La jurisdicción eclesiástica de la Real Capilla de Madrid (1753-1931)

Abstract

From its medieval origins up to the Concordat of 1753, the Chapel in the Royal Palace, the Royal Chapel, was holding a particular jurisdiction and people belonged to it for the fact of being a courtier or work at the king’s service. Since the XVI century the Royal Chapel has been headed by the Pro-Chaplain of the Palace who was bearing the honorific title of Patriarch of the West Indies. By the middle of XVIII century, in order to avoid legal disputes with other ecclesiastical jursidictions, the Popes Benedict XIV and Pius VI, decided to set territorial limits to the Royal Chapel and, in fact, it became a vere nullius Prelature, —even if it was never erected as such—, constituted by the Ministerial Parish of the Royal Palace, The Parish of El Pardo, and The Parish of Aranjuez. At the beginning of the XIX century there was an attempt to convert the Royal Parish into cathedral, but it failed. Nevertheless, the Concordat of 1851 maintained the privileged jurisdiction to the Royal Chapel, and so it lasted up to the first of April 1933.