By order of the king our sovereign:
[1] Translated from Pastells’s Colin, iii, pp. 674–677. The original is conserved in Archivo general de Indias, with the following pressmark: “Registros de oficio y partes; reales ordenes dirigidos a las autoridades y particulares del distrito de la Audiencia; 1568–1808; est. 105, caj. 2, leg. 11, libro 1, folio 233, verso, part 2.”
[2] Thus in Pastells’s text (p. 690); but it is apparently a misprint for June 22, 1622, the date of Serrano’s act.
[3] Throughout this document, the matter contained in brackets is editorial comment by Rev. Pablo Pastells, S.J., who has published the present document in the appendix to the third volume of his edition of Colin’s Labor evangélica (Barcelona, 1904), ut supra.
[4] The passage of the council of Trent referred to above reads as follows: “In monasteries, whether the houses of men or of women, with which the care of the souls of secular persons is connected, all persons—excepting those who belong to their monasteries, or who are servants of those places—both secular and religious, who exercise that care after this manner, shall be immediately subject in those things which pertain to the said care and administration of sacraments, to the jurisdiction, visit, and correction of the bishop in whose diocese they are located. Neither shall any there, even those removable at will [ad nutum amovibilis], be considered unless by the consent of that bishop, and by the latter’s previous examination, made personally or by his vicar; excepting the monastery of Cluny and its boundaries, and also excepting those monasteries or places in which abbots, generals, or the heads of the orders establish their ordinary and chief residence, and other monasteries or houses in which abbots, or other superiors of the regulars, exercise episcopal or temporal jurisdiction in parish churches and parishes; excepting likewise from the right of those bishops even persons who exercise greater jurisdiction in the said places.” See the original reading in Pastells’s edition of Colin’s Labor evangélica, appendix, p. 677.
[5] See the above bull in this series, Vol. IV, pp. 119–124.
[6] See the last two decrees here mentioned, later in this document. The first decree—the original of which is preserved in the Archivo general de Indias, in “Cartas y expedientes del gobernador de Filipinas vistos en el Consejo; años 1567–1699; est. 67, caj. 6, leg. 10”—which we translate, as well as all the above document, from Pastells’s edition of Colin’s Labor evangélica, iii, pp. 682, 683, is as follows:
“The King: Very reverend father in Christ, archbishop of the metropolitan church of the city of Mexico of Nueva España; reverend fathers in Christ, bishops of my council, venerable deans, dignidades, canons, and other persons, who are assembled in the provincial council which is held in the city of Mexico. You have already been informed by my decree—of which duplicates signed by my hand were sent out, directed to all the prelates of the churches of the Yndias—dated December six, of the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-three, that I ordered you all, and each of you in particular, that if you have clerics who are suitable and competent, you shall appoint them to benefices, curacies, and missions, in preference to the friars of the mendicant orders, who hold them at present—observing, in the said appointment, the order that is mentioned in the title of my patronship, as is more minutely set forth in the said decrees, the tenor of which, being precisely the same as that of the one sent to you, the above-mentioned archbishop, is as follows: