AUDIENCE-court, a court belonging to the archbishop of Canterbury, of equal authority with the arches-court, though inferior both in dignity and antiquity. The original of this court was, because the archbishop of Canterbury heard several causes extrajudicially at home in his own palace; in which, before he would finally determine any thing, he usually committed them to be discussed by men learned in the civil and canon laws, whom, thereupon, he called his auditors;
and so in time it became the power of the man who is called causarum negotiorumque audencia Cantuariensis auditor, seu officinalis.
CHAMBER of AUDIENCE. See CHAMBER.