As novices, it would seem that the zeal of the inquisitors had plunged them into the business of arresting and trying suspects without resorting to the preliminary device, which had been found useful in the earliest operations of the Holy Office--the Term of Grace. This was a period, longer or shorter according to the discretion of the inquisitors, during which those who felt themselves guilty could come forward and confess, when they would be reconciled to the Church and subjected to penance, pecuniary and otherwise, severe enough, but preferable to the stake. One of the conditions was that of stating all that they knew of other heretics and apostates, which proved an exceedingly fruitful source of information as, under the general terror, there was little hesitation in denouncing not only friends and acquaintances, but the nearest and dearest kindred--parents and children and brothers and sisters. No better means of detecting the hidden ramifications of Judaism could be devised and, towards the middle of the year 1481, the inquisitors adopted it.[464] The mercy thus promised was scanty, as we shall see hereafter when we come to consider the subject, but it brought in vast numbers and autos de fe were organized in which they were paraded as penitents, no less than fifteen hundred being exhibited in one of these solemnities. It can readily be conceived how soon the inquisitors were in possession of information inculpating Conversos in every corner of the land. It was freely asserted that they were all in reality Jews, who were waiting for God to lead them out of the worse than Egyptian bondage in which they were held by the Christians.[465] Thus was demonstrated not only the necessity of the Inquisition but of its extension throughout Spain. The evil was too great and its immediate repression too important for the work to be entrusted to the two friars laboring so zealously in Seville. Permission had been obtained only for the appointment of three and application was made to Sixtus IV for additional powers. On this occasion he did not as before allow the commissions to be granted in the name of the sovereigns but issued them direct to those nominated to him by them, whereby the inquisitors held their faculties immediately from the Holy See. Thus by a brief of February 11, 1482, he commissioned seven--Pedro Ocaño, Pedro Martínez de Barrio, Alfonso de San Cebriano, Rodrigo Segarra, Thomás de Torquemada and Bernardo Santa María, all Dominicans.[466] Still more were required, of whose appointments we have no definite knowledge, to man the tribunals which were speedily formed at Ciudad-Real, Córdova, Jaen, and possibly at Segovia.[466a]