Flagellants, a set of medieval fanatics, who first arose in Italy in 1260, and subsequently appeared in other quarters of Europe, and who thought by self-flagellation to atone for sin and avert divine judgment, hoping by a limited number of stripes to compensate for a century of scourgings; the practice arose at a time when it was reckoned that the final judgment of the world was at hand.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Flacius * Flahault de la Billarderie, Auguste Charles Joseph, Comte de