From a comparatively early period the control assumed by the Suprema over the provincial tribunals was absolute. Already, in 1533, it tersely informed them that what it ordered and what it forbade must be obeyed to the letter; this it repeated in 1556 and, in 1568, it took occasion to tell them that it was not to be answered, nor were inquisitors to offer excuses when they were rebuked.[499] This control was not confined to their judicial proceedings but extended to every detail of their affairs. Even Ferdinand, with his minute watchfulness over the management of the tribunals, gave to the inquisitors a certain latitude as to expenses and instructed his receivers that they were to honor the requisitions of the inquisitors for outlays on messengers, lodgings, work on houses, prisons, stagings, etc.[500] The Suprema permitted no such liberty of action; it required to be consulted in advance and roundly scolded tribunals which incurred expenses on their own responsibility.[501] In 1569 a general order specified in minute detail the trifling matters of daily necessity for which they could make disbursements; for everything else reference must first be made to the Suprema.[502] This continued to the end and its correspondence is filled with instructions as to petty outlays of all kinds, and largely with regard to repairs of the houses and other properties belonging to the Inquisition. If Valencia, in 1647, wanted a clock in the audience-chamber, it had to apply for permission to purchase one and, in 1650, the Suprema ordered its price to be allowed in the receiver's accounts. In 1665 it ordered the fiscal of Barcelona to be lodged in the palace of the Inquisition and gave minute instructions how the apartments were to be redistributed so as to accommodate him.[503] It is scarce necessary to add that the determination of salaries, which had originally been lodged in the hands of the inquisitor-general, had passed absolutely under the control of the Suprema.