An analysis of the relations between the audiencia and the church will show that the tribunal exercised two kinds of ecclesiastical powers. These may be regarded respectively as executive and judicial. Although it was in their union that the audiencia exercised its most extensive and far-reaching power of ecclesiastical control, it is advisable for several reasons that these powers should be considered as distinct from one another. They will therefore be discussed separately in this treatise. In this chapter we shall consider only the first of these powers--the one which was most directly concerned with the maintenance of the royal patronage--namely, the authority which the audiencia exercised co-ordinately with the governor in the supervision and control of the church in the colony. Although there appears to have been no conflict of authority between the governor and the audiencia over their mutual relations under the laws of the royal patronage, it is advisable at the outset to settle one difficulty which may present itself in this connection. Many of these powers which the audiencia exercised were conferred upon the vicepatron exclusively. Indeed, a study of the laws alone would suggest the possibility of a conflict of jurisdiction between the governor and the audiencia in matters relating to the royal patronage. In actual practice, however, the governor shared the powers of ecclesiastical supervision with the audiencia, and their relations were harmonious in all matters appertaining thereto. Indeed, there is record of fewer conflicts between the audiencia and the governor in this field of activity than in any other.