The audiencia was established as the ultimate local authority, co-ordinate with the governor (or the viceroy in New Spain or Perú), for enforcing the laws of the royal patronage.[2] Not only was it authorized to act as a tribunal in these matters, but also to officiate as an active executive agent. It is clear that although the governor was the royal vicepatron, he was not expected to act alone and unsupported in dealing with the powerful and often hostile ecclesiastical authority. In former chapters of this treatise attention has been given to the considerations which forced him to share the duties and responsibilities of government, finance, commercial supervision, and even military affairs with the audiencia; the support of that body was even more necessary in dealing with the powerful ecclesiastical organization.
The authority which the audiencia exercised jointly with the royal vicepatron was based upon the law ordering
our viceroys, presidents, oidores and governors of the Indies to see, guard, and fulfill (the laws), and in the provinces, towns, and churches (in the Indies) to see that all laws and pre-eminences which pertain to our royal patronage are guarded and fulfilled, ... which they will do by the best means that may appear to them convenient, giving all the orders and instructions necessary to the end that all (the instructions) that we may give shall be carried out in due form; and we pray and charge[3] our bishops and archbishops, deans, and ecclesiastical chapters of the metropolitan and cathedral churches and cathedrals and all the curates and occupants of benefices, clerics, sacristans and other ecclesiastical persons, and the provincials, guardians, priors and other religious of the orders, in so far as it is incumbent upon them, to guard and fulfill them (the laws and preëminences of the king) and see them fulfilled and obeyed, conforming with our viceroys, presidents, audiencias and governors as much as may be appropriate and necessary.[4]
In accordance with this law the audiencia exercised the right of intervention in practically all matters to which the authority of the vicepatron extended. Foremost among these were the supervision and administration of ecclesiastical revenues, the administration of vacant benefices, the extension of missionary influences and the construction of churches and monasteries. The audiencia, moreover, had authority over the reception and installation of prelates, parish priests, and regulars, and their removal for cause. In all these matters the audiencia was responsible directly to the king and made reports thereon; in fact, it may be said that the tribunal, in co-ordination with the vicepatron, served as a connecting link between the church in the Islands and the royal council in Spain.
An analysis of the relations between the audiencia and the church will show that the tribunal exercised two kinds of ecclesiastical powers. These may be regarded respectively as executive and judicial. Although it was in their union that the audiencia exercised its most extensive and far-reaching power of ecclesiastical control, it is advisable for several reasons that these powers should be considered as distinct from one another. They will therefore be discussed separately in this treatise. In this chapter we shall consider only the first of these powers—the one which was most directly concerned with the maintenance of the royal patronage—namely, the authority which the audiencia exercised co-ordinately with the governor in the supervision and control of the church in the colony.
Although there appears to have been no conflict of authority between the governor and the audiencia over their mutual relations under the laws of the royal patronage, it is advisable at the outset to settle one difficulty which may present itself in this connection. Many of these powers which the audiencia exercised were conferred upon the vicepatron exclusively. Indeed, a study of the laws alone would suggest the possibility of a conflict of jurisdiction between the governor and the audiencia in matters relating to the royal patronage. In actual practice, however, the governor shared the powers of ecclesiastical supervision with the audiencia, and their relations were harmonious in all matters appertaining thereto. Indeed, there is record of fewer conflicts between the audiencia and the governor in this field of activity than in any other.
It would seem that the intervention of the audiencia in ecclesiastical matters developed in the same manner and for the same reason as it came to have authority in matters of government, finance and military administration. The manifest impossibility of the successful administration of the many affairs of civil and ecclesiastical government by the governor (or viceroy in New Spain and Perú) made inevitable the division of power, which, though real, was not always formally recognized by the laws. The audiencia was the only body available with which the governor (or viceroy) might share these responsibilities. Its judicial character, and the talent, training, and administrative ability and experience (wider than that of the governor himself) of its members made it the logical institution to which the executive should naturally turn for advice and assistance. Not only did he require counsel, but the moral and physical support of a tribunal of weight and authority was invaluable in dealing with the united forces of a powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy. This is the best possible explanation of that gradual assumption of authority by the audiencia which seems to have been so indefinitely, yet freely conceded, and which apparently grew up neither in conflict with the law nor yet entirely in accord with it, but which, now recognized, and now ignored, was never denied or prohibited.
The cédula of October 6, 1578, in explanation of the various forms of address in the expedition of royal cédulas, was designed to make clear the respective jurisdictions of the vicepatron and the audiencia in ecclesiastical as well as in other governmental affairs. It ordered that
when our royal cédulas refer in particular to the viceroys, they alone shall attend to their fulfillment without other intervention; if they designate the viceroy, or president or audiencia, they shall all attend to their execution in accordance with the opinion of the greater part of them that are in the audiencia, and the viceroy or president shall not have more than one vote like the rest that may be present, provided that this do not contravene the superior government which we regularly commit to our viceroys and presidents.[5]
While more than a joint authority with the vicepatron cannot be claimed for the audiencia, and that authority not necessarily coequal, this cédula established beyond question the royal intention of recognizing the audiencia as a support and an aid to the governor. This law applied to all the affairs of government, not pertaining any more extensively to the ecclesiastical than to the administrative sphere, but this cédula, together with what actually happened, may be taken as evidence that the audiencia was meant to have jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs when royal cédulas granting or assuming the exercise of such jurisdiction were addressed to it.