The reasons inducing inquisitors to the perpetual and illegal multiplication of these officials are not far to seek. The position was much coveted and the high value set upon it, notwithstanding the assertions of the Suprema as to diminishing numbers, is shown in one of the expedients for raising money resorted to in 1641, when an additional familiarship was created in each place, to be sold for fifteen hundred ducats. The offer was withdrawn in 1643, possibly because, as we have seen (p. 213), in 1642 a block of three hundred was thrown upon the market, thus breaking the price.[808] When such estimates were placed on the office, the opportunity for illicit gains was tempting to those who had power to issue commissions and, in addition to this, were the profits of litigation and the abundant fees for officials in the investigation into the limpieza of aspirants and their wives. The fines also arising from cases in which familiars were concerned were a not inconsiderable addition to the income of the tribunals. Thus, in 1564, Dr. Zurita, in a four months' visitation of the dioceses of Gerona and Elne, collected a hundred and six ducats for offences committed by or against familiars and, in addition, five culprits were sent to Barcelona on more serious charges which doubtless yielded still larger returns.[809] It is easy then to understand the temptation to enlarge so profitable a jurisdiction, and the steady opposition to revealing the number of appointees by furnishing lists. It is true that the Suprema drew up an excellent list of qualifications as requisites for eligibility. No one was to be appointed who was not an Old Christian, at least twenty-five years of age, married or a widower, head of a household, virtuous, quiet, peaceable and fitted for the office, as well as of legitimate and not of foreign birth.[810] Yet there was no difficulty in obtaining dispensations for age, for celibacy, for illegitimacy and for foreign birth or parentage, the considerable fees for which went to the secretary of the inquisitor-general.[811] There was no formal dispensation for the moral qualities, but these were elusive and the general character ascribed to familiars, as we have seen in Valencia, shows how little care was frequently taken as to these. They are not even alluded to in the formalities required, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when we are told that the petition of the applicant must be accompanied with a certificate from the secretary of his place of residence setting forth the number of inhabitants, the number of familiars, evidence of baptism to show his age, that he did not follow any mechanic or low occupation, and that he had property sufficient for his decent support. He was also of course required to furnish the genealogies of himself and his wife for investigation into limpieza.[812]