103 



FLAGEOLET. 



FLAMES', FLAMINES. 



the blessings of Heaven. This practice began to spread so 

 widely that many of the less bigoted clergymen endeavoured to dis- 

 countenance it, but unsuccessfully, and it became every day more pre- 

 valent among the besotted crowds of that dark age. About the year 

 1260 the intoxication was complete. People being no longer satisfied 

 to practise similar mortifications in private, began to perform them in 

 public on pretence of greater humiliation. Regular associations and 

 fraternities were formed for that purpose ; and the extravagancies 

 which they committed were of such a nature that even the contem- 

 porary writers, although accustomed to such scenes, seem to have been 

 (truck with astonishment. The monk of St. Justina, the first author 

 who gives a circumstantial account of these fanatics, says the practice 

 was attended with good effects. 



"Then," continues the same author, "those who were at enmity 

 with one another Ijecame friends. Usurers and robbers hastened to 

 restore their ill-gotten riches to then- right owners. Others who were 

 contaminated with different crimes confessed them with humility, and 

 renounced their vanities. Jails were opened, prisoners were set free, 

 and banished persons permitted to return to their native habitations." 



This sudden repentance was the effect of the terror inspired by the 

 1 belief that the end of the world was at hand. Such mental fever 

 could not last very long, and indeed it seems to have soon subsided. 

 But in the 14th century, when the imaginations of the people were 

 excited by the terrible pestilence known under the appellation of the 

 black death, which desolated all Europe during that century, the 

 flagellation mania broke out with new fury. The flagellants held 

 that flagellation was of equal virtue with baptism, that the law of 

 Christ was about to be abolished, and a new law, enjoining the baptism 

 of blood, to be administered by whipping, was to be substituted in its 

 Not only all the scenes of the 13th century were re-enacted, 

 but the excesses of fanaticism became even worse than before. The 

 flagellants spread over all Europe, and a band of them reached 

 London in the reign of Edward III. Their number consisted of 120 

 men and women. Each day at an appointed hour they assembled, 

 ranged themselves in two lines, and paraded the streets scourging 

 their naked shoulders and chanting a hymn. At a given signal, all 

 with the exception of the List, threw themselves flat on the ground ; 

 and he who was last, as he passed by his companions, gave each a lash, 

 and then also lay down. The others followed in succession till every 

 individual in his turn had received a stroke from the whole brother- 

 hood. The citizens of London gazed and marvelled, pitied and com- 

 mended ; but they went no farther. Their faith was too weak, or 

 their skins too delicate ; and they allowed the strangers to monopolise 

 all the merits of such a religious exercise. The missionaries did not 

 make a single convert, and were obliged to return without any other 

 success than the conviction of having done their duty to an unbelieving 

 generation. (Stow's ' Annals.') 



Early in the 15th century they re-appeared in Germany, and their 

 >;id Schmidt, was burnt as a heretic in 1414 ; but the sect 

 continued to exist nearly throughout the century, Their doctrines, 

 however, were widely different from those of their predecessors. They 

 taught that the Roman Catholic belief in the efficacy of the sacrament, 

 purgatory, and prayers for the dead were false ; and that faith and 

 flagellation, with a belief in the apostle's creed, were alone necessary 

 far salvation. 



The purity of the first flagellants was not long preserved by their 



followers, and it was but natural that a fanatical rabble, who thought 



that self-torment was a sufficient atonement for all possible sins, 



1 fall into great excesses. The fl igellants were soon accused of 



crimes; the celebrated Gerson attacked them in his writings, 



and Pope Clement VII. declared them heretics, and thundered out 



anathemas against them. The flagellants were persecuted everywhere, 



and many of them were burnt as heretics. It was, however, with 



great difficulty that this sect was completely extirpated. For further 



particulars about the flagellants see all the ecclesiastical histories ; and 



also Jacques Boileau, ' Histoire des Flagellans; ' an English paraphrase 



same work appeared under the title ' Memorials of Human 



tition by one who is not a Doctor of the Sorbonne ; ' see also 



Muratori's ' Antiquit. Ital. Medii JEvi,' and Moshcim's ' Ecclesiastical 



History.' 



FLA'QEOLET, a small pipe, or musical instrument, of the flute 



kiml, played on by means of a mouthpiece, in the manner of the old 



h flute and pitch-pipe. Its compass is two octaves, from F, the 



niice in the treble cleff, to v in altissimo. The scale of the 



"I'.oltt is rather more limited ; and that of the patent octave 



1 is an octave higher than the ordinary instruments. 



The double faijerAet consists of two instruments, united by one 

 mouthpiece, producing, as its name indicates, double notes. The use 

 tlagfuli't is now almost entirely confined to the ball-room ; it is 

 superseded by the octave flute, or ftauto piccolo. [KI.UTE. I 



KLAKK WHITE. [COLOL'RO.; MATTERS.] 



FLAMBOYANT, a term employed by many writers to designate 



yle of French Gothic architecture which corresponds in time to 



what is commonly called the Perpendicular style in England. The 



name was given to it from the waving or flame-like curves of the 



tracery of the windows, Ac. [GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.] 



