Note 37 — Chapter X · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ROYAL PATRONAGE
Reading edition
The crimes of priests or ecclesiastics against the law and order of the realm were punishable in the same manner and by the same agency as the simpler violations of ordinary subjects. Attention has already been given in another part of this treatise to a case in which the audiencia, in 1617, tried and punished six Augustinian friars who had been convicted of murder.37 Their guilt was first ascertained by a preliminary investigation within the order, after which they were handed over to the audiencia.