e closed against
them. At Spires, two hundred boys, of twelve years of age and under,
constituted themselves into a Brotherhood of the Cross, in imitation of
the children who, about a hundred years before, had united, at the
instigation of some fanatic monks, for the purpose of recovering the Holy
Sepulchre. All the inhabitants of this town were carried away by the
illusion; they conducted the strangers to their houses with songs of
thanksgiving, to regale 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 wounds. Not only during the day,
but even by night, and in the severest winter, they traversed the cities
with burning torches and banners, in thousands and tens of th