Page:C. Cunningham- "The Institutional Background of Spanish American History".djvu/11

34 that its residence should be fixed at Segovia, and thereafter it was a territorial tribunal, attached to one city and province. In 1442, the audiencia of Castile was ordered to hold its sessions in the city of Valladolid, which was thereafter the capital city of Spain, the jurisdiction of the court ultimately being limited to Castile.

Other tribunals were created for the administration of justice in the remaining provinces as need arose. The sixteenth century saw tribunals functioning in Valladolid and Granada. These had the rank of chanceries (chancillerías). There were audiencias in Galicia (Coruna, 1563), Seville, the Canaries and Mallorca. These latter tribunals were territorial and were co-equal in rank and authority, with appeal to the Council of Castile or to the appropriate chancery. During this same century, colonial audiencias were established in Santo Domingo, Mexico, Peru, Panama, Santa Fe, and Guadalajara, and these occupied the same relation to the Council of the Indies as the peninsular audiencias bore to the Council of Castile.

The predecessor of the Council of Castile, which came to be the high court of appeal in Spain, with jurisdiction over all the audiencias, was created in 1367. It was first known as the Consejo Real (Royal Council) and was composed of the king's confidential ministers who sat in session with the monarch himself. The jurisdiction of this council, as first established, was limited to administrative matters, while the curia or audiencia of 1274 exercised the supreme judicial authority. Juan II. increased the membership of the Royal Council, and divided it into two salas, one sala being for the determination of administrative matters, and the other, with sixteen members, for the trial of judicial cases appealed from the audiencias. The tendency and temperament of this tribunal, however, seem to have been aristocratic rather