The gaoler was necessary to a tribunal which had its special prison. At first, as we have seen, the alguazil had charge of this and his employees were not reckoned among the officials. The first allusion to a _carcelero_ that I have met occurs in 1499, when Juan de Moya is spoken of as the _carcerarius_ of the Barcelona tribunal; he must have been an exceptional official and a person of some consideration, for he was provided with a prebend.[711] In 1515 Ferdinand deemed it advisable to put the prisons under control of the tribunals, with which view he empowered the inquisitors to appoint carceleros with salaries of five hundred sueldos.[712] The gaoler thus became a salaried official, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of this position and gradually, toward the middle of the sixteenth century, the humble title of carcelero was exchanged for the more dignified one of _alcaide de las carceles secretas_.[713] He was necessarily a person of confidence, responsible for the safe-keeping of prisoners and for their proper maintenance, functions which will be more conveniently treated when we come to consider the prison system. From the report of the tribunal of Murcia, in 1746, it appears that the salary then was 2353 reales, in addition to which there was a jubilado alcaide with 330 reales. Possibly this habit of providing for supernumeraries explains why, in the table of officials, Toledo has four alcaides and Llerena and Valencia have three each.[714] In the early period the carcelero sometimes served as torturer, but subsequently it became customary to employ the public executioner.[715] [Sidenote: _MINOR OFFICIALS_]