Note 33 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

Closely related to the question of fuerza as illustrating the jurisdiction of the audiencia over the church courts, occurs that of the interdict. A price which the civil authorities frequently had to pay for the entertainment of the recurso de fuerza, or any other opposition, in fact, to the unrestricted authority of the ecclesiastics, was the penalty which usually accompanied the interdict, of being forbidden to participate in religious rites and ceremonies, or to continue receiving the customary spiritual consolations and benefits of the church.33 The authority of the audiencia to restrain the excessive use of this weapon by the ecclesiastics may be considered to have been judicial in its nature, since the prelates, by undue use of the episcopal censure, went beyond their ecclesiastical jurisdiction and encroached upon the royal prerogative. A form of judicial inquiry was instituted to ascertain the act and degree of encroachment; indeed, the excessive use of the interdict was interpreted to constitute fuerza, and the method just described was employed by the tribunal to combat it.