(Consistorium), signifies as much as praetorium, a tribunal: it is commonly used for a council-house of ecclesiastical persons, or place of justice in the spiritual court; a fellow or assembly of prelates. And every archbishop and bishop of every diocese hath a consistory court held before his chancellor or commissary in his cathedral church, or other convenient place of his diocese, for ecclesiastical causes. The bishop's chancellor is the judge of this court, supposed to be skilled in the civil and canon law; and in places of the diocese far remote from the bishop's consistory, the bishop appoints a commissary to judge in all causes within...

at Rome, is an ecclesiastical assembly held in the presence of the pope, for the reception of princes or their ambassadors, for the canonization of saints, for the promotion of cardinals, and other important affairs.