So much were flagellations grown into fashion in the days we mention, such attractions did they even seem to possess, that Ladies of high rank would also inlist among the abovementioned Whippers, and almost vied with Dominic the _Cuirassed_, Rodolph _de Eugubio_, St. Anthelm, and Abbot Poppo, in regard to the regularity with which they performed such meritorious exercises. Among those Ladies, particular mention is made of St. Maria of Ognia, of St. Hardwigge, Dutchess of Poland, of St. Hildegarde, and above all of the Widow Cechald, who lived in the very times of Cardinal Damian, and performed wonderful feats in the same career, as we are informed by St. Antonius, in the second Volume of his History. The following is the account given by St. Antonius, upon the authority of Cardinal Damian himself. ‘Not only Men, but also Women of noble birth eagerly sought after that kind of Purgatory; and the Widow of Cechaldus, a Woman of great birth and dignity, gave an account, that in consequence of an obligation she had previously imposed upon herself, she had gone through the hundred years penance, three thousand lashes being the number allotted for every year[87].’ [Illustration: (end of chapter mark)] FOOTNOTES: [83] The abovementioned Anthelm, I think I have read, lived to a very great age. The famous self-flagellator Dominic the _Cuirassed_, lived eighty-four years; St. Romuald, notwithstanding the flagellations he received from himself and his Monks, attained, it is said, the age of an hundred and twenty years; and Leon of _Preza_, another illustrious self-flagellator, lived, according to some accounts, to the age of an hundred and forty. If so, it would thence result, that self-flagellations, besides the other great advantages they possess, are also attended with that of being conducive to health. [84] ... _Jocando ridendo hoc alteri Confessori suo humiliter recognovit._ [85] ... _Après, prist discipline d’eux; moult doucement la reçut. Imprimé à Paris, par A. Gerard, le 1. Juillet, 1494._ This must have been one of the first books that were printed. [86] ... _ubi sancta & secreta orationum aromata Deo assiduè accenderent; frequentibus metanœis vel genufluxionibus pio conditori supplicarent; à tribus sæpè flagellis, vel ad pœnitentiam, vel ad augendum meritum, corpus attererent._ I will take this occasion to inform the Reader, that Monks, or persons of religious dispositions, do not always mean, in the penances they impose on themselves, to atone for their sins, which they do not by any means consider as being in proportion to the number of their flagellations. They practise mortifications of this kind, either for the good of other persons, or for delivering souls from Purgatory, or in order (as the Reader may see from the words above quoted) to increase their own merit, and, like the Fakir mentioned in a former place, go of course to the thirty-fifth Heaven.