t believe; and the more ordinary
offences of fornication and adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of
rapine and murder, were expiated by a penance, which, according to the
various circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years.
During this term of mortification, the patient was healed, the criminal
was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and prayers: the disorder
of his dress was expressive of grief and remorse; and he humbly
abstained from all the business and pleasure of social life. But the
rigid execution of these laws would have depopulated the palace, the
camp, and the city; the Barbarians of the West believed and trembled;
but nature often rebelled against principle; and the magistrate labored
without effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal
accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of
adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide might
involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was separately
numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a modest sinner might
easily incur a debt of three hundred years. His insolvency was relieved
by a commutation, or indulgence: a year of penance was appreciated at
twenty-six solidi [24] of silver, about four pounds sterling, for the
rich; at three solidi, or nine shillings, for the indigent: and these
alms were soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived,
from the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and
dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred pounds,
was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the scarcity of gold
and silver was supplied by the alienation of land; and the princely
donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are expressly given for the remedy
of their soul. It is a maxim of the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay
with his purse, must pay with his body; and the practice of flagellation
was adopted by the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a
fantastic arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand
lashes; [25] and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St.
Dominic of the iron Cuirass, [26] that in six days he could discharge
an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred thousand stripes.
His example was followed by many penitents of both sexes; and, as a
vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy disciplinarian might expiate
on his own back the sins of his benefactors. [27] These compensations
of th