…[F]or a judge to impose the penalty of whipping until the body oozed blood was a mark of condign severity. … Symbolic overtones cam forth easily from that red substance, but being ambiguous or polysemous, they muddled the sharp differences between religious and penal connotations, all the more so in that the imagery of blood had a prominent place in the rituals of everyday life.
— Lauro Martines
