Blasphemers also, who deny God, or their belief in him, or the virginity of our Lady, are subject to the inquisitors, and punished in the following manner. If the blasphemy be very heinous, and the blasphemer a mean person, he is made to wear an infamous mitre, hath his tongue tied, and pinched with an iron or wooden gag, is carried forth as a public spectacle without his cloak, whipped with scourges, and banished. But if he be a person of better condition, or noble, he is brought forth without the mitre, thrust for a time into a monastery, and punished with a fine. In smaller blasphemies they are dealt with more gently, at the pleasure of the inquisitors, viz. the blasphemer is condemned to stand, during divine service, upon some holiday or other, with his head naked, without his cloak and shoes, his feet naked, a cord tied round him, and holding a burning wax-taper in his hands. Sometimes also they squeeze his tongue with a piece of wood. After divine service is over his sentence is read, by which he is enjoined fastings, and a fine. This punishment, however, doth not take place as to a clergyman. For if a clergyman was to appear without his shoes, and with an halter about his neck, and thus stand at the gates of the church before the people, the clerical order, and the ministry of the clergy would suffer disgrace; and it would become a wonder, and evil example to the laity, if the blaspheming clergy were thus exposed. In these cases the inquisitors mostly act according to their own pleasure, who have an ample power of judging according to the nature and heinousness of the crimes. A certain person who had a quarrel with a clergyman of Ecya, a city in Spain, accidentally said, in the hearing of others, that he could not believe that God would come down into the hands of so profligate an adulterer. The vicar of the ordinary fined him for the speech. But the clergyman, not contented with this revenge, afterwards accused him of blasphemy at the tribunal of the inquisitors at Seville. Nor did the fine to which he was before condemned by the ordinary, prevent his being taken up by command of the inquisitors, imprisoned for a whole year, brought out in triumph without cloak or hat, carrying a wax candle in his hand, his tongue gagged with a wooden gag, thus to punish his blasphemy; and being forced to abjure, as lightly suspected, he was fined a second time.