The outward and visible sign of the Church’s approval was its participation in the ceremony of execution. This took place frequently as part of a great and elaborate function known as the _sermo generalis_ or ‘act of faith’—the _auto-da-fé_ of the Spanish Inquisition. There could be a _sermo generalis_ without an execution. A burning was not the essential feature of the ceremony. The _auto_ had humble beginnings. In the early days of the Inquisition in Toulouse there might be one every week or so. In rapid, business-like fashion the sentences against heretics were pronounced in the presence of the civil and ecclesiastical officers. But in course of time the proceedings came to be much more elaborate, the object being to impress the popular mind. The _sermo generalis_ usually took place on a Sunday and inside a church, a platform being erected upon which the culprits were placed. The ceremony, which started in the early morning, began with a sermon appropriate to the occasion, preached by an inquisitor. After this an indulgence was announced for all who had come to take part in the solemnity; the civil magistrates took an oath of fidelity, and excommunication was fulminated against all who had in any way thwarted the Inquisition in the pursuance of its labours. Next the confessions of the penitents were read, followed by the recital of the form of abjuration, which they repeated word by word. It does not appear that they wore any such distinctive garb as was customary in the Spanish Inquisition of later days. The inquisitor then absolved the penitents from the excommunication which their heresy had incurred, the formal sentences were read out, first in Latin, then in the vulgar tongue; after which the culprits were brought forward in order corresponding with the degree of their guilt, beginning with the least guilty and ending with the impenitent and relapsed. For the disposal of the latter adjournment was made to another place, where they were handed over to the lay authorities. The victims destined to pay the last penalty were not at once executed. It was not seemly that the execution should take place on a Sunday, and they were given another night to make their peace with God. The following day they were brought to the stake, accompanied by ghostly comforters, who would earnestly exhort them to penitence, seeing that, except in the case of the relapsed, reconciliation was possible up to the last moment. They were forbidden to exhort the victims to quiet submission for fear that this might suggest that they were doing something to expedite the punishment in store for the heretics.[461] This would have been an irregularity. Yet so implicitly did the Church believe in death for the obstinate heretic, that she pursued his body even after death.