In the crown of Aragon, the chancellor of contentions or powers was an ecclesiastic appointed by the king to decide the powers between royal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Formerly in Aragon, the ecclesiastical ordinary who interfered in things that were not his responsibility or lacked the rituality of the trials or attacked the freedom of the people or their property, he had to appear before the court called regio bank for give an account of his behavior and undo what he improperly practiced. But in the time of King Don Pedro IV, in order to cut off the disturbances that afflicted his reign, the year 1372 was celebrated between Queen Dona Leonor of Portugal, wife of Don Pedro and Cardinal Nuncio Rertrand, a concord in which it was established that in the powers raised between the royal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction arbitrators were appointed by one and the other to resolve them, and there being no agreement among them, it was decided by an ecclesiastical chancellor of real appointment who resolved the point within thirty days and not doing so in this time was decided in favor of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Process
By virtue of this, the judge who forms the competition directs the other the inhibitory letters in which he appoints an arbitrator to determine the doubt. The judge to whom the letters are presented must appoint another arbitrator in the term of three days counted from the presentation. The two arbitrators must decide the competition within five days from the presentation of the responsive letters of the second judge to the first judge or according to practice from the day and time when they are notified of their appointment, without their judgment or decision having recourse and in case of discord the documents are referred to the chancellor of competences who within the term of thirty days has to pronounce to which jurisdiction the cause belongs, without there being no appeal or appeal of his sentence being noted that if the Chancellor lets pass the thirty days without deciding, is declared to have jurisdiction in favor of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. If the judge to whom the inhibitory letters are addressed does not respond within three days in the cases in which he must respond, other monitors are dispatched and he does not respond to them within three days. If the chancellor is absent or impeded, the real justice must appoint a clergyman constituted in dignity to perform his duties and not making the appointment within four days runs the term of thirty.
This institution, as it is obvious, impairs the royalties of the crown, since it subjects the royal jurisdiction to the ecclesiastical. It was also humiliating for territorial audiences, since it diminished their dignity and the consideration that is due to the ministers who compose them. In fact, when both jurisdictions disputed the knowledge of a business, they made of arbitrators the respective prosecutors that never conformed or it was not easy that they could conform. They had therefore to always pass the cars to the ecclesiastical chancellor whose room a full room of the territorial audience is moved to advise him, presiding over the same chancellor who ordinarily solved by himself judging and sending the opposite of what she thinks.
This court of contentions was extinguished by royal decree of October 31, 1835.
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