A certain amount of stateliness and ceremony attended the visit. Before reaching a town, word was sent forward of the hour of expected arrival, when the authorities, the church dignitaries and the principal gentlemen of the place were summoned to go forth to meet the inquisitor and escort him to his lodgings. The secretary was instructed to note the details of these receptions, whether honorable or otherwise, the character of the lodgings provided and utensils furnished.[671] Lack of respect on these occasions was punishable. In 1564, Dr. Zurita, visiting the sees of Gerona and Elne found the gates of Castellon de Ampurias closed against him and one of the guards seized his horse's reins. He proceeded to prosecute the local authorities, when the consuls proved that they were not in fault, but two guards, Salbador Llop and Juan Maraña, were sent to Barcelona for trial.[672] Although occasionally nests of Morisco and Jewish apostates were discovered in these visits, as a rule the practical results appear to have been rather the gratification of old grudges by neighbors in little towns and the gathering in of fines by the inquisitors. In 1582, Juan Aymar, Inquisitor of Barcelona, in reporting a visitation of the sees of Gerona and Elne and part of Barcelona and Vich, makes parade of having published the Edict of Faith in 263 places, but he brought in only seven trivial cases, of which four were of Frenchmen.[673] These trips involved no little labor and even hardship; four months was the time prescribed for them, commencing early in February, and the vernal equinox was not likely to be agreeable, especially in mountainous districts. Naturally the duty was shirked whenever practicable, and the effort of the Suprema to compel its performance was endless. In 1557 it instructed the receiver at Saragossa that each inquisitor, on alternate years, must spend at least four months in visitations and that this performance is an absolute condition precedent to his receiving the customary ayuda de costa.[674] This was carried even further in a carta acordada of January 25, 1607, to all the tribunals; the inquisitor, in his turn, must start on the first Sunday in Lent, without attempting an excuse or a reply, and the report of his visit must be included in the annual statement of cases, for otherwise the ayuda de costa will be withheld from the whole tribunal, because these visits are the principal reason of its bestowal.[675] This solidarity enforced on all the officials was possibly owing to the recalcitrance of subordinates for, in 1598, we find a tribunal asking the Suprema to issue the necessary orders to them direct, which it obligingly did, while remonstrating that it should not be burdened with such details.[676] Throughout the seventeenth century, the correspondence of the Suprema with the tribunals of Valencia and Barcelona is filled with orders to the inquisitor whose turn it is to go and refusals to accept excuses and, in