Monk Flogging Nude Girl

The title of this piece is “Penance” and I suppose that’s as good an excuse as a monk needs to flog a pretty girl:

monk flogging girl

Does anybody have this woodcut in a larger size?

  1. Sandy commented on May 16th, 2005:

    Isn’t penance supposed to be done willingly? He looks like he’s holding her in place… I think he’s getting his OWN satisfaction out of this! ;)

  2. johnh commented on May 16th, 2005:

    Note that the monk is using a foxtail! The lady is reading a forbidden book. It is some kind of a comment to the censorship by the church. I can’t understand the text – it is not English and very small.
    Johnh

  3. Ulrich-Dieter Standt commented on May 18th, 2005:

    I have the drawing, it was an illustration of a German book:
    “Der Pfaffenspiegel” (The Mirror of the Clerics)
    from Otto von Corvin. Its name is “Penance”.
    I would like to send You this drawing, if You should give me Your eMail-address.
    The text the monk is telling during the spanking is ancient English, as far as I can read it form the drawing:

    “She is a delicious morsel hir
    Beauty dapel (?) like the sun in the mere
    diar byrd Winifred flesh and spiric
    hold strong contemtion but I will be serious”

    The lady the monk is spanking has a very nice and firm bottom, and the expression of her face is a mixture of pleasure and pain, as it should be, if a lady is spanked in the right manner. May God give us many ladies like her!

  4. oldguy commented on May 18th, 2005:

    It’s no doubt relevant that Penance is the traditional name of the sacrament in the Catholic Church through which sins are forgiven. The same word is also used for the punishment assigned by the priest, as part of the sacrament, to complete the penitent’s atonement after the words of absolution have been pronounced. In modern times it is usually just a token punishment consisting of a few prayers to say, but (so at least Catholics used to be told) in earlier times the penance for a major sin might be something like requiring the penitent to make an arduous pilgrimage to some distant shrine.

    Of course, it was *never* church policy for clerics to administer spankings as penance, whether the penitents were beautiful or homely. But (as recent events have shown), clerics are sometimes prone to weakness in matters of the flesh. In Europe there were always writers (especially after the Reformation) who would delight in describing such scandalous goings-on whenever they occurred, and perhaps also on some occasions when they didn’t.

    Hey, Ulrich-Dieter, could you quote the German text? I’m having a little trouble understanding your translation.

    Oldguy

  5. Ulrich-Dieter Standt commented on May 19th, 2005:

    Dear Oldguy, sorry, but there is no German text, the text in the drawing is hand-written in ancient English. I suppose, if the painter was no Englishman, he had made it for the “English market”, as the name “Penance” is a reasonable indication for.
    I did not translate it, I have only tried to read it. In the meantime I have sent the drawing to the webmaster, so I think You can soon get Your own picture; maybe You can read more from the drawing than I.

    Your comment concerning the Penance is essentially true, but I suppose that the monk who was punishing the lady has been overwhelmed by her very nice bottom
    or, to cut al long story short, let’s try to explain it with an ancient exclamation:
    Honni soit, qui mal y pense!
    Ulrich-Dieter

  6. Spanking Blog » Blog Archive » Spanking Penance, The Big Version commented on May 25th, 2005:

    […] to Ulrich-Dieter for sending along a much larger scan of the flogging penance woodcut from a few days ago. If there’s anybody who is really good at r […]

  7. Szrah commented on November 18th, 2005:

    Hi. Here is a transcript, plus interpretation, of the text…(please note that punctuation in Ye Olde England was different from nowadays: “She is a delicious morsel. Her beauty Dazels (dazzles) like the Sun in the Meridian (like the sun at high noon) [Byd-could not quite read this] Winifred! Flesh and Spirit Hold Strong Contention (meaning “there is a conflict between the flesh and the spirit”) but I will be Serious.” Ooh! Looks like somebody is making fun of this cleric’s pious motives.

  8. walter commented on August 22nd, 2008:

    Many a naughty women after leaving the confessional booth in church, should be given a good flogging on their bare bottoms.

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