Dictionary Definition
flogging n : beating with a whip or strap or rope
as a form of punishment [syn: whipping, tanning, lashing, flagellation]flog
Verb
1 beat severely with a whip or rod; "The teacher
often flogged the students"; "The children were severely trounced"
[syn: welt, whip, lather, lash, slash, strap, trounce]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Verb
flogging- present participle of flog
Extensive Definition
Flagellation is the act of whipping (Latin
flagellum, "whip") the human body. Specialised implements for it
include rods, switches and
the cat-o-nine-tails.
Typically, whipping is performed on unwilling subjects as a
punishment; however, flagellation can also be submitted to
willingly, or performed on oneself, in religious or sadomasochistic
contexts.
Disciplinary use and torture
Flogging is an approximate synonym that was probably derived from flagellum in the British navy, where flogging was a common disciplinary measure that became associated with a seaman's manly disregard for pain. Aboard ships, knittles or the cat o' nine tails was used for severe punishment, while a rope's end or starter was used to administer the lightest discipline to sailors.Flagellation probably originated in the Near East
but quickly spread throughout the ancient world. In Sparta, young men
were flogged as a test of their masculinity. The Jews limited
flagellation to forty strokes, and in practice delivered forty
strokes minus one, so as to avoid any possibility of breaking this
law due to a miscount. Additionally they would have a doctor
monitor the punishment, who would stop it if it became too much for
the person to safely bear.
In the Roman
Empire, flagellation was often used as a prelude to crucifixion, and in this
context is sometimes referred to as scourging. Whips with small
pieces of metal or bone at the tips were commonly used. Such a
device could easily cause disfigurement and serious trauma, such as
ripping pieces of flesh from the body or loss of an eye. In
addition to causing severe pain, the victim would be made to
approach a state of hypovolemic
shock due to loss of blood. The Romans reserved this torture
for non-citizens, as stated in the lex Porcia and lex Sempronia,
dating from 195 and 123 BC. The poet Horace refers to the
horribile flagellum (horrible whip) in his Satires, calling for the
end of its use. Typically, the one to be punished was stripped
naked and bound to a low pillar so that he could bend over it, or
chained to an upright pillar as to be stretched out. Two lictors (some reports indicate
scourgings with four or six lictors) alternated blows from the bare
shoulders down the body to the soles of the feet. There was no
limit to the number of blows inflicted— this was left to
the lictors to decide, though they were normally not supposed to
kill the victim. Nonetheless, Livy,
Suetonius and Josephus report
cases of flagellation where victims died while still bound to the
post. Flagellation was referred to as "half death" by some authors
and apparently, many died shortly thereafter. Cicero reports in In
Verrem, "pro mortuo sublatus brevi postea mortuus" ("taken away for
a dead man, shortly thereafter he was dead"). Often the victim was
turned over to allow flagellation on the chest, though this
proceeded with more caution, as the possibility of inflicting a
fatal blow was much greater.
Corporal punishment as whipping was especially
popular in French Revolution. For example one of leaders of
revolution
Anne Josephe Theroigne de Mericourt went mad, ending her days
in an asylum after public whipping. On the 31 May 1793 the Jacobin
women seized her, stripped her naked, and flogged her on bare
bottom in the public garden of the Tuileries. After
humiliation shameless and bloodthirsty in delirium she started to
live naked - refused to wear any garments, in memory of the outrage
she had suffered.
While flagellation and other forms of corporal
punishment are now forbidden in most Western countries,
flagellation is still a common form of punishment around the world,
particularly in Islamic countries.
Medically supervised caning is also still used as a
punishment for some categories of crime in Singapore and
Malaysia
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/05/1046826437209.html?oneclick=true.
Flogging as military punishment
In the 1700s and 1800s, European armies
administered floggings to common soldiers who committed breaches of
the military code. During the American
Revolutionary War, The American Congress raised the legal limit
on lashes from 39 to 100 for soldiers who were convicted by
courts-martial. Generally, officers were not flogged. However, in
1745, a cashiered British officer could have his sword broken over
his head, among other indignities inflicted on him.
In the Napoleonic
Wars, the maximum number of lashes that could be inflicted on
soldiers in the British Army reached an astonishing 1,200. This
many lashes could permanently disable or kill a man. Oman,
historian of the Peninsular
War, noted that the maximum sentence was inflicted "nine or ten
times by general court-martial during the whole six years of the
war" and that 1,000 lashes were administered about 50 times. Other
sentences were for 900, 700, 500 and 300 lashes. One soldier was
sentenced to 700 lashes for stealing a beehive. Another man was let
off after only 175 of 400 lashes, but spent three weeks in the
hospital. Later in the war, the more draconian punishments were
abandoned and the offenders shipped to New South Wales instead,
where unfortunately, more whippings often awaited them. (See
Australian penal colonies section.) Oman later wrote, "If anything
was calculated to brutalize an army it was the wicked cruelty of
the British military punishment code, which
Wellington to the end of his life supported. There is plenty of
authority for the fact that the man who had once received his 500
lashes for a fault which was small, or which involved no moral
guilt, was often turned thereby from a good soldier into a bad
soldier, by losing his self-respect and having his sense of justice
seared out. Good officers knew this well enough, and did their best
to avoid the cat-of-nine-tails, and to try more rational means --
more often than not with success."
