nship. Thereby in
elections the preferments, etc., were to go to the opposite party,
according at times, to very singular rules, applicable, for instance,
according to the month wherein the said benefice fell vacant. The
usage of the "alternation" was introduced in the time of Pope Martin
V. (A.D. 1417-1431.)

The text of the present document concerns the extension of the
_alternativa_ rules to the Augustinians in the Philippine Islands,
by force of which the offices in the order (distributed in provincial
chapters every four years) were to be conferred one term on religious
born in Spain, and the next on religious born in the Indias. The
latter were known as Creoles (_crioli_)--thus in the Constitutions
of the order, of 1685, where reference is made to decrees of Gregory
XV, dated November 29, 1621 (confirmed by Urban VIII in 1628), with
regard to elections of the brethren in Mechoacan, in Mexico. As
the _alternativa_ held in Mexico and South America--in fact, in
Spanish colonies everywhere--these same papal decrees were presumably
observed in all those colonies. Later, in Mexico, the statutes of
the Augustinians required that in provincial chapters religious of
Spanish blood should be chosen alternately with those of Indian, in the
election of provincials, definitors, priors, and other officers; but
this plan did not operate very satisfactorily.--Rev. T. C. Middleton,
O.S.A.

[9] The name (Latin, _regio pontis_), of a ward in the city of Rome.

[10] So in MS., but an improbable name; more likely to be
Pacheco.--Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

[11] Diaz here says (_Conquistas_, p. 385): "The fathers from the
provinces of Espana interposed an appeal from the fuerza [committed]
by this act, saying that the said judge had not authority to postpone
the matter, but only to execute [the decree]; and from this proceeded
continual disputes until the time for the chapter-meeting."

[12] The prior general of the Augustinians in 1634, the date of this
bull, was Jerome de Rigoliis, of Corneto, elected May 18, 1630; he
died (out of office, however) seven years later, in June, 1637, at
the age of seventy and upwards. In 1636 (May 10), his successor in the
generalship, Hippolytus dei Monti, was elected.--Rev. T. C. Middleton,
O.S.A.

[13] Castel Gandolpho, a beautiful place in the Alban Hills, was the
summer resort of the supreme pontiffs.--Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

[14] _i.e._, "should the petition be grounded on fact."