The enormous, almost incredible procrastination by which the accused would be kept in prison awaiting trial sometimes for five or ten or even twenty years, usually sufficed to break his spirit or to unbalance his mind.

Torture was first threatened and then applied.
All rules intended to limit its amount proved illusory, and it was applied practically to any extent deemed necessary, and to all classes; nobles and clergy were no less obnoxious to it than were commons.

Nor was there any privileged age, except that of the tenderest childhood.
Men and women of ninety and boys and girls of twelve or fourteen were racked, as were young mothers and women with child.

Insanity, however, if recognized as genuine, was considered a bar to torture.
Acquittal was almost, though not quite, unknown.

Sometimes sentence was suspended and the accused discharged without formal exoneration.
Very rarely acquittal by compurgation, that is by oath of the accused supported by the oaths of a number of persons that they believed he was telling the truth, was allowed.