It is not surprising that such persuasion usually succeeded in producing a confession from the prisoners, whether true or not, of their own or of other people's guilt. They were not infrequently compelled to confess to crimes which they had never committed[37] and were hanged for murdering persons who afterwards were found to be alive and well. Real criminals, however, often refused to speak; for habitual and professional malefactors used to torture each other regularly in order to be hardened when brought to justice. But in that case their wives and children often proved less reticent. Confession having been secured the Council appointed a day of judgment for the _armen_, "poor fellow," as they termed him. If when he came before them he still persisted in his confession he was condemned. But condemnation depended on the confession of the criminal, and the Church had long maintained that confessions obtained under torture were invalid. If, therefore, when brought before the Council he recanted he was tortured again, and as often as he retracted this process was repeated until a confession apart from torture was obtained. The humane intervention of the Church thus resulted in a redoublement of cruelty. Even after condemnation, if the convict told the clergyman, who came to prepare him for death, that he was really not guilty but had confessed only because of the torture, the Council on hearing of it had to begin all over again. This became such a nuisance that they warned the clergy not to talk to the condemned too much about temporal matters! After sentence had been passed by the Council a public trial of an entirely formal character was held, very wearisome to the condemned wretch, who probably knew that it was so empty a form that it was held even if the prisoner had already succumbed to the torture or committed suicide in the cells.