Henry M. Baird · 71 of 379

CHAPTER I · Indecent processions.

It was not astonishing that the church itself did little to remove the barbarism prevailing among the common people, for, in point of fact, buffoonery, immodesty, and cruelty had intruded into the very ceremonial of religion. Never were there more disgusting exhibitions of the low state of the public morals than when the occurrence of pestilence, drought, or some other signal visitation of the displeasure of heaven induced a clergy scarcely less rude than the laity to institute propitiatory processions. On such occasions children of both sexes, or perhaps grown men and women, with bare feet, and wearing for their only clothing a sheet that scarcely concealed their forms, passed through the streets of the towns, or wearily trudged from village to village, responsively singing the litanies of the Virgin or the saints, and loudly repeating the refrain, Ora pro nobis. Often shameful indecency and a reckless disregard of human life were displayed. In one of the villages of Champagne, during the protracted drought of 1556, the sacred scenes of the Passion were publicly enacted in the streets. The person of our Lord was represented by a young man in a state of entire nudity and bound with cords, who at every step was scourged by his companions, personating the Roman soldiers. The picture was true to life, and the blows so far from unreal that the prime actor in the scandalous performance fell a victim to the inhuman treatment and died within a few days. The fruits of practices so coarse and debasing were such as may easily be conceived.