The audiencia exercised jurisdiction as a high court of appeal over suits to which the religious orders were parties. Most of these cases originated in misunderstandings or contentions over jurisdiction, titles to land, and over the claims relating to occupation of provinces under the royal patronage, which the various orders advanced. Most frequent of all were the suits between the orders, as to jurisdiction over provinces. An example of this is furnished by the contention which arose in 1736 between the Jesuits and the Recollects for the exclusive right to minister in Mindanao. Another case of a similar nature was the adjudication of a dispute between the Recollects and the Dominicans for spiritual jurisdiction in the province of Zambales, as a result of which the Recollects were finally ordered to confine their missionary activities to Mindoro. [822] Another case was the dispute between the Franciscans and the Observant friars. A large number of the latter arrived in the Islands in 1648 with letters from the Viceroy of New Spain. They were at once given territory which had been previously assigned to the Franciscans. On the basis of a brief of Urban VIII, prohibiting the occupation of the same province by two different orders, the Franciscans brought suit in the audiencia with the result that the newcomers were not only dispossessed of the province that had been assigned to them, but their patents and briefs were cancelled on the grounds that they were not properly authorized by the Council of the Indies. [823] Reference was made in the last chapter to the suits which occurred between the Jesuits and Dominicans, the two orders most extensively interested in higher education, for the right to maintain universities in Manila. The greater number of these disputes, in fact all of them, seem to have been based on the rivalry of their two colleges and on their zeal for royal favor and patronage. When Santo Tomás became a royal university in 1648, and was empowered to grant degrees as such, the Jesuits brought suit in the audiencia for the right to confer honors of a like character in their college of San José. The audiencia denied their petition; the case was appealed to the Council of the Indies, and the higher authority decided that both institutions should enjoy equally the privilege of conferring scholastic honors. [824] The rivalry and bitter feeling between these two orders did not cease with this settlement, but in 1683 the Dominicans again brought suit in the audiencia, seeking to limit the educational activities of the Jesuits. The matter was again carried to the Council of the Indies. Although the decision was made in favor of the Jesuits, the disagreements between the two orders, the charges and counter-charges, and the influence of Archbishop Pardo, a Dominican, in behalf of his own order, went far beyond the authority of the audiencia, whose efforts to restrain them were entirely ineffectual. [825]