and four years' exile from certain places. The Suprema had confirmed the sentence and yet on appeal from him it remitted the exile.[257] By this time the Suprema was supervising all action of the tribunals and, as it gradually became the whole Inquisition, appeals grew to be superfluous, yet the custom of withholding the sentence was persistent. There was one class of cases, however, in which notification of the sentence was always made prior to the auto de fe--those in which the culprit was condemned to relaxation. The object of this was to give him a chance of saving his soul by confession and conversion; in the earlier period the notification was short, being only at midnight before the auto, but this, as we shall see hereafter, was subsequently extended to three days. * * * * * In the medieval Inquisition, the inquisitor, when rendering sentence, always reserved the right to modify it, in the direction either of mercy or of severity, or to remove it wholly. He could do this, for he was practically independent and irresponsible to any superior, the only authority over him being the distant and almost inaccessible Holy See. The Spanish inquisitor occupied a wholly different position, being held in strict and constantly increasing subordination to the Suprema and, as commutations early became a source of large revenue, it is easy to understand that the tribunals were not permitted to participate in the proceeds. Already in 1498, the Instructions thus undertook to limit the power of inquisitors to modify sentences, by ordering that they should not grant commutations for money or favor or without just cause and, when such existed, the commutation must be into fasts, almsgiving and other pious uses; there could be no release from wearing the sanbenito and the rehabilitation of descendants was reserved for the inquisitor-general.[258] It was difficult to enforce restrictions which recognized any right of inquisitors to modify sentences and, in 1513, Ximenes deprived them of it wholly and concentrated the power in the hands of the inquisitor-general.[259] It was wholly a matter of finance and we have seen (Book <small>V</small>, Chap, iii) how it was thenceforth utilized. The tribunal was recognized to have no power to modify a sentence when once pronounced; as an experienced writer says, although by common law inquisitors and Ordinaries can change or mitigate sentences, it is otherwise under the Instructions which declare that this is reserved for the inquisitor-general, the reason being that they have exhausted their powers.[260] [Sidenote: _SEVERITY OR BENIGNITY_]