So the mere threat of torture may well have been more effective than the relatively few joints that were pulled from their sockets as the tied up victim was hung and dropped from the ceiling. To many, the word inquisition probably conjures up images of countless people being tortured and then burned at the stake. But as we have seen, torture was not the norm, and the death penalty was neither the most frequent nor the preferred punishment meted out by mediaeval inquisitors. Forty one, or less than even %, of those convicted ended their lives consumed by the flames. In fact, burning a heretic was a failure on the part of the inquisitor. His mission was to salvage souls and to bring back the wayward to the realm of orthodoxy. The death penalty was reserved for the most obstinate heretics who refused to recant, or those who relapsed into heresy after having been led off with penitence. And strictly speaking, the inquisitors never burned a single heretic. For when condemned, obstinate heretics were relaxed to the secular authorities which did the dirty work. The number of people relaxed to the secular arm for burning during the mediaeval inquisition is unknown, but very likely in the thousands. So on the one hand, the mediaeval and subsequent inquisitions were much less brutal and murderous than the horror stories of statistic cruelty that protestant partisans, enlightenment thinkers and some liberal historians have preferred. But on the other hand, the inquisition's alternative methods proved much more efficient in controlling thought and breaking resistance to orthodoxy than mass burnings. So while the record should be straight, i find it hard to agree with the ultra conservative catholic historian chancla dupris, who insists that the inquisition was a humanitarian work instead of burning heretics. Those who were found guilty and recantid were giving a range of penalties or penances, whose severities differed according to graveness of error. Much more common than burnings were humiliating and socially shameful punishments such as having to wear yellow crosses and clothing, often for several years. Of course, normally wearing a cross would signal piety, but the yellow crosses were immediately recognizable as symbols of heresy and treason towards the christian community, and branded you a very visible member of the out group, while simultaneously defining the inn group by its adherence to orthodoxy. Pretty much as if forcing a new yorker to wear a macca hat around manhattan for two years, or an alabama having to wearn im with her hilary clinton tea shirt in winston county where 90 % voted trump. Just under half of those punished by bernargi were given prison sentences. Usually prison meant life behind bars, but sentences could and would be comm prison regimes could be relatively lenient in communal prisons, or strict in a single prison cell. All this depended on the degree of your error and how co operative you were. The inquisitors also made extensive use of what we'd call prison on remand. If an accused was deemed obstinate and unco operative, he would be imprisoned to soften him up. And you might throw in a bit of torture, some shackles, strict food rationing, and then just let the clock tick, because those in prison had to pay for the stay themselves. Forty % of those gi found guilty of heresy went to prison before confessing. The inquisitors would try to break the prisoner with incessant interrogation and mine games, including sending in friends who had been turned against the accused. And it worked. Gi tells i have often seen those vexed and detained for many years confess not only recent faults, but even deeds committed long ago, going back 30 or forty years, or more, you don't say. As you can imagine, those questioned were incentivized to implicate others in spurious charges of heresy in order to escape prison or receive lenient punishments. One guy was sent to prison when at a tavern, he told his fellow drinkers that a cleric had been unjustly burned imagine facing prison for everything you've ever said while out drinking with your friends. I'd have spent most of my twenties behind bars and been burned in my thirties for relapsing. Historian james b givon explains the inquisitor's use of imprisonment as intended to create a socially limited space in which they could isolate individuals from the outer world and subject them, without interruption, to an enforced and forcible persuasion. Such a planned and active use of imprisonment for behavior modification was possibly without parallel in europe.