The myriad activities and interests of the Juzgado clearly indicate its importance and influence within the economic and social structure of Mexico. As the sole banking institution in the country, the fiscal policy and lending operations undertaken by the various Judges and officials provided a unique source of finance for any aspiring merchant or impecunious landowner. To the latter, the Church must indeed have seemed benevolent, for the low interest charges and easy terms imposed by the clergy contrasted sharply with the exorbitant demands of the capitalist money-lenders, the notorious agiotistas. The Juzgado was not in the modern sense a profit-making enterprise. It owed its existence partly to the desire of the wealthy, for religious or other reasons, to bequeath money for the benefit of the Church or their descendants, and partly to the constant need of the property-owning classes to borrow money. Having achieved a substantial revenue the success of its operations was not determined by any preconceived policy or by the great spiritual influence of the Church, but by the public demand for financial assistance.

It was for this reason that the Juzgado, and to a lesser extent the regular orders, were allowed by the Spanish monarchy to achieve such extensive control of real estate by means of mortgages. The Crown had in effect no means of preventing this, for the public demand had to be met.

In comparison with other clerical corporations such as the convents and monasteries, the position of the Juzgado within independent Mexico was relatively secure and no direct attempt at abolition was made even when the liberals were in full control of the national government. This was mainly due to the nature of the institution and its activities for, although a unit within the corporate body of the Church, the Juzgado was in most respects a secular organization. Its employees, with the important exception of the Judge, were rarely ordained members of the Church, and its daily business was almost exclusively concerned, either directly or indirectly, with commercial and financial matters. Furthermore, even though its capital and revenue were considered to be sacred funds, the Fiscal rightly pointed out in 1813 that the many capellanías managed by the officials were not really ecclesiastical benefices, but were rather trust funds which the wealthy had established for the use of their descendants. Hence the Church as a whole in fact received little financial return from the capellanías, for the only obligation laid upon the recipient, to whom the net income was paid, was to say a certain number of masses each year for the soul of his benefactor. The capellanes had to be ordained but they were not required to perform any religious or spiritual exercise which brought material benefit to the Church. In many cases they became clerics only in order to qualify for a benefice.

The activities and business undertaken and conducted by the employees described in the previous chapter involved and were dependent upon the revenue of the Juzgado, which resulted mainly from the three sources mentioned in the title of the institution, namely wills, capellanías, and pious works. To some extent these three sources overlap, for benefices and pious works were usually established by will. Indeed, income from legacies was throughout the colonial period a most important branch of ecclesiastical finance and bequests of enormous amounts were made. It seems probable that almost every person who was financially able to do so did leave some form of legacy to a clerical corporation. The administration of the majority of these donations was entrusted to the Juzgado.

The most common form of bequests were the capellanía and the pious work. The latter requires little comment. Many people left funds or property, the income from which was to be devoted to a pious work. For example, in the year 1796 Juan Acosta left 200,000 pesos to the Church and this sum was to be invested to yield an annual income of 8,000 pesos. Half of the income was to be devoted each year to the establishment of a capellanía, and the other half was to be used for the dowry of a novice wishing to take the final vows. Most of the charitable institutions managed by the clergy were supported by monetary gifts and legacies, and money was often left towards the maintenance of an orphanage or hospital.

The amounts invested by the ecclesiastical corporations are difficult to ascertain. The examples of loans given in the preceding chapters are only a few of the many thousands contained in the Church records which clearly reveal that the total capital invested by way of personal loans amounted to several millions of pesos. Numerous calculations have been made of the total wealth of the Church in Mexico but most of these estimates are unreliable because of bias, and none seems to have been based on primary sources. Cuevas has indicated the inaccuracies of those most frequently quoted. For example, with regard to Alamán, who stated that the Church owned at least half the real estate in the country, Cuevas points out that according to Alamán's own statistics, the total capital value of real estate was in the region of 4,000 million pesos and that no one had dared to say that the clergy owned 2,000 million pesos worth of land. Such an estimate was clearly incorrect. Again the estimates made by the liberal Mora come under Cuevas's scrutiny. He rightly notes several basic errors, for example Mora calculated the tithe revenue on the basis of the 1829 returns and ignored the fact that since the 1833 law, the yield had greatly decreased. He also ignores the fact that more than half the tithe product was paid to the civil authorities.

