After Pilate and the masses of people decided to release Barabbas, a murderer, and to crucify Jesus, he was scourged. Scourging, or whipping, was usually a punishment prior to the crucifixion. "After he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified" (Mt. 27:26). Jesus was taken away by soldiers, who continued the torture and mockery.

It was granted to this creature to behold so truly his precious body, all rent and torn with scourges, more full of wounds than a dove-cote ever was of holes (The Book of Margery Kempe, Ch. 28, lines 1616-18).

. . she saw In her contemplation our Lord Jesus Christ bound to a pillar, and his hands were bound above his head. And then she saw sixteen men with sixteen scourges and each scourge had eight tips of lead on the end and each tip was full of sharp prickles, as if it had been the rowel of a spur. And those men with scourges made a convent and that each of them would give our Lord forty strokes. (Ibid. Ch. 80, lines 4526-4531)