In the year 1296 there was a great procession of the Flagellants in Strasburg; and in 1334, fourteen years before the Great Mortality, the sermon of Venturinus, a Dominican friar of Bergamo, induced above 10,000 persons to undertake a new pilgrimage.

They scourged themselves in the churches, and were entertained in the market- places at the public expense.

At Rome, Venturinus was derided, and banished by the Pope to the mountains of Ricondona.

He patiently endured all--went to the Holy Land, and died at Smyrna, 1346.

Hence we see that this fanaticism was a mania of the middle ages, which, in the year 1349, on so fearful an occasion, and while still so fresh in remembrance, needed no new founder; of whom, indeed, all the records are silent.