Editing Flagellant (section)

==Real World Inspiration==
While flagellants were always a thing before, the contemporary idea of a flagellant comes from [[High Middle Ages|The Black Death]], where a number of Christian people in Europe got it into their heads that the fact that everyone dying of Plague (or any epidemic at the time really) was a sign of God's wrath against man's sinfulness, and decided that self punishment would convince the Almighty to lay it off with the massive death and suffering of the innocent. They'd wander from town to town in a conga line chanting and whipping each other with cat-o'-nine-tails, often picking up fellows as they went. Unfortunately, [[Not As Planned|going from town to town in close proximity to others while whipping each other's backs into hamburger isn't exactly effective social distancing and they ended up spreading the plague more]]. As they continued their activities, the Catholic Church's patience wore thin (partly because they figured out they were effectively plague carriers, but mainly because their movement was growing out of control to the point they started accusing anyone who didn't join in as an agent of the Devil), and by the 14th Century they put their foot down, declaring the Flagellants [[Heresy|heretics]] and [[Blam|dealing with them accordingly]]. Flagellation still persists in some Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Spain, along with any former colonies of theirs, but even then it's exclusively done during Lent.