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Disciplinary use and torture[edit]

Flogging a delinquent; Germany, 17th century





From Middle Ages to modern times[edit]

Punishment with a Great Knout. Russia, 18th century.


In England, offenders (mostly those convicted of theft) were usually sentenced to be flogged "at a cart's tail" along a length of public street, usually near the scene of the crime, "until his [or her] back be bloody". In the late seventeenth century, however, the courts occasionally ordered that the flogging should be carried out in prison or a house of correction rather than on the streets. From the 1720s courts began explicitly to differentiate between private whipping and public whipping. Over the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the proportion of whippings carried out in public declined, but the number of private whippings increased. The public whipping of women was abolished in 1817 (after having been in decline since the 1770s) and that of men ended in the early 1830s, though not formally abolished until 1862. Private whipping of men in prison continued and was not abolished until 1948.[2]

Whipping occurred during the French Revolution, though not as official punishment. On 31 May 1793, the Jacobin women seized a revolutionary leader, Anne Josephe Theroigne de Mericourt, stripped her naked, and flogged her on the bare bottom in the public garden of the Tuileries. After this humiliation, she refused to wear any clothes, in memory of the outrage she had suffered.[3] She went mad and ended her days in an asylum after the public whipping.


Use against slaves[edit]

Female slave suspended by one ankle for whipping


Present-day official flogging[edit]

Foot whipping in a Syrian prison, exhibit from Amna Sur Museum, Sulaymaniyah

Officially abolished in most Western countries, flogging or whipping, including foot whipping in some countries, is still a common punishment in some parts of the world, particularly in Islamic countries and in some territories formerly under British rule. Medically supervised caning is routinely ordered by the courts as a penalty for some categories of crime in Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

Flogging as military punishment[edit]


Flogging was a common disciplinary measure in the British Royal Navy that became associated with a seaman's manly disregard for pain.[7] Aboard ships, knittles or the cat o' nine tails was used for severe formal punishment, while a "rope's end" or "starter" was used to administer informal, on-the-spot discipline. In severe cases a person could be "flogged around the fleet": a significant number of lashes (up to 600) was divided among the ships on a station and the person was taken to all ships to be flogged on each.[8]

In June 1879, flogging in the British Navy was debated in the House of Commons. John O'Connor Power, the member for Mayo, asked the First Lord of the Admiralty to bring the navy cat-of-nine-tails to the Commons Library so that the members might see what they were voting for. It was the Great "Cat" Contention, "Mr Speaker, since the Government has let the cat out of the bag, there is nothing to be done but to take the bull by the horns." Poet Laureate Ted Hughes celebrates the occasion in his poem, "Wilfred Owen's Photographs": "A witty profound Irishman calls/For a 'cat' into the House, and sits to watch/The gentry fingering its stained tails./Whereupon ...Quietly, unopposed,/The motion was passed."[9]

In the Napoleonic Wars, the maximum number of lashes that could be inflicted on soldiers in the British Army reached 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.[10] Other sentences were for 900, 700, 500 and 300 lashes. One soldier was sentenced to 700 lashes for stealing a beehive.[11] Another man was let off after only 175 of 400 lashes, but spent three weeks in the hospital.[12] Later in the war, the more draconian punishments were abandoned and the offenders shipped to New South Wales instead, where more whippings often awaited them. (See Australian penal colonies section.) Oman later wrote:



At the urging of New Hampshire Senator John P. Hale, the United States Congress banned flogging on all U.S. ships on September 28, 1850, as part of a then-controversial amendment to a naval appropriations bill.[15][16] Hale was inspired by Herman Melville's "vivid description of flogging, a brutal staple of 19th century naval discipline" in Melville's "novelized memoir" White Jacket.[15] Melville also included a vivid depiction of flogging, and the circumstances surrounding it, in his more famous work, Moby-Dick.



Australian penal colonies[edit]

Fremantle Prison whipping post.








