The period of grace during which heretics could voluntarily confess was called the Edict of Grace.
When inquisitors arrived in a town, they typically announced the edict after Sunday Mass. It listed forms of suspected heresy and invited people to appear before the tribunal, confess, and seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church. The promise was significant: people who came forward within the grace period could often avoid the harshest penalties.
The grace period commonly lasted about 30 to 40 days. The system also encouraged people to denounce others, so voluntary confession and forced social surveillance became intertwined. Neighbors, relatives, and acquaintances could all become sources of accusations.
After about 1500, the Inquisition increasingly replaced Edicts of Grace with Edicts of Faith. These later announcements generally removed the period of leniency and focused more directly on identifying and reporting suspected heretics. “Edict of Mercy” and “Edict of Tolerance” are plausible-sounding distractors, but they were not the standard name for this Spanish inquisitorial procedure.