Even had the written word failed to inform us, religious iconography would have supplied the missing facts. Glance at a 15th century manuscript preserved in the Bourgogne Library at Brussels: could words say more? There we see a monk being flogged in the presence of his brothers, and the field of operation laid bare to their view. The same treatment was also meted out in convents: for moral offences, for negligence or slackness in the performance of religious duties, the superior punished the offender in the presence of all the other sisters so that the words of the apostle might be fulfilled: ‘Let sinners be confounded in the sight of all.’ In an assembly of ecclesiastics held at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, it was decided that monks should be flogged naked before all their brethren. It would appear that the penitence was more meritorious when it was applied _in anima vili_ (_in corpore vili_ would be more in keeping with the facts). The constitution of the Carmelites stipulated that the master of the novices was to flog them gently, after having decently uncovered the bottom of the back. In some communities, shirts had to be made open at the back so that they could be opened and allow a fair field. In several convents there were novices who were trained specially for administering discipline. The Ursulines had a mistress specialty charged to teach them how to hold the instrument, how to lengthen and shorten their arm so that the blows got home effectively, and how to maintain a decent posture. One of the masters of the art of flagellation, Julien de la Croix, wanted the lashes to be of unequal length so that they fell in different places and widened the tormented area. A daughter of Louis XI, Jeanne de France, invented a scourge which made five wounds. It was a silver cross, armed with five spikes. Flagellation was not only applied in monasteries; very soon a number of bishops claimed the same right over their priests as abbots had over monks. Although monks, priests, and deacons were, by special canon, exempt from abbatial fustigation, the monk Godescal submitted to it with grand apparel in the presence of Charles the Bald. The bishop of Spire was flogged by order Pope John XII. This punishment was frequently used with heretics when they were no longer immured for life, or burnt alive. Their rank was no safeguard against this infamous chastisement. Prince Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, suspected of heresy, was publicly flogged outside the church of St. Gilles, Valencia, by the hand of the pope’s legate. Henry II of England was publicly flogged to expiate the murder of the archbishop of Canterbury.