Note 19 — Chapter III · THE JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDIENCIA

The laws regulating the audiencia’s jurisdiction in civil cases seem to have varied according to the time and the policy of the government. The audiencia exercised both original and appellate jurisdiction, as we have already noted. Most of the civil suits tried by the tribunal were appealed to it from inferior judges. A law was made in 1563 ordering that cases involving less than twenty pesos might be tried by verbal process.19 This law would seem to have excluded cases of less than that value from appeal to the audiencia, as the processes had to be committed to writing in order to be appealed. The cédulas of November 26, 1573, and August 10, 1574, fixed the minimum amount that might be appealed at six pesos of eight reales, or 3000 maravedís.20 Charles V in 1542 promulgated an important law for the regulation of appeals to the audiencia. It provided that the smallest amount that might be appealed should be 300,000 maravedís (667 pesos).21 This law was re-promulgated on September 24, 1568, and on September 22, 1626.22 The provisions of these laws, however, probably applied only to such cases as might come from provincial justices, since appeals from city judges and ayuntamientos could be taken over by the audiencia with less trouble and expense, because of the proximity of the tribunal. As a matter of fact, this opinion is seemingly substantiated by a new law, dated June 13, 1634, which ordered that an appeal from an ayuntamiento should not be received in an audiencia unless the suit involved a sum greater than 60,000 maravedís, or 133 pesos.23 This was considerably less, it will be seen, than the amount fixed as the limit by the law immediately preceding it, which was promulgated in 1626.