Editing Scourge (section)

===Use  for punishment in canon law===
[[Canon law]] ([[Decree of Gratian]], [[Decretals of Gregory IX]]) recognized it as a punishment for ecclesiastics; even as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it appears in ecclesiastical legislation as a punishment for [[blasphemy]], [[concubinage]] and [[simony]]. Scourging as a means of [[penance]] and [[Mortification of the flesh|mortification]] is publicly exemplified in the tenth and eleventh centuries by the lives of [[St. Dominic Loricatus]]<ref>{{harvnb|Tierney|1909}} cites ''Patrologia Latina'', CXLIV, 1017; the surname means 'strapped'</ref> and [[St. Peter Damian]] (died 1072). The latter wrote a special treatise in praise of self-flagellation; though blamed by some contemporaries for excess of zeal, his example and the high esteem in which he was held did much to popularize the voluntary use of a small scourge known as a [[Discipline (mortification)|discipline]], as a means of mortification and penance.{{sfn|Tierney|1909}}