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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.