern Europe the movement was renewed in the following age, not without heretical influences.
Renata Orazi Assenda
FOLKLORE. — In the popular tradition of certain regions of Italy, especially in the southern ones such as Calabria and Sicilia, the ancient companies of the Battuti or Battenti (in the local dialect, “Vattenti”) still survive in some localities, or at least the practice remains, among the faithful animated by the most fervent religious devotion, of scourging themselves with whips (disciplines), canes, or other similar instruments of torment. The practice is especially associated with the processions of Holy Week, during which the “Vattenti” proceed dressed in the distinctive white “sacco,” which has openings at the shoulders or back.