“My dear Son, be patient and do not despair; if we observe in you the signs of contrition we shall soften your penance; but beware of departing from what we have prescribed for you; should you do so you shall be punished as an impenitent heretic.” The punishment for the impenitent was, of course, the fire. The inquisitor shall conclude the ceremony by granting an indulgence of forty days to all who have attended it and an indulgence of three years to those who shall have taken part in it. The sentence of prison, with its bread-and-water diet, might be relaxed; but never that of the _sanbenito_, which is considered by Eymeric--and inquisitors generally--as the most salutary of penances for him that undergoes it and the most edifying to the public generally. The self-delators admitted by Torquemada to abjuration were treated as suspects of the first degree--_leviter_. ARTICLE VI Inasmuch as heretics and apostates (although they return to the Catholic Faith and become reconciled) are infamous at law, and inasmuch as they must perform their penances with humility and sorrow for having lapsed into error, the inquisitors shall order them not to hold any public office or ecclesiastical benefice, and they shall not be lawyers or brokers, apothecaries, surgeons or physicians, nor shall they wear gold or silver, coral, pearls, precious stones or other ornaments, nor dress in silk or camlett, nor go on horseback nor carry weapons all their lives, under pain of being deemed relapsed (_relapsos_) into heresy, as must all be considered who after reconciliation do not carry out the penances imposed upon them. This decree was no more than the revival of the enactment made a century and a half earlier by Alfonso XI in the code known as the Partidas, which had mercifully been allowed to fall into desuetude. It was, Llorente tells us, a considerable source of wealth to the Roman Curia. Frequent appeals for “rehabilitation” were made in consequence, and accorded under an apostolic brief whose heavy charges the appellants were required to defray. Torquemada mercifully stops short of ordering the self-delators to wear the _sanbenito_. Even so, however, by decreeing that they must wear no garments of silk or wool, and therefore none but the very plainest raiment, unadorned by any precious metal or jewel--not to mention the prohibition to use weapons or go on horseback--he imposed upon them a garb that was only some degrees removed from the penitential sack and served the same purpose of marking them out for infamy.