Memorials of Human Superstition: being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the SorbonneLolme, Jean Louis de
History
Memorials of Human Superstition: being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne
Lolme, Jean Louis de
Boileau, Jacques, 1635-1716. Historia flagellantium; Flagellants
Among the French, notions of the same kind likewise prevail. Of this,
not to confine ourselves to particular facts, we may derive proofs
from their language itself; in which the verb that is derived from
the word by which the part here alluded to, is expressed, signifies
of itself, and without the addition of any other word, to beat or
verberate it: thus, Mons. de Voltaire supposes his Princess Cunegonde
to say to Candide,--_Tandis qu’on vous fessoit, mon cher Candid_;
by which, however, that Author does not mean expressly to say that
Candide was flagellated upon the part we speak of, by order of the
Inquisition; he only uses the above word to render his story more
jocular. From the above French word _fesser_, has been again derived
the noun _fessade_, signifying a verberation on the same part; the
same as the word _claque_ (or _clack_, as they pronounce it) which
originally meant a flap in general, but, by a kind of _antonomatia_
(a particular figure of speech) is now come expressly to signify a
slap on the part in question. Among the Italians, the practice of
verberating the same part, also obtains, if we are to trust to proofs
likewise derived from their language; and from the word _chiappa_,
they have made that of _chiappata_, the meaning of which is the same
with that of the French word _claque_.
If we turn our eyes to remote Nations, we find they entertain notions
of the same sort. Among the Turks, a verberation on the part we
speak of, is the common punishment that is inflicted either on the
Janissaries, or Spahis; I do not remember which of the two. Among
the Persians, punishments of the same kind are also established; and
we find in Chardin, an instance of a Captain of the outward gate of
the King’s Seraglio, who was served with it, for having suffered
a stranger to stop before that gate, and look through it. And the
Chinese also use a like method of chastisement, and inflict it, as
Travellers inform us, with a wooden instrument, shaped like a large
solid rounded spoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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