flagellant's Usage Examples:

A certain Conrad Schmidt placed himself at the head of a community of Thuringian flagellants, who took the name of Brethren of the Cross.

The flagellants paid for their own personal maintenance, but were allowed to accept board and lodging, if offered.

In 1820 a band of flagellants appeared during a procession at Lisbon; and in the Latin countries, at the season of great festivals, one may still see brotherhoods of penitents flagellating themselves before the assembled faithful.

Of these the most remarkable are the so-called Khlysti (" flagellants," from klyesat, " to strike, lash," but possibly a corruption of Khristi, " Christs ").

The magistrates in some of the Italian towns, and especially Uberto Pallavicino at Milan, expelled the flagellants with threats, and for a time the sect disappeared.

The flagellants reappeared, and made the state of religious trouble in Germany, provoked by the struggle between the papacy and Louis of Bavaria, subserve their cause.

In the spring of 1349 bands of flagellants, perhaps from Hungary, began their propaganda in the south of Germany.

Numbers of Beghards joined the Brethren of the Cross, and the two sects were confounded in the rigorous persecution conducted in Germany by the inquisitor Eylard Schoneveld, who almost annihilated the flagellants.

Synonyms:

penitent,

Antonyms:

unrepentant, unashamed,