Real Audiencia

A Real Audiencia (Spanish pronunciation:), or simply an Audiencia (Catalan: Reial Audiència, Audiència Reial, or Audiència), was an appellate court in Spain and its empire. The name of the institution literally translates as Royal Audience. The additional designation chancillería (or cancillería, Catalan: cancelleria, English: chancellery) was applied to the appellate courts in early modern Spain. Each audiencia had oidores (Spanish: 'judges', literally, 'hearers'"). Audiencias in SpainThe first audiencia was founded in the Kingdom of Castile in 1371 at Valladolid. The Valladolid Audiencia functioned as the highest court in Castile for the next two centuries. Appeals from the Castilian audiencias could only be made to the Council of Castile after its creation in 1480. After the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon in the Kingdom of Spain and the subsequent conquest of Granada in 1492, the audiencia was divided in two, with the Audiencia of Valladolid taking cases originating north of the Tagus River, and the Royal Audiencia of Ciudad Real (1494) taking cases from south of the river. The second audiencia was moved to Granada in 1505. Under Charles V and Philip II, the audi