From the 16th century, crimes were punished ever more severely and with great cruelty. Permissible in inquisitorial trials, increasingly popular in the 16th century, was torture. Offences against morality came to be regarded as particularly harmful socially. It was only at the turn of the 19th century that penal codifications were to be reformed; it was then also that torture was removed from penal codes permanently and punishment in public abolished.