Meanwhile, during the French
Revolutionary Wars the French Army stopped floggings
altogether. The King's German Legion (KGL), which were German units
in British pay, did not flog. In one case, a British soldier on
detached duty with the KGL was sentenced to be flogged, but the
German commander refused to carry out the punishment. When the
British 73rd Foot flogged a man in occupied France in 1814,
disgusted French citizens protested against it.
Australian penal colonies
While common in the British Army
and British Royal Navy as a means of discipline, flagellation also
featured prominently in the British penal
colonies in early colonial Australia. Given
that convicts in
Australia were already "imprisoned", punishments for offenses
committed in the colonies could not usually result in imprisonment
and thus usually consisted of corporal punishment such as hard
labour or flagellation. Unlike Roman times, British law explicitly
forbade the combination of corporal and capital
punishment; thus, a convict was either flogged or hanged but
never both.
Flagellation took place either with a single whip
or more notoriously, with the cat o'
nine tails. Typically, the offender's upper half was bared and
he was suspended by the hands beneath a tripod of wooden beams
(known as 'the triangle'), while either one or two floggers
administered the prescribed number of strokes. During the flogging,
a doctor or other medical worker was consulted at regular intervals
as to the condition of the prisoner - if the offender had fainted
from blood loss or suffered extreme skin and flesh loss from the
back, the punishment was usually suspended until such time that the
offender had sufficiently healed. Once healed, the remainder of the
required strokes were administered. Punishment was usually limited
to 20, 50 or 100 strokes at one flogging, though records exist of
prisoners in Australian penal colonies such as Norfolk
Island or Port
Arthur receiving more than 3,000 strokes over a number of
months or years.
Due to its prevalence, flagellation featured
prominently in the culture of early colonial Australia. It was
often a mark of pride for a flogged former convict to "show his
stripes" (expose his flagellation scars) as an "iron man", or to
hide them at all costs if an emancipated convict was attempting to
rebuild some semblance of a normal life in society. Children in the
Australian colonies were often observed playing "flogging games"
where a doll or another child would pretend to be "strung from the
triangles" and whipped.
(See also: History
of Australia).
Association with religion
Christianity
The Flagellation refers in a Christian context
to the Flagellation of Christ, an episode
in Jesus'
physical degradation leading to the Crucifixion. (See also:
The Passion,
Jesus and the Money Changers). The practice of
mortification of the flesh for religious purposes was utilized
in the Christian Flagellant
movements of the 13th century, and is still very common, to this
day, in the Philippines and
Latin
America. Some strict monastic orders such as the
Carmelites still
practice mild self-flagellation using an instrument called a
"discipline", a cattail whip made of light chains with small spikes
or hooks on the end, which is flung over the shoulders repeatedly
during private prayer. Practitioners are cautioned against over- or
underuse of the device.
Islam
Flagellation is still in use today under Islamic Sharia law in Saudi Arabia and Iran for various crimes, particularly sexual crimes.While Self Harm is forbidden in Islam a few
Shi'a
Muslims perform self-flagellation to mourn the death of
Hussain
during Muharram.
Most usually beat their chests with their hands. The practice is
common among Shiites in the Middle East and Asia.
Ecstatics and Mystics
Because practices such as starvation, sleep
denial and flagellation are known to induce altered states,
flagellation may be used by religious ecstatics and mystics as part of ritualistic
practices or ceremonies to achieve unusual states of mind.
Erotic use
In the sexual sub-culture of BDSM, "flagellation"
involves beating the submissive partner and is a form of impact play.
Such a flogging is not always delivered with forceful blows;
sometimes it is done with very soft blows, repeated a great many
times so as to make the skin sensitive. Thus, the softest impact
will eventually feel very intense. Flogging for erotic thrill,
typically with implements such as floggers, whips,
paddles, or canes, has been called the "English
vice". See also paraphilia.
The flogger used in this context has a large
number of soft broad thongs made of suede, leather, or comparable
materials. Its impact is felt as an impact ("thud") leaving a
stinging sensation. Used with light or medium intensity, it can
almost act as a form of massage. Used intensely or for
longer periods, it becomes painful. Flogging with this implement,
usually on the shoulder blades, buttocks, or other fatty areas of
the body, can leave bruising but does not cut or
permanently mark the skin.
See also
References and further reading
- Bean, Joseph W. Flogging, Greenery Press, 2000. ISBN 1-890159-27-1
- Conway, Andrew. The Bullwhip Book. Greenery Press, 2000. ISBN 1-890159-18-2
- Gibson, Ian. The English Vice: Beating, Sex and Shame in Victorian England and After. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-715612-64-6
- Martin, James Kirby & Lender, Mark Edward. A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1982. ISBN 0-88295-812-7
- Oman, Charles. Wellington's Army, 1809-1814. London: Greenhill, (1913) 1993. ISBN 0-947898-41-7
- Rothenburg, Gunther E. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-253-31076-8
- Tomasson, Katherine & Buist, Francis. Battles of the '45. London: Pan Books, 1974.
Footnotes
External links
flogging in Czech: Bičování
flogging in German: Flagellation
flogging in Modern Greek (1453-):
Μαστίγωση
flogging in Spanish: Flagelación
flogging in Persian: شلاقزنی
flogging in French: Flagellation
flogging in Italian: Flagellazione
flogging in Japanese: 鞭打ち
flogging in Polish: Chłosta
flogging in Portuguese: Flagelação
flogging in Swedish: Kroppsstraff
flogging in Ukrainian: Бичування
flogging in Chinese: 鞭打