Note that in all the following methods of pronouncing sentence, when the Judge wishes to proceed in a merciful manner he can act in the way we have already explained. But since secular Judges use their own various methods, proceeding with rigour but not always with equity, no fixed rule or method can be given for them as it can for an ecclesiastical Judge, who can receive the abjuration and impose a perpetual penance in the following manner:
I, N., of such a place in such a Diocese, standing in person before you my venerable Lords the Bishop of such city and Judges, having touched with my hands the Holy Gospel placed before me, swear that I believe in my heart and profess with my lips the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith which the Holy Roman Church holds, professes, believes, preaches and teaches. And consequently I abjure all heresy, and renounce and revoke all who raise themselves against the Holy Roman and Apostolic Church, of whatever sect or error they be. Also I swear and promise that I shall never henceforward do, say, or cause to be done such and such (naming them) which I have done and said, and for which, in my guilt, you hold me gravely suspected of the said heresy. Also I swear and promise that I will perform every penance which you wish to impose upon me for the said crimes to the best of my strength, and that I will not omit any part of it, so help me God and the Holy Gospel. And if (which God forbid) I should hereafter act in contravention of this abjuration, I here and now bind and oblige myself to suffer the due punishments for backsliders, however severe they may be.
Let the Notary take care to set it down that the said abjuration was made by one gravely suspected of heresy, so that if she should be proved to have relapsed, she should then be judged accordingly and delivered up to the secular Court.
After this let the Bishop absolve her from the sentence of excommunication which she has incurred as one gravely suspected of heresy. For when a heretic returns to the faith and abjures his heresy, he is to be released from the sentence of excommunication which is passed on all heretics. Similarly, such a one as we are considering was condemned as a heretic, as we have said; but after she has abjured her heresy she is to be released from excommunication; and after this absolution she is to be sentenced in the following manner:
We N., Bishop of such city, and, if he is present, Judge in the territory of such Lord, seeing that you N., of such a place in such a Diocese, have been accused before us of such and such touching the faith (naming them), and that we have proceeded to inform ourselves concerning them as justice demanded by a careful examination of the merits of the process and of all that has been done and said in the present case, have found that you have committed such and such (naming them). Wherefore, and not without reason holding you gravely suspected of such heresy (naming it), we have caused you as one so suspected publicly to abjure all heresy in general, as the canonical sanctions bid us. And since according to those same canonical institutions all such are to be condemned as heretics, but you holding to wiser counsel and returning to the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church have abjured, as we have said, all vile heresy, therefore we absolve you from the sentence of excommunication by which you were deservedly bound as one hateful to the Church of God. And if with true heart and faith unfeigned you have returned to the unity of the Church, you shall be reckoned from henceforth among the penitent, and as from now are received back into the merciful bosom of the Holy Church. But since it would be most scandalous to pass over with connivent eyes and leave unpunished your offences against God and your injuries to men, for it is a graver matter to offend the Divine Majesty than a human monarch, and that your crimes may not be an incentive for other sinners, and that you may become more careful in the future and less prone to commit again the aforesaid crimes, and may suffer the less punishment in the next world: We the aforesaid Bishop and Judge, having availed ourselves of the wise and considered advice of learned men in this matter, sitting in tribunal as Judges judging, having before our eyes only God and the irrefragable truth of the Holy Faith, with the Holy Gospels placed before us that our judgement may proceed as from the countenance of God and our eyes see with equity, sentence and condemn, or rather impose penance in the following manner upon you N., appearing in person before us on the day and at the hour which was before assigned to you. First, you shall put on over all the garments which you wear a grey-blue garment after the manner of a monk’s scapulary, made without a hood either before or behind, and having upon it crosses of yellow cloth three palms long and two palms wide, and you shall wear this garment over all others for such a length of time (setting a period of one or two years, more or less as the guilt of the person demands), And in the said garment and crosses you shall stand in the door of such a church at such a time for so long, or on the four major Feasts256 of the Glorious
