Chapter Eighteen. The crown and the church in spanish Italy in the reigns of Philip II and Philip III

Abstract

Jurisdictional conflicts were one of the principal sore points in relations between the Spanish Crown and the Church in Spanish Italy during the reigns of Philip II and Philip III. It is thus within that more general climate that the controversies should be evaluated, bearing in mind, however, that they expressed two opposing historical tendencies. On one hand, there was the Church, which, as it emerged reinforced and renewed from Council of Trent, conceived of its privileges and prerogatives as an absolutely necessary instrument for the pursuit of the mission to which it had been entrusted. On the other hand, there was the royal authority, which not only intended to assert its exclusive sovereignty in certain temporal spheres, but also intended to make tenacious use of its regalist policies to assert its claims to specific rights over the collectivity of which the local Church and its institutions was one expression. Keywords: Church; Council of Trent; jurisdictional conflicts; Philip II; Philip III; regalist policies; royal authority; Spanish Crown; Spanish Italy