to encroach on the royal jurisdiction, but expected to afford every possible aid to the common courts. The laws of Castile on this subject had full force in Mexico.[1] They had no cognizance in cases either civil or criminal over persons not catholics, nor criminal jurisdiction in cases of adultery; they could not sentence Indians to hard labor for this crime, nor impose fines on them for any offence; neither could they inflict capital or corporal punishment on any one. In the administration of clergymen's or intestates' wills the ecclesiastical courts had no jurisdiction, such cases being of the cognizance of the royal courts, except where a clergyman appointed his own soul as the heir—that is, ordered that his estate be used in payment for masses and other religious rites for the benefit of his soul. The council of the Indies could, however, revoke all ecclesiastical decisions.[2]
By bull of Gregory XIII. dated February 28, 1578, and royal orders of 1606, 1722, and 1731, all suits of whatever nature commenced in the ecclesiastical courts of the Indies were to be terminated in them and not carried elsewhere. This had reference to cases in which the ecclesiastical judge acted in his capacity as the ordinary; but not when he proceeded as the delegate of the pope,[3] in which event any appeal would have to be to the pope himself.
Thus for more than two centuries the secular clergy enjoyed great privileges, but these were in later times gradually abolished. By a royal decree of October 25, 1795, the common courts were allowed to take cognizance of grave crimes committed by the ecclesiastics. The sala del crímen, or criminal court, now sure of its right, acted with rigor against priests, especially curates, confining a number of them in the
- ↑ Recop. de Ind., i. 79-80.
- ↑ Recop. de Ind., i. 80-2, 230-2; Montemayor, Sumarios, 39; Ortega, Veto Fundado, 19; Ord. de la Corona, MS., i. 104, 106; v. 1-2; Reales Ord., i. 447-9; Cedulario, MS., i. 64-5; Provid. Reales, MS., 107-9, 134-42, 146-50, 182-3, 281-5; Rescrip. Reales, MS., 36-7.
- ↑ Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 272; Leyes, Var. Anot., 32-3.
