53. Item:  We command that our president and auditors shall appoint no administrative or notarial official, or fill any other permanent office, even if it be vacant by resignation; nor shall they make such appointments in the interim before we appoint.

Ecclesiastical cases

54. Item:  We ordain and command that our auditors of our Audiencia, in cases of unlawful procedure on the part of ecclesiastical judges [48] shall follow the procedure by and according to which in these our realms the audiencias of Valladolid and Granada proceed, without extending it further than is practised in our said audiencias.

55. Item:  We command that our said Audiencia, governors, and other magistrates of their district shall ascertain and know if in those regions there are any persons who have letters of authorization or apostolic bulls to take possession of the property left by the archbishops who may die in those regions, or of the vacant bishoprics.  When it is known who has them, let him cause them to be brought accordingly.  First of all, let them appeal from such persons before his Holiness, nor give nor allow opportunity for them to be used in any manner, nor for possession to be taken of the said property or vacant bishoprics.  They shall not do, or permit to be done, any other acts in prejudice of the rights and usages with regard to bishoprics to which we are entitled with respect to this matter, or in prejudice of the immemorial custom that possession shall not be taken.  And such authorizations and bulls thus obtained you will send in their entirety, in the first ships, to be presented before the members of our Council of the Yndias, together with the appeals which shall have been taken with regard to the matter.

56. Item:  When there shall be doubt with regard to the signification of anything in the contents of an ecclesiastical appointment, or as to the requisite collation at the hands of the bishops of benefices for the clergy whom we present, let the president of the Audiencia decide it.

57.  And when in our said Audiencia the aid of the secular arm is asked for by the prelates and ecclesiastical judges, let them plead by way of petition and not of demand.

58. Item:  Our Audiencia and the other magistrates of our said district shall see to it that in the towns which are not populated by Spaniards no bulls shall be published.  They shall not permit Indians to be compelled to hear the preaching of them, or to receive them.  Those which are published from the pulpit shall be published in the Spanish language.  We also give the same command to the commissaries of the holy crusade. [49]

Royal treasury and its officials

59. Item:  We also ordain that the suits of our royal treasury be examined and decided before any others that shall be before the Audiencia; and that our fiscal shall take care to prosecute them, and to report to us what is done therein.