If there is something grotesque in all this, at least the proceedings were decently in order and, if Sancho and his wife had cared to risk it, they could have been heard. How hurried and informal the process sometimes was is manifested by a case at Guadalupe in 1485. On July 13th three witnesses were heard as to ten persons who had left that place from twelve to sixteen years before, and of whom public fame reported that they had gone to Málaga or to some other Moorish town, and had turned Jews. On July 21st the fiscal presented his accusation, asking for sentence without previous citation or other notice, because by law in such cases and crimes of heresy, when notoriety is proved, nothing further is required. This was expressly assented to in the sentence, although it alluded to some kind of citation with three terms, published in the plaza and affixed to the church-doors, and also to a consulta de fe, but all this was probably mythical for, in an auto de fe held on August 1st, seven of the parties were included in one sentence, their effigies were relaxed to the secular arm and their property was declared to be confiscated, while judges everywhere were empowered to seize and proceed against them.[234] Neither of the three methods described in the Instructions of 1484 could have been employed in the interval of eighteen days between denunciation and execution, but, as one of the inquisitors was Francisco de la Fuente, an experienced judge from the tribunal of Ciudad Real, we must presume that there was nothing irregular in this quick despatch.
Although in these sentences the condemned is abandoned to any secular justice for burning, the whole proceeding was merely designed to secure the confiscations and enhance the solemnities of the autos de fe with additional comburation of effigies. Its nullity in other respects was admitted by the rule that, if a culprit who had been burnt in effigy should return spontaneously, confessing and repenting, he could be admitted to reconciliation or, if he asserted his innocence, he was to be heard in his defence. This was decreed by Torquemada, October 10, 1493, with the reservation that it was a matter of grace and did not affect the confiscation. In 1494 there was a further provision that, if the condemnation had been the result of false-witness, it was the duty of the inquisitors to revoke the sentence _ex officio_, without awaiting the appearance of the convict.[235]