FLAME is the combustion of gaseous or of volatilised fluid or solid 

 It is attended with groat hit, and sometimes with the 



evolution of much light; but the temperature may be intense 

 when the light is feeble : this is the case with the flame of hydrogen 

 gas, it being scarcely visible by daylight, though its heat is intense ; 

 the combustion of hydrogen is then an example of flame resulting from 

 the chemical action between it and the oxygen of the air. As there is 

 no solid matter in the flame of this gas, the light which it yields is 

 inconsiderable ; but it is greatly increased by dusting finely divided 

 charcoal into the flame. 



In the burning of a candle, the wax or tallow being first rendered 

 fluid by heat, rises in the wick, and although the wick supplies some 

 hydrogen and carbon, by far the greater portion of these is yielded by 

 the wax or tallow, which burn by the assistance of the oxygen of the 

 air. The supply of hot vapour diminishes as it ascends, and eventually 

 fails, and hence the flame of a candle gradually tapers to a point and 

 then ceases. 



Two opinions have been entertained as to the mode in which flame 

 is produced and propagated. According to Sir H. Davy, the flame of 

 combustible bodies "must be considered as the combustion of an 

 explosive mixture of inflammable gas or vapour and air ; for it cannot 

 be regarded as a mere combustion at the surface of contact of the 

 inflammable matter ; and the fact is proved by holding a taper or a 

 piece of burning phosphorus within a large flame made by the com- 

 bustion of alcohol ; the flame of the candle or of the phosphorus will 

 appear in the centre of the other flame, proving that there is oxygen 

 even in its interior part." (' On the Safety-Lamp,' p. 45.) 



In the opinion of Mr. Sym ('Annals of Phil.,' vol. viii. p. 321), "the 

 internal part of the flame is comparatively cool, the actual combustion 

 being diffused over the surface, and concentrated at the apex." Mr. 

 Sym adduces many curious and important experiments in proof of his 

 opinion ; but the most decisive facts in its favour are those related by 

 Mr. Davies (' Ann. Phil.,' vol. x., p. 447), and they appear fully to 

 warrant the inference he has deduced from them, that the interior of 

 flame will not support combustion, and that on account of its containing 

 little or no oxygen. 



A piece of phosphorus was placed upon a small wooden stand in a 

 Wedgwood dish ; spirit of wine was then poured into the dish in such 

 a manner that it did not reach the phosphorus. The spirit of wine 

 was lighted, and its flame completely enveloped the combustible body. 

 In the course of a few seconds the phosphorus became fluid, and 

 remained in that state upon the stand, and never in a single instance 

 inflamed, until the alcohol was consumed or its flame extinguished, 

 though in several instances the spirit of wine continued to burn for 

 three or four minutes. The phosphorus always burst into a vigorous 

 flame when the spirit of wine was extinguished. When the flame of 

 the spirit of wine was blown upon, so that the edge of it came in con- 

 tact with the phosphorus, the phosphorus immediately burst into a 

 flame ; but the flame was instantly extinguished and the boiling 

 resumed, as soon as the flame of the alcohol was restored to its natural 

 position. 



Mr. Davies states also that a lighted wax taper surrounded by alcohol 

 was extinguished when the alcohol was inflamed. 



That flame is merely a thin film of white hot vapour, and that its 

 combustion is entirely superficial, while inflammable matter is con- 

 tained within which cannot burn for want of oxygen, is proved by 

 inserting one end of a small hollow glass tube into the dark central 

 portion of the flame of a large candle or of a gas-light ; the interior 

 unburnt vapour or gas will escape through it, and may be lighted at 

 the other end of the tube. 



A most intense light, employed by Lieutenant Drummond in 

 geodetical operations, is produced by passing a stream of oxygen gas 

 directed through the flame of alcohol upon lime turned into the form 

 of small balls. He found the light emitted by the lime when exposed 

 to this intense heat to be 83 times the intensity of the brightest part 

 of the flame of an argand burner of the best construction and supplied 

 with the finest oil. Lime has since been used with the oxy-hydrogen 

 blowpipe for the illumination of the solar microscope. 



The brilliancy of flame is much diminished by various cooling pro- 

 cesses : thus, when a piece of glass is put over or into the flame of a 

 candle, it becomes covered with charcoal in the state of soot, which 

 the diminished heat of the flame is incapable of burning. This takes 

 place to a much greater extent with oil and tallow than with alcohol ; 

 the latter containing less carbon and more hydrogen than the former, 

 its carbon is not so readily deposited by cooling. 



It is on the cooling power of the metals with regard to flame, and 

 especially of wire-gauze, that the construction of the safety-lamp 

 depends. [SAFETT-LAMP.] The uses to which flame is applied are 

 numerous and highly important ; it is employed for the purpose of 

 giving heat in reverberatory furnaces and in the blowpipe, and fur that 

 of yielding light in gas- and oil-lamps and candles. It is to be observed, 

 that flame is produced by various other chemical processes, and by 

 other means than the combustion of substances containing hydrogen 

 and carbon, though the latter are the elements from which it is 

 obtained for all the numerous purposes of common life and manu- 

 factures. 



FLAMEN, FLAMINES, one of the orders of priesthood in ancient 

 Rome, like the Salii, the Feciales, and others, instituted, according to 

 tradition, by Numa Pompilius. The Flamines were each destined 

 M the service of some particular deity ; there was the Flnraen Dialis 



