It would seem that the intervention of the audiencia in ecclesiastical matters developed in the same manner and for the same reason as it came to have authority in matters of government, finance and military administration. The manifest impossibility of the successful administration of the many affairs of civil and ecclesiastical government by the governor (or viceroy in New Spain and Perú) made inevitable the division of power, which, though real, was not always formally recognized by the laws. The audiencia was the only body available with which the governor (or viceroy) might share these responsibilities. Its judicial character, and the talent, training, and administrative ability and experience (wider than that of the governor himself) of its members made it the logical institution to which the executive should naturally turn for advice and assistance. Not only did he require counsel, but the moral and physical support of a tribunal of weight and authority was invaluable in dealing with the united forces of a powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy. This is the best possible explanation of that gradual assumption of authority by the audiencia which seems to have been so indefinitely, yet freely conceded, and which apparently grew up neither in conflict with the law nor yet entirely in accord with it, but which, now recognized, and now ignored, was never denied or prohibited. The cédula of October 6, 1578, in explanation of the various forms of address in the expedition of royal cédulas, was designed to make clear the respective jurisdictions of the vicepatron and the audiencia in ecclesiastical as well as in other governmental affairs. It ordered that when our royal cédulas refer in particular to the viceroys, they alone shall attend to their fulfillment without other intervention; if they designate the viceroy, or president or audiencia, they shall all attend to their execution in accordance with the opinion of the greater part of them that are in the audiencia, and the viceroy or president shall not have more than one vote like the rest that may be present, provided that this do not contravene the superior government which we regularly commit to our viceroys and presidents. [694] While more than a joint authority with the vicepatron cannot be claimed for the audiencia, and that authority not necessarily coequal, this cédula established beyond question the royal intention of recognizing the audiencia as a support and an aid to the governor. This law applied to all the affairs of government, not pertaining any more extensively to the ecclesiastical than to the administrative sphere, but this cédula, together with what actually happened, may be taken as evidence that the audiencia was meant to have jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs when royal cédulas granting or assuming the exercise of such jurisdiction were addressed to it.