ds, as appears from
the _Recopilacion de Indias_, libro i, titulo xxii, ley liii. [62]
After that three pontifical briefs were obtained, each one _ad
decennium_, empowering them to graduate students from the courses
of philosophy and theology. But Don Phelipe IV by his letter to the
count of Siruela, his ambassador in Roma, petitioned and obtained
from his Holiness Innocent X the bull commencing _In supereminenti_,
given at Roma, November 20, 1645. In that bull his Holiness erects a
university in the college of Santo Thomas in due form, with all the
exemptions and privileges that other universities have, under the
care of the Order of Preachers. Authority is given to the rector to
confer degrees, establish statutes, and appoint officials, his Holiness
giving them the names proper of university, etc., until an independent
university of general studies should be founded in Manila. Afterward
the king, by a royal decree, dated Madrid, May 17, 1680, admitted
the said university under his patronage and royal protection; and
ordered the governor, Audiencia, archbishop, and orders to so regard
it, and to observe its statutes and exemptions. By another decree,
dated Madrid, November 22, 1682, the king concedes authority for
the erection of the chairs of laws and medicine in Santo Thomas. By
another quite recent decree, dated San Lorenzo, October 23, 1733,
the king grants to the university of Santo Thomas two chairs--one of
canonical law, which is held by a religious who receives no salary;
and the other of the institutes, in charge of a layman, appointed by
the royal Audiencia, and assigned a salary of four hundred pesos per
annum, payable from the royal treasury, and to be taken from [funds
arising from] the vacant sees of the archbishop and bishops of these
islands. The same favor is conferred upon the college of San Ignacio
of the Society. At present these two chairs are being maintained in
both places. A petition having been made to his Holiness in behalf
of the said university, that authority be conceded it to graduate
students in the laws from it, his Blessedness Clement XII (who is at
present governing the Church), concedes this, granting said chairs
to the university. His bull _Dudum emanarunt_, promulgated in Roma,
September 2, 1734, in which he inserts the letter of Innocent above
cited, and the permissions and prerogatives there expressed (which
are those of general universities), incorporates the said chairs,
and tho