(See also: History of Australia).


According to the Torah (Deuteronomy 25:1-3) and Rabbinic law lashes may be given for offenses that do not merit capital punishment, and may not exceed 40. However, in the absence of a Sanhedrin, corporal punishment is not practiced in Jewish law. Halakha specifies the lashes must be given in sets of three, so the total number cannot exceed 39. Also, the person whipped is first judged whether they can withstand the punishment, if not, the number of whips is decreased.



Roman Catholicism[edit]

Flagellants. From a fifteenth-century woodcut.

The Flagellation refers in a Christian context to the Flagellation of Christ, an episode in the Passion of Christ prior to Jesus' crucifixion. The practice of mortification of the flesh for religious purposes has been utilised by the Roman Catholic Church since the time of the Great Schism in 1054.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a late 19th-century French Discalced Carmelite nun considered in Catholicism to be a Doctor of the Church, is an influential example of a saint who questioned prevailing attitudes toward physical penance. Her view was that loving acceptance of the many sufferings of daily life was pleasing to God, and fostered loving relationships with other people, more than taking upon oneself extraneous sufferings through instruments of penance. As a Carmelite nun, Saint Thérèse practiced voluntary corporal mortification.



Flagellation as a religious practice[edit]

Shi'ites in Pakistan flagellate themselves during the Moharram procession.
Main article: Self-flagellation

Roman Catholicism[edit]

In the 13th century, a group of Roman Catholics, known as the Flagellants, took this practice to its extreme ends. The Flagellants were later condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as a cult in the 14th century because the established church had no other control over the practice other than excommunication.[citation needed] Self-flagellation remains common in Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico, Spain and one convent in Peru.

Some members of strict monastic orders, and some members of the Catholic lay organization Opus Dei, practice mild self-flagellation using an instrument called a "discipline", a cattail whip usually made of knotted cords, which is flung over the shoulders repeatedly during private prayer.[19] Pope John Paul II took the discipline regularly.[20]


Shi'a Islam[edit]

Main article: Day of Ashura

As suffering and cutting the body with knives or chains (matam) have been prohibited by Shi'a marjas like Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran,[21] some Shi'a observe mourning with blood donation which is called "Qame Zani"[21] and flailing.[22] Yet some Shi'ite men and boys continue to slash themselves with chains (zanjeer) or swords (talwar) and allow their blood to run freely.[22]

Certain rituals like the traditional flagellation ritual called Talwar zani (talwar ka matam or sometimes tatbir) using a sword or zanjeer zani or zanjeer matam, involving the use of a zanjeer (a chain with blades) are also performed.[23] These are religious customs that show solidarity with Husayn and his family. People mourn the fact that they were not present at the battle to fight and save Husayn and his family.[24][25] In some western cities, Shi'a communities have organized blood donation drives with organizations like the Red Cross on Ashura as a positive replacement for self-flagellation rituals like "Tatbir" and "Qame Zani".

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Whipping". 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
  2. ^ London lives
  5. ^ Martin, p 76.
  6. ^ Tomasson, p 127.
  9. ^ Hughes, Ted, "Wilfred Owen's Photographs", Lupercal, 1960. See also Stanford, Jane, That Irishman: the Life and Times of John O'Connor Power, 2011, pp. 79-80.
  10. ^ Oman, p 239.
  11. ^ Oman, p 246.
  12. ^ Oman, p 254.
  13. ^ Oman, p.43.
  14. ^ Rothenberg, p.179.
  16. ^ 31st Congress, Session 1, Chapter 80 (1850), p515. Quote: "Provided, That flogging in the navy, and on board vessels of commerce, be, and the same is hereby, abolished from and after the passage of this act."
  17. ^ "Cardwell's Army Reforms 1870--1881"
  18. ^ "Ruling on the crime of rape". 9 January 2012. 
  20. ^ Barron, Fr. Robert. "Taking the Discipline". 

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]