Cruel as was the imposition of the sanbenito, it was a punishment inherited from the elder Inquisition, but Spanish ingenuity invented a still more cruel use of it to stimulate the detestation of heresy. This was the preservation of the sanbenitos, with suitable inscriptions, conspicuously displayed in the churches, thus perpetuating to future generations the memory of the crime and punishment of the delinquent. The origin of this may perhaps be traceable to the ceremonies observed in the early period, when penitents were relieved of the _abito_. As described, in 1490, at Barcelona, they were assembled in the Inquisition and preached to by the inquisitor. A fortnight later they gathered in the parish church of Santa María del Pino and heard mass; then they marched in procession to the chapel of Our Lady of Monserrat, again heard mass, offered twelve dineros apiece to the Virgin, and passed the night, after which their sanbenitos were taken off and hung in a prominent place near the door.[466] Of course, in the case of those who were burnt, the sanbenito was hung up at once, and this remained the rule, as we learn from the Instructions of 1561--the sanbenito of the reconciled was hung when it was removed, whether during the auto or after years of prison; that of the relaxed, immediately after the auto.[467] The custom must have been of gradual growth. There is no allusion to it in the _Instrucciones antiquas_, nor have I found any indication as to the time when it became imperative except that, in 1512, there is a decision of the Suprema expressing the will of the king and the cardinal that the sanbenitos of the relaxed and reconciled of the Campo de Calatrava shall be hung in the churches, except those of the reconciled in the Time of Grace, and that, if any of the latter have been hung, they are to be removed.[468] This indicates a custom favored by the authorities, spreading, but as yet subject to question. It had already passed to Sicily, where one of the incidents of the rising of 1516 was the tearing down of the sanbenitos in the churches, and so great was the popular detestation of it that, at the end of the century, it had not been possible to restore the practice.[469]