[29] See accounts of this affair in Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 758, 759; Murillo Velarde’s Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 342 b, 343; Concepción, cited supra; Salazar’s Hist. Sant. Rosario, pp. 236, 237.
[30] A mestizo, who, to escape the punishment that awaited him, was denounced (at his own instance) to the archbishop as a bigamist, so that the latter might claim the case within his own jurisdiction, and the prisoner thus escape civil penalties.
[31] Diaz says (Conquistas, p. 760): “Where the letter of requisition says, ’For doing otherwise, you will be excommunicated,’ the Audiencia desired it to say, ’Your Grace will be excommunicated.’” Salazar says (p. 237) that the castellan felt insulted at this, as only the governor and the Audiencia had the right to use such terms to him.
[32] Diaz relates this affair in detail (p. 761), and says that the soldiers broke open the windows and doors of the hospital (where the archbishop then was) to obtain entrance; also that the decree of banishment gave the alternative of the Babuyanes Islands, or Cagayán, or Pangasinán as his place of exile. Diaz cites (p. 762), this sentence in Sanchez’s account, as proof that the latter could not have written it, since he took part in the arrest of Pardo.
[33] According to Diaz (p. 762), the governor had given money for the expenses of this voyage, but on reaching Mariveles no provisions of any sort could be found; and the archbishop would have had no food if a Dominican friar who happened to be there had not quickly gone back to Manila to procure supplies for the prelate, and returned at midnight with them to Mariveles. Diaz says that this friar was not allowed even then to go aboard the vessel in which Pardo had embarked, or to exchange any word with him.
[34] Spanish, vsasse de su derecho—literally, “exercise its right,” i.e., to govern the vacant see.
[35] Diaz calls this (p. 764) “the principal fiesta of the Dominicans” in Manila. Santa Cruz (Hist. Sant. Rosario, p. 106) says that every year, when the eight days’ fiesta in honor of the Virgin of the Rosary is celebrated in their convent, the eighth day is devoted to thanksgiving to Mary for the victories won by the Spaniards over the Dutch in 1646 (see our VOL. XXXV), which were attributed by the people to her miraculous aid. That fiesta of eight days was apparently instituted in 1637, to celebrate the dissolution of Collado’s new congregation in Filipinas (see Santa Cruz, ut supra, p. 4; and our VOL. XXIX, pp. 25–27).
[36] “The bishop of Troya, knowing well that the true spiritual jurisdiction resided in himself by the appointment of the archbishop, sent a Dominican religious to the convents to inform on his part their superiors that he gave, to those confessors whom the said superiors should choose, his own authority and right, so that they could absolve those persons who by command or compulsion had taken part in the arrest of the archbishop from the excommunication which they might have thus incurred—excepting the principal offenders—until he should be restored to liberty and they should perform public penance and give juratory security, as is ordained by the sacred canons.” (Diaz, Conquistas, p. 764.)
[37] The interdict was not only an ecclesiastical censure, but a penalty, entailing usually privation of certain sacraments (save in cases of strict necessity), of all the divine offices, and of church burial. All solemnities and public festivals were suspended, except on the five great feasts of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the Assumption of our Lady, and Corpus Christi. The churches remained closed, the crucifix and statues veiled, the bells and organ mute. This penalty might be general, over the whole city, kingdom, or country; or merely particular, indicted on a named corporation, see, church, or the like; again, it might be either local or personal as to its effects. It might be imposed not only by a pope, but by any competent church prelate, even by a bishop; and could apply to any secular or ecclesiastical ruler (except of course the pope), to a university or college, or to any body of clergy, regular or secular. The earliest mention of a church interdict apparently is Ferraris’s allusion to one in the fourth century, of which, however, no details are available. In Frankish chronicles, interdicts date from the sixth century, the first of these being at Rouen, in 588; Bishop Prætextatus having been murdered, by order of Queen Fredegonda, while officiating in his own church, the senior suffragan of that province, Leudovald of Bayeux, after consultation with his fellow-bishops, laid all the churches of Rouen under interdict until the assassin of the bishop should be discovered. But prior to the eleventh century general interdicts are but rarely mentioned in church history. It does not appear that there was any ritual for either general or particular interdicts, apart from the usually concomitant sentence of excommunication—which in former ages itself entailed also interdict on the persons or places named in the decree of penalty. The interdict was usually laid under conditions that amendment, reparation, or restitution should atone for the wrong done, at which the interdict would be lifted. According to present church law, bishops are empowered, as delegates of the Holy See, to put under interdict particular churches, and the like. See Moroni’s Dizionario (Venezia, 1845), xxxvi, p. 49; Ferraris’s Bibliotheca (Paris, 1853), article “Interdictum;” Guerin, Les Petits Bollandistes (Paris, 1878), iv, pp. 378–382; and Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary, article “Interdict.”—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.
[38] Diaz states (ut supra) that the archbishop’s provisor, Juan Gonzalez, took refuge in the Dominican convent, which was soon surrounded with armed soldiers. At the advice of friends, Gonzalez gave himself up, and was kept a close prisoner in his own house—“guards being placed there at his cost; and penalty was imposed of major excommunication and 500 pesos, if he should talk with any person outside.” As soon as Santo Domingo was blockaded, a decree of the Audiencia was made known to all the convents that they must not ring the bells for an interdict. To prevent this being done at Santo Domingo, “they scaled the convent through the hall of the Inquisition, which is above the main entrance, and ten soldiers went up to the bell-tower.” Next day, the friars rang a small bell to call the people to mass, but the guards would not allow any person to enter the church.