After some contradictory decisions as to furnishing papers or information from the records to competent courts applying for it, the Suprema, in 1556, forbade the tribunals, without its express order, from giving any information tending to prove that any one had not been condemned or reconciled, or penanced or arrested by the Holy Office--a most cruel regulation in view of the tremendous consequences to the posterity of those who had fallen under suspicion of heresy and had been tried or even arrested. An order by the Suprema, in 1576, to the Valencia tribunal to erase from its records the name of Maestro Jusepe Esteban, because he had not been arrested for a matter of faith, is suggestive of the fearful power which the Inquisition possessed of inflicting infamy on whole families and of the importance of the accuracy of its registers.[752] The abuse of its power in this respect is indicated, as we have seen above, by the instructions which sometimes followed visitations, to remove from the records the names of those who had been improperly prosecuted for offences not of faith. It was not easy to preserve the completeness of the records. Officials were apt to regard them as personal property and to keep them, like the notary of Calatayud who thus secured for his son the reversion of his office. In 1512, Ferdinand desired from a tribunal complete statements concerning the finances; there arose delay, during which the notary of sequestrations died, whereupon he ordered that the receiver should have all the papers or copies of them and, if the heirs of the notary refused to surrender them, execution should be levied on his estate for the whole of his salary received during his incumbency.[753] It was not only the notaries, however, but other officials who took and kept documents. In 1517 Cardinal Adrian complained of this and ordered that papers should never be removed from their depository, except to the audience-chamber for the purpose of conducting a trial.[754] This was disregarded and, about the middle of the century, the instructions to inspectors require them to order inquisitors, under pain of excommunication, to return all papers that they had taken and to discontinue the practice.[755] Even inquisitors-general were guilty of this, for Philip II issued an order March 6, 1573, on the executors of Ponce de Leon, to allow his papers to be examined and everything pertaining to the Inquisition to be removed--an order which can only be regarded as revealing a general custom, for Ponce de Leon died, January 17, 1573, before entering upon his office.[756]