Public Humiliation

The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church either through significant action, position or confession has often been held to be peculiar to the Presbyterian and Puritan churches. It is, in fact, as old as the Church of Rome, and was a custom of the Church of England long before it became part of the Dissenters’ discipline. All ranks and conditions of men shared in this humiliation. An English king, Henry II, a German emperor, Henry IV, the famous Duchess of Gloucester, and Jane Shore are noted examples; humbler victims for minor sins or offenses against religious usages suffered in like manner. In Scotland the ordeals of sitting on the repentance-stool or cutty-stool were most frequent. In economic and social histories of Scotland, and especially in Edgar’s Old Church Life in Scotland, many instances are enumerated. Sometimes the offender wore a repentance-gown of sackcloth; more frequently he stood or sat barefoot and barelegged.

In our own day penance has been done in the Scottish Church. In 1876 a woman in Ross-shire sat on the cutty-stool through the whole service with a black shawl over her head; while in February, 1884, one of the ringleaders in the Sabbatarian riots was set on the cutty-stool in Lochcarron church and rebuked for a moral offense which could not, according to the discipline of the Free Church in the Highlands, be fully punished in any other way.

In English churches similar penance was done. In the History of Wakefield Cathedral are given the old church-wardens’ accounts. In them are many items of the loan of sheets for men and women “to do penance in.” About sixpence was the usual charge. For immorality, cheating, defamation of character, disregard of the Sabbath and other transgressions penance was performed. In 1766 penance was thus rendered in Stokesby Church for three Sundays by James Beadwell:

“In the time of Divine service, between the hours of ten and eleven in the forenoon of the same day, in the presence of the whole congregation there assembled, being barehead, barefoot and barelegged, having a white sheet wrapped about him from the shoulder to the feet and a white wand in his hand, where immediately after the reading of the Gospel, he shall stand upon some form or seat before the pulpit or place where the minister readeth prayers and say after him as forthwith, etc.”

Clergymen even, if offenders against the established church, were not spared public humiliation. In the year 1534 the vicar of a church in Hull, England, preached a sermon in Holy Trinity church advocating the teaching of the Reformers in Antwerp. He was promptly tried for heresy and convicted. He recanted; and in penance walked around the church on Sunday clad only in his shirt, barefooted and carrying a large faggot in his hand. On the market day he walked around the market-place clad in a similar manner. This really solemn act is robbed of its dignity because of the apparel of the penitent.

A man’s shirt is an absurd garment; had the offender been wrapped in a sheet, or robed in sackcloth and ashes, he would been a noble figure, but you cannot grace or dignify a shirt. With a mingling of barbarity and Christianity unrivalled by any other code of laws issued in America, the Articles, Lawes and Orders Divine, Politique and Martiall for the colony of Vtrginea, as issued by Sir Thomas Dale, punished offenders against the church and God’s word equally by physical and moral penance.

“Noe man shall vnworthilie demeane himselfe vnto any Preacher, or Minister of God’s Holy Word, but generally hold them in all reverent regard and dutiful intreatie, otherwise he the offender shall openly be whipt three times, and ask publick forgiveness in the assembly of the congregation three several Saboth daies.”

“There is no one man or woman in this Colonie now present, or hereafter to arrive, but shall give vp an account of his and their faith and religion, and repaire vnto the Minister, that by his conference with them, hee may vnderstand, and gather, whether heretofore they have been sufficiently instructed and catechised in the principles and grounds on Religion, whose weaknesse and ignorance herein, the Minister, finding, and advising them in all love and charitie to repaire often unto him to receive therein a greater measure of knowledge, if they shal refuse so to repaire unto him, and he the Minister give notice thereof unto the Governour, he shall cause the offender first time of refusall to be whipt, for the second time to be whipt twice, and to acknowledge his fault vpon the Saboth day, in the assembly, and for the third time to be whipt every day vntil he hath made the same acknowledgement, and asked forgivenesse for the same, and shall repaire vnto the Minister, to be further instructed as aforesaid; and vpon the Saboth when the Minister shall catechize and of him demaund any question concerning his faith and knowledge, he shall not refuse to make answer vpon the same perill.”

Those who were found to “calumniate, detract, slander, murmur, mutinie, resist, disobey, or neglect” the officers’ commands also were to be whipped and ask forgiveness at the Sabbath service. The Puritans were said dreadfully to seek God; far greater must have been the dread of Virginia church folk; and in view of this severity it is not to be wondered that this law had to be issued as a pendant:

“No man or woman, vpon paine of death, shall rune away from the Colonie, to Powhathan or any savage Weroance else whatever.”

Bishop Meade, in his history of the Virginia church, tells of offenders who stood in church wrapped in white sheets with white wands in their hands; and other examples of public penance in the Southern colonies are known.

In 1639 Robert Sweet of Jamestown — “a gentleman” — appeared, wrapped in a white sheet, and did penance in church. In Lower Norfolk County, a white man and a black woman stood up together, dressed in white sheets and holding white wands in their hands.

The custom of public confession of sin prevailed in the first Salem church, and thereafter lasted in New England, in modified form for two centuries. Biblical authority for this custom was claimed to rest in certain verses of the eighteenth chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew.

