The Inquisition was a judicial
institution established in the middle Ages by the papacy, charged with seeking,
trying and sentencing those guilty of heresy.
The Inquisition established themselves for a period of weeks or even
months as some place, from which they issued orders demanding that everyone
guilty of heresy present themselves. The penances and sentences for those who
confessed or were found guilty were pronounced in a public ceremony.
Penances might consist of a
public scourging, a pilgrimage, a fine or the wearing of a cross. The wearing of
two tongues of red cloth, sewn onto the outer garment, marked those who had made
false accusations. However the penalties in serious cases were confiscation of
property or imprisonment. When the inquisitors handed a guilty person over to
the civil authorities it was for that person to be executed. The Inquisition was
finally suppressed in Spain in 1834.
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