The Edict of Faith was published annually, on a Sunday in Lent, in cities which were the seat of a tribunal and, during the earlier times, elsewhere, when the inquisitors went on their visitations; indeed, we are told, in 1560, that it was of little service unless the inquisitors visited their districts, for people would not incur the labor and expense of coming from a distance and the publication was regarded as the chief object of the visiting inquisitor who was directed to see that it was made in the monasteries as well as in the churches.[263] Visiting their districts, as we shall see, was the duty most disliked by the inquisitors, which they shirked whenever possible, and, with the development of postal communication, it was easier and more speedy to send the printed edicts to commissioners for distribution. What was the total number thus annually showered upon the land we have no means of knowing, but it must have been large. In 1595, the Inquisitor Arevalo de Zuazo, reporting his visitation of the mountainous dioceses of Urgel, Vich and Solsona, states that he distributed six hundred copies among the parish churches, besides personally publishing it in all the towns. From a printer's bill of June 7, 1759, when the custom was declining, it appears that in Valencia the edition printed was four hundred and a list of churches in the city, in which it was posted, amounted to sixty-three.[264] This device was not confined to Spain, though Rome was somewhat tardy in adopting it. The Congregation of the Inquisition issued, January 3, 1623 a brief edict, commanding the denunciation, within twelve days, of all heretics, under pain of excommunication removable only by it or by the pope.[265] This was followed, January 10, 1666, by one more in detail, specifying the offences to be denounced. It was universal in its character and therefore applied to Spain, but as usual the Spanish Inquisition maintained its independence and continued to employ its own more elaborate formulas.[266]