, the entire body of definitors,
resolved that it should be undertaken accordingly; and that all the
documents and authority necessary should be given to him so that he
should go as superior and vicar-provincial of the said Philippinas
Islands; that he may found monasteries there, and in all parts of the
Indias--with the following proviso, namely, that he shall not have
more authority than that which this province shall give him; and that
those houses that shall be founded there, and the religious in them,
shall always be subject to the father provincial who is, or shall be,
over this province. He shall always correspond with the latter, and at
each chapter held they shall send the elections of vicar-provincial
and priors, and the acts that they shall pass, so that the father
provincial of this province may confirm them, or refuse to confirm,
as he shall deem best. Advice shall be given of all the deceased
of those houses, so that the office may be performed for them, at
the time when the elections of the vicar-provincials shall be sent,
etc." Then, lower in the roll of those elected--or in the catalogue,
as we commonly call it--one reads at the end the words that follow:
"As vicar provincial of the Indias, we nominate the venerable father,
Fray Joannis de Sancto Hieronymo, and assign to him fourteen religious,
who shall always be subject to this provincial of this province of
Hispania." This arrangement having been made (which was made by the
intervention of the royal decrees that were despatched at Valladolid,
April three of that year, and which contained, in fact, the permission
for such, and general authority to found as many convents there as
the new Augustinian Recollect missionaries were able and desired;
to which were added other messages touching spiritual matters which
the pontiff's legate generously conceded), the father provincial, Fray
Joan Baptista, decreed the issue of his warrant, on May two. In this
document, after mentioning that he was ordered and commanded by the
king, and also by the said legate, to send the said father as superior
of the religious, who were about to set out for the help of those who
were occupied in the vineyard of the Lord, in the cultivation of those
islands, the father provincial entrusted to him all his authority,
without reserving anything whatever; but with the conditions that we
mention, in the records and other minutes which are generally made
on such occasions, the permissi