Keywords

• The Council of Trentâ€
• ™
• s legislation regarding ecclesiastical criminal justice led during subsequent decades to a significant increase in the activity of Episcopal criminal tribunals and the Apostolic nunciatures
• while both were coordinated by central authorities in Rome. The developments of the seventeenth century are much less understood
• however: a kind of «normalization» followed the dynamism of the late sixteenth century
• and its characteristics cannot be easily deciphered. The most important developments appear to be the institution by Urban VIII in 1626 of a new Congregation dedicated to the defence of ecclesiastical immunity
• and the moralizing tension produced by the «Innocenzian turn» of the 1670s and â€
• ™
• 80s. At the same time
• the corporative nature of ecclesiastical justice created conflicts with civil authorities that became increasingly frequent over the course of the century