METHOD Six of bringing an end to proceedings involving the Faith is when the person denounced for heretical depravity, after a careful examination of the merits of the proceedings with a good panel of legal experts, is found to be violently suspected of heresy. This is when the denounced person is not found to be legally caught by his own confession or by evidence of the deed or by the lawful production of witnesses, but there are indications that are not merely light or vehement but very strong and very violent ones that rightly render the denounced person violently suspected of this heresy and because of which such a person ought to be judged as someone violently suspected of this heresy.

In order for this method to be more clearly understood, let us give illustrations concerning both simple heresy and the Heresy of Sorceresses. In simple heresy, this would be the case when the denounced person is not found to be legally caught by his own confession and so on as above, but because of something that he said or did. For instance, when after being summoned in a case not involving the Faith he endured excommunication for a year or more, he is now suspected lightly of heresy because this does not lack a disconcerting suggestion of heretical depravity (“Penalties,” Chapter “Gravem”). If, when summoned to give answer | concerning the Faith, he does not appear but contumaciously refuses to do so, he is for this reason excommunicated. In this case, he becomes vehemently suspected of heresy, since the light suspicion turns into a vehement one. If he endures such excommunication for a year with an obstinate frame of mind, then he becomes violently suspected, since the vehement suspicion turns into a violent one against which no defense is admitted. Indeed, from then on such a person is to be condemned as a heretic, as is explained in Chapter “Cum contumacia” (Liber Sextus) and the notes on that passage.