They each carried a scourge of leathern thongs, which they applied to their limbs, amid sighs and tears, with such violence that the blood flowed from the wounds.

Not only during the day, but even by night, and in the severest winter, they traversed the cities with burning torches and banners, in thousands and tens of thousands, headed by their priests, and prostrated themselves before the altars.
They proceeded in the same manner in the villages: and the woods and mountains resounded with the voices of those whose cries were raised to God.

The melancholy chaunt of the penitent alone was heard.

Enemies were reconciled; men and women vied with each other in splendid works of charity, as if they dreaded that Divine Omnipotence would pronounce on them the doom of annihilation." The pilgrimages of the Flagellants extended throughout all the province of Southern Germany, as far as Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland, and even further; but at length the priests resisted this dangerous fanaticism, without being able to extirpate the illusion, which was advantageous to the hierarchy as long as it submitted to its sway.

Regnier, a hermit of Perugia, is recorded as a fanatic preacher of penitence, with whom the extravagance originated.