Note 1 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

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 fuerza3 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.