given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, must pay with his body; and the practice of flagellation was adopted by the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes; ^25 and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St. Dominic of the iron Cuirass, ^26 that in six days he could discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his benefactors. ^27 These compensations of the purse and the person introduced, in the eleventh century, a more honorable mode of satisfaction. The merit of military service against the Saracens of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban the Second. In the council of Clermont, that pope proclaimed a plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt for all that might be due of canonical penance. ^28 The cold philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were the least amenable to the justice of God and the church were the best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; ^29 and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their salvation: they took up the cross, and entered with confidence into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their safety; perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land. Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers would open for their passage; that the walls of their strongest cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets; and that the sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for the destruction of the infidels?
[Footnote 22: The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709 - 768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p. 478 - 556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]
[Footnote 23: Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 211 - 220, 452 - 462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one year, five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]
[Footnote 24: Till the xiith century, we may support the clear account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling; and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to a fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]
[Footnote 25: Each century of lashes was sanctified with a recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]
[Footnote 26: The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p.