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The horrors of Hindoo penance may be thought equalled by the voluntary sufferings of some of the earlier saints in the calendar, when fanaticism and ignorant credulity went hand-in-hand. The most remarkable of these early fanatics was, perhaps, St. Dominic the Cuirassier, thus named from an iron cuirass which he wore next his skin, and which was never taken off, till it was necessary to replace it by a new one. Conceiving that he had incurred the guilt of simony, he not only refrained from performing mass, but resolved to do penance the rest of his life; the result of this determination is so well described in the pages of a leading periodical,[7] that it is transferred with slight condensation.

The first step towards this perpetual penance was, to enter into the congregation of Santa Croce Fonte Avellana, whose exercises were so rigorous that one of their amusements was to flog each other after the services. It was a general belief that the pains of purgatory might be mitigated by certain acts of penance and an indulgence from the Pope.