METHOD Five of bringing an end to and finishing proceedings involving the Faith is when the woman denounced for heresy, after a careful examination of the merits of the proceedings with a good panel of legal experts, is found to be vehemently suspected of heresy. This is when the woman denounced for heretical depravity is not found to be legally caught by her own confession or by evidence of the fact or by the lawful production of witnesses, but there are great and serious indications proven against her, ones that are judged by the panel to be such that they render her | vehemently suspected of heretical depravity.

Concerning such a person, the following procedure is to be followed. He ought to abjure this heretical depravity as someone suspected of such heresy, so that if he later relapses, he is punished with the penalty appropriate for the relapsed. That is, he will be handed over to the secular arm to be stricken with the death penalty according to the beginning of Chapter “Accusatus” (Liber Sextus, “Heretics”). He will make a public or private abjuration depending on whether he is publicly or privately considered suspect and whether among a greater or lesser number of people and whether they are of great or light importance, as was just stated concerning the person who was lightly suspected of heresy, and he has to abjure heresy as such a person.

The method of making arrangements for the abjuration is the following. When the Sunday for making the abjuration and for hearing the imposition of sentence (penance) upon the person who is to make the abjuration approaches, the preacher will make a general sermon. After this is done, the acts for which the person to make the abjuration is convicted, and the others as a result of which he is vehemently suspected of heresy, should be read in public by the notary or a cleric.