FLAG-OFFICER FLAGELLATION. 



205 



mast head, a rear-admiral. The union is the highest 

 admiral's flag. The next flag after the union is white 

 at the main ; and the last, which cliaracterizes an 

 admiral, is blue at the same mast-head. For a vice- 

 admiral, the first flag is red, the second white, and 

 the third blue, at the fore-top-gallant-mast head. 

 The same order is observed with regard to rear- 

 admirals, whose flags are displayed at the mizzen-top- 

 gallant-mast head. The lowest flajj in this navy is, 

 accordingly, blue at the mizzcn. All the white flags 

 have a red St George's cross in them, inserted origin- 

 ally to distinguish them from the old French white 

 flag with a white cross. The French national flag, 

 since the late revolution, is the tri-coioured flag, 

 red, white, and blue. When a council of war is held 

 at sea, if it be on board the admiral, they hang a flag 

 on die main shrouds ; if in the vice-admiral, in the 

 fore shrouds ; and if in the rear-admiral, in the 

 inizzen shrouds. The flags borne on the mizzen are 

 particularly called gallants. See plate XXXVII. 

 for representations of various flags belonging to the 

 more important states, kingdoms, and empires in the 

 world. See also the article Standards. 



To heave out the flag, is to put out or hang abroad 

 the flag. To hang out the white flag, is to call for 

 quarter ; or it shows, when a vessel arrives on a 

 coast, that it has no hostile intention, but comes to 

 trade, or the like. To hang out the red flag, is to 

 give a signal of defiance and battle. To lower or 

 strike the flag, is to pull it down upon the cap, or to 

 take it in, out of the respect or submission due from 

 all ships or fleets, to those any way justly their supe- 

 riors. To lower or strike the flag, iri an engage- 

 ment, is a sign of yielding. The way to lead a ship 

 in triumph, is to tie the flags to the shrouds, or the 

 gallery in the hind-part of the ship, and let them 

 hang down towards the water, and tow the vessel 

 by the stern. 



FLAG-OFFICER ; synonymous to admiral. 

 FLAG-SHIP ; a ship in which an admiral's flag is 

 displayed. 



FLAG-STAFF is generally a continuation of the 

 top-gallant-mast above the top-gallant rigging, but 

 is sometimes, especially in guard-ships, a spar, occu- 

 pying the top of the top-gallant-mast, and is only of 

 use to display the flag or pendano. When it is a con- 

 tinuation of the top-gallant-mast, it is frequently 

 termed the royal mast. 



FLAGELLANTS (from the Latin flagellare, to 

 beat) ; the name of a sect in the thirteenth century, 

 who thought that they could best expiate their sins 

 by the severe discipline of the scourge. Rainer, a 

 hermit of Perugia, is said to have been its founder, in 

 1 260. He soon found followers in nearly all parts of 

 Italy. Old and young, great and small, ran through 

 the cities, scourging themselves, and exhorting to 

 repentance. Their number soon amounted to 10,000, 

 who went about, led by priests bearing banners and 

 crosses. They went in thousands from country to 

 country, begging alms. In 1261, they broke over the 

 Alps in crowds into Germany, showed themselves in 

 Alsatia, Bavaria, Bohemia, and Poland, and found 

 there many imitators. In 1296, a small band of 

 Flagellants appeared in Strasburg, who, with covered 

 faces, whipped themselves through the city, and at 

 every church. The princes and higher clergy were 

 little pleased with this new fraternity, although it was 

 favoured by the people. The shameful public expo- 

 sure of the person by the Flagellants offended good 

 manners ; their travelling in such numbers afforded 

 opportunity for seditious commotions, and irregular- 

 ities of all sorts ; and their extortion of alms was a 

 severe tax upon the peaceful citizen. On this account, 

 both in Germany and in Italy, several princes forbade 

 these expeditions of the Flagellants. The kings oi 



Poland and Bohemia expelled them with violence 

 Vom their states, and the bishops strenuously opposed 

 them. In spite of this, the society continued under 

 another form, in the fraternities of the Beghards, (see 

 Beguines), in G ermany and France, and in the begin- 

 ning of the fifteenth century, among the Brothers of 

 the cross, so numerous in Thuringia (so called from 

 rearing on their clothes a cross on the breast and on 

 the back), of whom ninety-one were burnt at once 

 at Sangershausen, in 1414. The council assembled 

 at Constance, between 1414 and 1418, was obliged 

 to take decisive measures against them. Nothing 

 more has been since heard of such a fraternity. 



FLAGELLATION has almost always been used 

 for the punishment of crimes. Its application as a 

 means of religious penance is an old Oriental custom, 

 admitted into Christianity partly because self-torment 

 was considered salutary as mortifying the flesh, and 

 partly because both Christ and the apostles under- 

 went scourging. From the first century of Christian- 

 ity, religious persons sought to atone for their sins", 

 and to move an impartial Judge to compassion and 

 pardon, by voluntary bodily torture. Like the abbot 

 Regino, at Prum, in the tenth century, many chose to 

 share in the sufferings of Christ, in order to make 

 themselves the more certain of forgiveness through 

 him. It became general in the eleventh century, 

 svhen Peter Damiani of Ravenna, abbot of the Bene- 

 dictine monastery of Santa Croce d'Avellano, near 

 Gubbio, in Italy, afterwards cardinal bishop ofOstia, 

 zealously recommended scourging as an atonement 

 for sin, to Christians generally, and, in particular, to 

 the monks. His own example, and the fame of his 

 sanctity, rendered his exhortations effective. Clergy 

 and laity, men and women, began to torture them- 

 selves with rods, and thongs, and chains. They fixed 

 certain times for the infliction of this discipline upon 

 themselves. Princes caused themselves to be scourged 

 naked by their father confessors. Louis IX. con- 

 tantly carried with him, for this purpose, an ivory 

 box, containing five small iron chains, and exhorted 

 his father confessor to scourge him with severity. He 

 likewise gave similar boxes to the princes and prin- 

 cesses ot his house, and to other pious friends, as 

 marks of his peculiar favour. 



The wild expectation of being purified from sin by 

 flag* llation, prevailed throughout Europe in the last 

 half of the thirteenth century. "About this time," 

 says the monk of Padua, in his chronicles of the 

 year 1260, "when all Italy was filled with vice, the 

 Perugians suddenly entered upon a course nevei 

 before thought of ; after them, the Romans, and at 

 length all Italy. The fear of Christ exerted upon 

 the people so strong an influence, that men of noble 

 and ignoble birth, old and young, traversed the 

 streets of the city naked, yet without shame. Each 

 carried a scourge in his hand, with which he drew 

 forth blood from his tortured body, amidst sighs and 

 tears, singing, at the same time, penitential psalms, 

 and entreating the compassion of the Deity. Both 

 by day and night, and even in the coldest winters, by 

 hundreds and thousands, they wandered through cities 

 and churches, streets and villages, with burning wax 

 candles. Music was then silent, and the song of 

 love echoed no more : nothing was heard but atoning 

 lamentations. The most unfeeling could not refrain 

 from tears ; discordant parties were reconciled ; 

 usurers and robbers hastened to restore their unlaw- 

 ful gains ; criminals, before unsuspected, came and 

 confessed their crimes, c." But these penances 

 soon degenerated into noisy fanaticism and a sort of 

 trade. The penitents united into fraternities called 

 the Flagellants (q. v.), of which there were branches 

 in Italy, France, and Germany. After the council of 

 Constance (1414 18), both clergy and laity by 



