[113] Recopilación, 1–4–20.
[114] Ibid., 1–2–20.
CHAPTER XI
THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION
In the same manner that the audiencia performed the functions of a civil court, so did it exercise jurisdiction as a superior tribunal or court of appeal over prelates, church tribunals, and ecclesiastical judges. It will be our purpose in this chapter to determine the relations of the audiencia with the various ecclesiastical tribunals and to direct attention to the occasions on which it acted as a court, either with original or appellate jurisdiction in ecclesiastical cases.
In this particular phase of the investigation an effort will be made to distinguish between the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the audiencia and its acts relative to the royal patronage. Not only may this distinction be made for conveniences of discussion, but it will be readily seen that the character of the powers and jurisdiction exercised was widely different. When acting as a tribunal of appeal over prelates, provincials, and ecclesiastical courts the chief concern of the audiencia was the administration of justice. When acting in defense of the royal patronage, as noted in the preceding chapter, its authority was primarily executive and administrative, designed always to safeguard the interests of the civil government.
It is, of course, true that all the power exercised by the civil government over the church proceeded from authority invested in the former by the laws of the royal patronage.[1] Nevertheless, it must be observed that there were times when the audiencia exercised the function of an impartial, disinterested court, with no aim or object other than that of maintaining simple justice. It may be conceded, for example, that the authority which the audiencia exercised in the settlement of disputes between religious orders and between the prelates and the regulars partook of the same judicial character as the jurisdiction which it had in settling disputes between civil corporations and individuals. The intervention of the audiencia for the protection of the Indians from the abuses of the churchmen,[2] its entertainment of the recurso de fuerza[3] and its function as a court of appeals for the protection of the natives against ecclesiastical tribunals may be said to have constituted acts in defense of the royal interests as well as in securing the ends of common justice. In restraining church authorities from the intemperate use of the interdict,[4] or from a too liberal extension of the right of asylum,[5] the audiencia was not seeking the ends of justice (though judicial proceedings were instituted) so much as it was defending the royal prerogative and protecting the officials of the civil government. This may also be said of its efforts to prevent the abuse of power by the commissary of the Inquisition. In these last-mentioned activities, therefore, the audiencia may be said to have acted in defense of the royal patronage, though in all these cases its method of procedure was that of a court of justice.
The church in the Spanish colonies had its own judicial tribunals for the trial and settlement of cases arising within it which did not concern the civil government.[6] The division of authority between the civil and ecclesiastical courts and the respective jurisdictions of each are described by Professor Moses, who writes:
The courts of the civil government and not the ecclesiastical authorities considered ... all questions involving the limits of bishoprics, the rights and prerogatives of the holders of benefices, controversies between ecclesiastical councils and their bishops and archbishops concerning the administration of the Church, all disputes between parish priests and their parishes, in a word, all cases that in any manner touched the royal patronage. Even matters spiritual and cases between persons of a privileged tribunal were not excepted from the civil jurisdiction; but certain cases might be brought before the viceroy, and, if desired, an appeal might be taken from the viceroy’s decision to the audiencia.[7]