Flagellants

The Flagellants are presented as lay penitents whose bodily self-punishment was understood as expiation for the sins of the people. Their brief appearance in the Decameron comes through a report that Puccio di Rinieri may have belonged to the movement, placing his private devotion alongside a more public and physically demonstrative form of penitence.

Nature and Practice

The account identifies the Flagellants as an order of lay penitents. At certain times, members went masked through the streets and scourged themselves, treating this act of bodily mortification as expiation for the sins of the people. The description establishes both the movement’s lay character and its visible, collective practice; it does not specify a hierarchy, formal rules, or a permanent organization beyond calling it an order.

Historical Setting

The account notes that this penitential practice was particularly prevalent in Italy in the middle of the thirteenth century. Its appearance in the narrative therefore evokes a historically situated form of public devotion, in which religious penance was enacted on the streets rather than confined to private prayer or church observance.

Reference in the Decameron

The movement is mentioned in the story of Puccio di Rinieri, a wealthy and respectable man living near San Pancrazio who, in later life, devoted himself to religious practices. He frequented church, attended sermons and mass, observed the Lauds sung by lay confraternities, fasted, and mortified himself. The narrator adds that it was rumored he belonged to the Flagellants. That qualification matters: the story reports an uncertain association, not confirmed membership.

The reference gives the movement a small but pointed role in the story’s portrait of Puccio. His ascetic reputation is established through familiar devotional routines, while the rumor of flagellant affiliation suggests a more extreme form of penance. The contrast helps situate his piety within the religious practices of his time without making the Flagellants themselves participants in the ensuing action.