The Brothers of the Cross were not permitted to seek for free
quarters, or even to enter a house without having been invited;
they were forbidden to converse with females; and if they
transgressed these rules, or acted without discretion, they were
obliged to confess to the Superior, who sentenced them to several
lashes of the scourge, by way of penance. Ecclesiastics had not,
as such, any pre-eminence among them; according to their original
law, which, however, was often transgressed, they could not become
Masters, or take part in the Secret Councils. Penance was
performed twice every day: in the morning and evening they went
abroad in pairs, singing psalms amid the ringing of the bells; and
when they arrived at the place of flagellation, they stripped the
upper part of their bodies and put off their shoes, keeping on
only a linen dress, reaching from the waist to the ankles. They
then lay down in a large circle, in different positions, according
to the nature of the crime: the adulterer with his face to the
ground; the perjurer on one side, holding up three of his fingers,
&c., and were then castigated, some more and some less, by the
Master, who ordered them to rise in the words of a prescribed
form.
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