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in his paper entitled Some Phases of Morality and Church Discipline in New England, gives many examples of public confession of sin and public reprimand in the Braintree meeting-house. Manuscript church records which I have examined afford scores, almost hundreds of other examples.

In earliest times, in New England as in Virginia a white robe or white sheet was worn by the offender.

In 1681 two Salem women, wrapped in white, were set on stools ” in the middle alley” of the meeting-house through the long service; having on their heads a paper bearing the name of their crime. In 1659 William Trotter of Newbury, Massachusetts, for his slanderous speeches was enjoined to make “publick acknowledgement” in the church on a lecture-day. On the 20th of September, 1667, Ellinor Bonythorne of York, Maine, was sentenced “to stand 3 Sabbath dayes in a white sheet in the meeting- house.” Another Maine woman, Ruth, the wife of John Gouch, being found guilty of a hateful crime was ordered” to stand in a white sheet publickly in the Congregation at Agamenticus two several Sabbath days, and likewise one day in the General Court.”

These scenes were not always productive of true penitence. This affair happened in the Braintree church in 1697, and many others might be cited.

“Isaac Theer was called forth in public, moved pathetically to acknowledge his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and stood against the lower end of the fore seat after he had been prevented by our shutting the east door from going out. Stood impudently and said indeed he owned the sin of stealing and was heartily sorry for it, begged pardon of God and men, and hoped he should do so no more, which was all he would be brought unto, saying his sin was already known; all with a remisse voice so few could hear him. The Church gave their judgment against him that he was a notorious scandalous sinner, and obstinately impenitent. And when I was proceeding to spread before him his sin and wickedness, he, as tis probable, guessing what was like to follow, turned about to goe out, and being desired and charged to tarry and know what the church had to say, he flung out of doors with an insolent manner though silent.”

Amost graphic description of one of these scenes of public abasement and abnegation is given by Governor John Winthrop in his History of New England. The offender, Captain John Underhill, was a brave though blustering soldier, a man of influence through out New England, a so- called gentleman. And I doubt not that Boston folk tried hard to overlook his transgressions because, “soldiers has their ways.” Winthrop wrote thus:

“Captain Underhill being brought by the blessing of God in this church’s censure of excommunication to remorse for his foul sins, obtained by means of the elders and others of the church of Boston, a safe conduct under the hand of the governor and one of the council to repair to the church. He came at the time of the court of assistants, and upon the lecture day, after sermon, the pastor called him forth and declared the occasion, and then gave him leave to speak; and, indeed, it was a spectacle which caused many weeping eyes, though it afforded matter of much rejoicing to behold the power of the Lord Jesus in his ordinances, when they are dispensed in his own way, holding forth the authority of his regal sceptre in the simplicity of the gospel. He came in his worst clothes, being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness, without a band, in a foul linen cap pulled close to his eyes, and standing upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of tears, lay open his wicked course, his adultery, his hypocrisy, his persecution of God’s people here, and especially his pride, as the root of all which caused God to give him over to his sinful courses, and contempt of magistrates. * * * * * He spake well, save that his blubbering, etc., interrupted him, and all along he discovered a broken and melting heart and gave good exhortations to take heed of such vanities and beginnings of evil as had occasioned his fall. And in the end he earnestly and humbly besought the church to have compassion on him and to deliver him out of the hands of Satan.”

In truth, the Captain “did protest too much.” This well-acted and well- costumed piece of vainglorious repentance was not his first appearance in the Boston meeting-house in this role. Twice before had he been the chief actor in a similar scene, and twice had he been forgiven by the church and by individuals specially injured. He was not alone in his “blubbering,” as Winthrop plainly puts it. The minister at Jedburgh, Scotland, for similar offenses, “prostrated himself on the floor of the Assembly, and with weeping and howling, entreated for pardon.” He was thus sentenced:

“That in Edinburgh as the capital, in Dundee as his native town, in Jedburgh as the scene of his ministration, he should stand in sack-cloth at the church door, also on the repentance-stool, and for two Sundays in each place.”

The most striking and noble figure to suffer public penance in American history was Judge Samuel Sewall. He was one of the board of magistrates who sat in judgment at the famous witchcraft trials in Salem and Boston in the first century of New England life. Through his superstition and by his sentence, many innocent lives were sacrificed. Judge Sewall was a steadfast Christian, a man deeply introspective, absolutely upright, and painfully conscientious. As years passed by, and all superstitious excitement was dead, many of the so-called victims confessed their fraud, and in the light of these confessions, and with calmer judgment, and years of unshrinking thought, Judge Sewall became convinced that his decisions had been unjust, his condemnation cruel, and his sentences appallingly awful. Though his public confession and recantation was bitterly opposed by his fellow judge, Stoughton, he sent to his minister a written confession of his misjudgment, his remorse, his sorrow. It was read aloud at the Sabbath service in the Boston church while the white-haired Judge stood in the face of the whole congregation with bowed head and aching heart. For his self-abnegation he has been honored in story and verse; honored more in his time of penance than in the many positions of trust and dignity bestowed on him by his fellow-citizens.