 Of 5,400 people interrogated in Toulouse between 1245–1246, 184 received penitential yellow crosses (used to mark repentant Cathars), 23 were imprisoned for life, and none were sent to the stake.The most extreme penalty available in antiheretical proceedings was reserved for relapsed or stubborn heretics.The unrepentant and apostates could be "relaxed" to secular authority, however, opening the convicted to the possibility of various corporal punishments, up to and including being burned at the stake.