Then said Claes:
“I will not abjure. Do with my body as your mercy pleases.”
The dean of Renaix, Titelman, cried out:
“It is intolerable to see such heretic vermin lift up its head before its judges; to burn their bodies is but a fleeting pain; we must save their souls and force them by the torment to deny their errors, that they may not give the people the dangerous spectacle of heretics dying in final impenitence.”
At this word the women wept more and more and the men said:
“Where confession is made, there is penalty, but no torture.”
The court decided that, torture not being laid down in the Ordinances, there was no ground for making Claes undergo it. Once more called upon to abjure he replied:
“I cannot.”
He was, in accordance with the edicts, declared guilty of simony, because of the sale of the indulgences, a heretic, harbourer of heretics, and as such, condemned to be burned alive until death ensued before the doors of the Townhall.
His body would be left for two days’ space fastened to the stake to serve as an example and warning, and thereafter interred in that place where the bodies of executed criminals are wont to be buried.