After the sermon, the secretary read to all the people the oath pledging them to support the Inquisition. Then sentences were pronounced, beginning with the lesser offenders and proceeding to the graver. The punishments ranged from a reprimand, through abjuration, fines, exile, for a longer or shorter period, destruction of residence, penance, scourging, the galleys, imprisonment, wearing the _sanbenito_ or penitential garment, up to "relaxation to the secular arm;" _i. e._ death by fire. These penalties carried with them civil disability, and tainted the blood of the descendants of the condemned as well. Penance might be inflicted in various forms. The condemned, perhaps, might be required to fast one day in every week, to recite a specified number of prayers on appointed days, or to appear at the church door with a halter around his neck on successive Sundays. When scourging was inflicted, the penitent, naked to the waist, was placed astride an ass, and paraded through the principal streets preceded by the town crier. Meanwhile the executioner, accompanied by a clerk to keep tally, plied the _penca_ or leather strap, but was charged most solemnly not to draw blood. Usually two hundred lashes was the limit. Theoretically a heretic who escaped the stake by confession was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. This penalty might be served in a prison, a monastery, or in a private house. As a matter of fact, comparatively few were kept in prisons as the expense of maintenance was a heavy burden, and the sentences were usually changed to deportation to the colonies, or assignment to the galleys, or else the sentence was shortened. The trial and sentence of the bodies of the dead was common, but it was not peculiar to the Inquisition. As late as 1600, in Scotland, the bodies of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were brought into court, and sentenced to be hanged, quartered and gibbeted. Logan of Restalrig, in 1609, three years after his death, was tried on the charge of being concerned in the same conspiracy, was found guilty and his property was confiscated. In recounting the punishments imposed by the Inquisition, we must not forget that it assumed jurisdiction over many crimes which to-day are tried by the civil courts. Bigamy was punished as, by a second marriage, the criminal denied the authority of the Church which makes marriage a sacrament. Certain forms of blasphemy also were brought before it, and perjury as well. Personation of the priesthood, or of officials of the Inquisition, was punished, and later it gained jurisdiction over unnatural crimes. Sorcery and witchcraft, which in other states, including the American colonies, were considered subjects for the secular courts, were within the jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition.