By the following year the movement disappeared (although flagellation can still be found in some religions today, such as Shi’a Islam). However the flagellants ignored and scorned the sentence of excommunication pronounced against them by bishops.
1348 – the year that the Flagellant movement appeared, first in Eastern Europe, around Hungary and Poland, before spreading to Germany, modern-day Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Having been thrashed by the Master, the Brethren would stand and begin to flagellate themselves. After some period of this self-torture, the Flagellants would throw themselves to the ground once more, and the process would begin again. Above: Flagellants depicted in a fifteenth century woodcut.
– Jean Froissart (c.1337-c.1405). 2,500 – the number of traveling Flagellants that one monastery accommodated during one six-month period. October 1349 – the month that Pope Clement VI proclaimed that the Flagellants were not following the rules of the Church, excommunicating many.