Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FLAG'EL-LANT, n. [L. flagellans, from flagello, to flog.]

One who whips himself in religious discipline. The Flagellants were a fanatical sect which arose in Italy A. D. 1260, who maintained that flagellation was of equal virtue with baptism and the sacrament. They walked in procession with shoulders hare, and whipped themselves till the blood ran down their bodies, to obtain the mercy of God, and appease his wrath against the vices of the age. Encyc.