Each diocese had its own Juzgado, which was generally located in the episcopal palace. The one in the archbishopric occupied several rooms on the ground floor and in the year 1838 its director, Dr D. Felipe Osores, wrote to the chapter to complain of the lack of space and the need of an additional room. He explained the inconveniences of the present accommodation and pointed out the obvious dangers of keeping the money chests in the same room to which the public were daily admitted for the conduct of their business. He emphasized that because most of the coinage received was in copper, four large chests at least were needed, and these filled every spare corner at one end of the room. The other end was used to receive and count the money and there was hardly space for the table. Hence because the public seemed to see nothing but overflowing money chests there was a general misconception about the wealth of the Juzgado. He then recalled that only recently thieves had attempted to open the doors with skeleton keys, probably encouraged by the mistaken belief that the chests contained great amounts. Moreover, the attempt had been made in broad daylight between seven and eight in the morning, and according to the only porter in the building the thieves had had the effrontery to return to measure the locks on the doors.

Ecclesiastical wealth in Mexico became the subject of bitter controversy within a few years of the declaration of independence in 1821. Although both contemporary and recent historians have tried to estimate the total value of clerical holdings of property and capital, and have written much about the effects of so much wealth being owned by one institution, nevertheless, to my knowledge, no detailed study has been made of the way in which the ecclesiastical corporations were able to accumulate their wealth, nor what they did with it once it had reached the coffers of the Church. It is well known, for example, that the Church acted as a type of lending bank, but almost no accurate information has been published concerning the terms of the loan contracts, or the organization responsible for lending the money. Similarly, it is known that the Church gathered tithes, but little is known of the exact way in which the tithe collection system was operated in the nineteenth century. Again, it is agreed that the regular clergy owned much of the urban property in the country, but no details are available of the rental contracts and terms demanded by the Church. Finally, many writers on clerical affairs have mentioned the loans which the Church gave to various independent governments, but no one has examined the way in which such loans were organized, nor made an accurate evaluation of the frequent protestations of the Church that it could not afford to meet the enormous financial demands made upon it by the State.

The person who established a capellanía did so in the hope and expectation that it would endure perpetually, for the purpose of the benefice was that the principal would provide an income to enable a cleric to say a stipulated number of masses each year for the soul of the founder. Although the capellanía would die, the monetary fund providing the income would endure, and, therefore, a succession of capellanes would continue in perpetuity to pray for their benefactor. The pious works were likewise intended to provide a continuous source of income with which to carry out the desired charity. As the Church was the only institution which could be considered honest, permanent and perpetual, the trusteeship of these foundations was inevitably given to it, and within the Church the Juzgado was the specific organization charged with the management of the finances involved. Therefore, the nature of the revenue which the Juzgado received caused it to act as a type of investment company or bank.

The other ecclesiastical corporations, notably the convents, also received large sums in the form of legacies and other sources of revenue, for example, alms and dowries yielded considerable amounts, particularly in the colonial period. One of the ways chosen by the convents for utilizing their surplus income and for safeguarding their future needs was investment at interest.

The method adopted by the Juzgado for safely investing the capital and acquiring the necessary interest on it was to extend loans at interest to any person who could offer sufficient security to guarantee the loan.

With the declaration of independence in 1821 Mexico looked forward with some justification to a period of advance and development. The nation, freed from the commercial and economic restrictions imposed during the Spanish colonial rule, could now utilize its vast natural resources for its own benefit. With apparently extensive mineral deposits, a rich variety of agricultural produce and large areas of land as yet uncultivated, the future prosperity seemed assured. The new rulers were aware that problems existed and would have to be solved, but in the enthusiasm of victory after the long independence war, few thought that anything could impede the country's progress. Foreign powers took the same view. British merchant interests were foremost in the rush to invest in the declining mining industry, and diplomatic recognition was soon conceded by European nations. In the political sphere, even the debacle of Iturbide's illusionary empire which lasted less than a year did not deter the investors nor dampen the hopes of Mexicans. The establishment of a federal republic in 1824 under the presidency of General Guadalupe Victoria seemed to lay a sound basis for future political stability. In the words of one Mexican recalling these early years, ‘Who did not then foresee days of glory, of prosperity and of liberty? Who did not foresee a happy and great future?’

In fact, General Victoria, first president of the Federal Republic, proved to be the only chief executive to complete his term of office for almost the next half century.