Rabbinical Law - lashing as punishment

In Rabbinical law, lashes were a punishment for offenses that didn't warrant capital punishment. The lashes were administered with a whip made of calfskin on the bare upper body of the offender. 

The practice of lashing is codified in Deuteronomy 25:3 “If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves, but he must not give him more than forty lashes. If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes.”

While the maximum number of lashes was limited to 40, fewer could be given as deemed fit. In practice, no more than 39 were typically given to avoid accidentally administering too many. Hence the phrase Paul uses in Corinthians, when he receives “forty lashes minus one”. This phrase is referenced in The Hesperus Prophecy, when Hoss decides Declan’s lack of cooperation deserves punishment with the cat-o-nine tails. Rabbinical law stops at 40 lashes minus 1, but Hoss doesn’t.