Talk:Real Audiencia

Discussion
Hello everyone. I cleaned up the article a bit by looking up more English-language references (which I've included) and comparing the original version to the Spanish-language one. I made two large changes. First I removed the organization of the audiencias mentioned from a geographical one to a chronological one, because I think it makes more sence. The previous organization had awkwardly grouped the audiencia by the two large, 16th-century viceroyalties, most likely because of the often mistaken idea that the viceroyalty was the supreme administrative division of the Spanish empire. It was not, as you can see in the revised text. Audiencias had extreme autonomy and so did the captains general, who are often listed as subordinates to the viceroys. (Viceroys, in many ways, were simply governors-captains general with a high degree of ceremonial dignity due to the importance of their capitals.) By putting the list of audiencias in a chronological order, the significance of the sentence found in the original ("The Spanish crown imposed the audiencia system on the Americas as part of its campaign to bring the area and its Spanish settlers and conquerors under royal control.") becomes clearer: that the crown is closely following the conquistadores with its institutions to make sure they don't get out of control. The second large change I did was to add a description of the audiencia's duties and compostion. I find that many descriptions of the audiencias--for example in text books--often omit this to the reader's frustration. The audiencia is a very unique institution, unlike anything in the English-speaking world, and so I felt that a quick description of who actually made it up and what they did in governing an area was important for an understanding of this institution. Thanks.TriniMuñoz (talk) 18:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Use of word "audience"
Contribution of User:TriniMuñoz moved here from: User_talk:Schwyz

Hi Schwyz, Mirroring Alexf's concerns, I noticed you've been changing and moving lots of the pages regarding the audiencias of the former Spanish Empire, so that they read "audience." I realize that the English-language Wikipedia has an primarily English policy regarding names and titles, but this is one case where the original word is called for. Otherwise we start veering into creating "Wikipediaisms" for the mere sake of strictly adhering to a rule. The 20th- and 21st-century English-language historiography on the subject universally uses the term audiencia. This is for a reason: the audiencia was a unique institution and it's actually not the same as an "audience." (Much like an alcalde—a type of magistrate under the Spanish Empire—is poorly translated as "mayor.") The root of the Spanish and English words are obviously the same, but the meaning of the resulting terms are very different; and I haven't found a dictionary that includes audiencia as one of the definitions of "audience." So I think it's best to follow the lead of the historiography and avoid the neologism of "audience" for this particular tribunal. BestTriniMuñoz (talk) 05:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * * I will try to add the official Spanish names into the listing. Sometimes it is Real Audiencia, sometimes "y Chancilleria" - at least in es:WP. Any official sources list for all the names?
 * * Aside from Audiencia/Audience - there is Real/Royal and the order of the terms. And then the question whether the article titles should include Chancilleria. Schwyz (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The most "official" list is the Recopilación de las leyes de los reinos de las Indias published in 1680. The laws in Book 2, Title 15, deal with the audiencias.  As the first law in this section states the audiencias established in America are to be cancillerías as well, that is that they had the right to issue documents with the royal seal.  This makes sense since they were on the other side of an ocean.  I see no reason to believe that the three 18th-century audiencias created after the publication of the Recopilación did not have this status as well, but this could be further researched.  All audiencias were royal since they were "his majesty's" courts.  Spanish allows for the adjective to be either before or after the noun in this case (for example, Law I, which I cite, uses both forms).  "Real audiencia" seems to be the more common one when using the term simply as a proper noun.  As with contemporary history books, the laws dispense with the cumbersome "real" and "cancillería" after mentioning them at the beginning of the law.  The later term could probably be translated by "chancery" to avoid too much macaronic language.


 * The Recopilación can be consulted at either
 * http://www.congreso.gob.pe/ntley/LeyIndiaP.htm or
 * http://www.gabrielbernat.es/espana/leyes/rldi/indice/indice.html TriniMuñoz (talk) 04:07, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Style and link edits of August 14, 2010
I did some changes to the major edits done by Schwyz, which I will explain here. I removed the empty Wikilinks he created for the Old World audiencias. I discussed this with Schwyz above, and I feel that these proposed articles have very little chance of being written in the near future. If I'm wrong, the links could be easily reintroduced later. I also removed the bullet-point style which seems needless after these links were removed or in places where only one or two audiencias were mentioned. I prefer old-fashioned prose to memo-like bullet points; the former contains more information than the latter. I also removed the awkward "X audiencia was established as the Royal Audiencia and Chancillería of X" formula, as well as the full (archaic) Spanish names. If desired, the first can be easily found by hovering the cursor over the link, and the second by clicking on the link. I retained the bullet-point style in places where there are three or more audiencias with links, as I think this is an improvement. Finally I moved around text and broke up paragraphs so that the article is clearer. TriniMuñoz (talk) 08:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Why "Audiencia Real"? Should be "Real Audiencia."
I have never, anywhere, seen this institution referred to in any other way than "Real Audiencia." Why is it filed here under Audiencia Real? I hate to say it, but this makes no sense. Is there a rationale? --Potosino (talk) 03:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Dunno. The move was done on July 10, 2010, from the older title "Audiencia." The mover probably went by the fact that adjectives usually—though not always—go after the noun in Spanish. Do note that many assume that the proper name in English should be "Audience"—which I think is a needless neologism—and others might insist that the adjective should be in English ("royal").TriniMuñoz (talk) 04:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems an strange move to me. I think it should be reverted. --Victor12 (talk) 14:36, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Real Audiencia
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Real Audiencia's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "virrey": From Spanish Empire:  From Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata: Virreyes del Río de la Plata  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 20:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)