SG Heritage Dictionary

Consistory [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. Primarily, a place of meeting; a council-house, or place of justice. Hence,

2. A place of justice in the spiritual court, or the court itself; the court of every diocesan bishop, held in their cathedral churches, for the trial of ecclesiastical causes, arising within the diocese. The bishops chancellor or his commissary is the judge.

3. An assembly of prelates; the college of cardinals at Rome.

4. Pius was then hearing causes in consistory

5. A solemn assembly or council.

6. A place of residence. [Not used.]

7. In the Reformed churches, an assembly or council of ministers and elders.

Consistory [Adjective] Webster's Dictionary 1913

Of the nature of, or pertaining to, a consistory.

Consistory [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. Primarily, a place of standing or staying together; hence, any solemn assembly or council.

2. The spiritual court of a diocesan bishop held before his chancellor or commissioner in his cathedral church or elsewhere.

3. An assembly of prelates; a session of the college of cardinals at Rome.

4. A church tribunal or governing body.

5. A civil court of justice.

Consistory Encyclopedia Britannica

CONSISTORY, a term applied originally to an antechamber or outer-room of the palace of the emperors of Rome, where the petitioners for justice assembled and awaited the presence of the emperor, who upon his entrance into the consistory took his seat upon a tribunal, whilst the others stood around him (consistebant). The word “consistory,” as a term of ecclesiastical law, in which sense it is for the most part employed in modern times, came to be used first of all to denote certain ecclesiastical councils, in which the bishop was seated, whilst the presbyters ahd other clergy stood around him. It came by degrees to be used generally for all ecclesiastical councils in which a bishop presided, and in which matters of order rather than of doctrine were discussed and decided. The term “consistory,” as used in the Latin Church, is applied at Rome to denote the assembly of the cardinals convoked by the Pope. This assembly is styled a consistory, “quia simul praesente Papa consistunt cardinales,” the Pope’s presence being a necessary condition to constitute the assembly of the cardinals a consistory....

There are two kinds of consistory which the Pope is in the habit of convoking—a public consistory and a private consistory. A public consistory is now rarely summoned; it is, in fact, an extraordinary assembly of the cardinals, at which other prelates and ecclesiastical magnates are present, and over which the Pope presides in his pontifical robes of state. It was usual for the Pope to receive foreign sovereigns and their ambassadors in a public consistory, and the hat used to be conferred on newly-created cardinals in such a consistory. The private or secret consistory is the ordinary court in which the cardinals attend on the Pope, and in which the Pope formally transacts certain ecclesiastical matters, which are of high importance and are termed consistorial matters; for instance, his Holiness nominates in secret consistory to all consistorial benefices, creates cardinals, appoints to vacant bishoprics, confirms the election of bishops, deposes bishops, decrees the pallium to be sent to archbishops, unites churches, grants extraordinary dispensations, &c. This ordinary consistory of the Pope is for the most part held in a chamber of the Papal palace at Rome known as the camera papagali or papagalli f which may be translated “The Painted Chamber,” as Ducange renders it, “aula ornamentis decora.” The phrase seems to have come into use in the Caerimoniale Romanum, as “the Star Chamber” at Westminster came to be so called from the painting or tapestry on its walls. The term “consistory” is used in the Church of England to signify the tribunal or place of justice, which in olden times was fitted up within the nave of every cathedral church, for the most part on the left hand side of the western entrance, for the bishop of the diocese or his vicar-general to hold his court for the hearing and deciding of ecclesiastical causes. Under the questionable influence of the spirit of resistance to the authority of the bishop, which has been a distinctive characteristic of the cathedral bodies in the Church of England from the earliest period of the Papal exemptions, the deans and chapters of the cathedral churches of England have in most cases caused the consistorial court of the diocesan bishop to be removed from the nave of the cathedrals, so that it is very rare to find at the present time traces of any such structure. The last trace of the diocesan consistory of the archbishop of Canterbury was removed from his cathedral within the memory of the living, when a restoration of the nave was made; and the consistorial court of the bishop of London, which was on the south side of the nave of St Paul’s cathedral church, has been converted in very recent times, under the auspices of the late Dean Milman, into a memorial chapel for the reception of a national monument of the first Duke of Wellington. The consistorial courts of the bishops of the Church of England are now but “the shadows of great names,” as the state has deprived the judges of the consistorial courts of the jurisdiction formerly exercised by them in matrimonial and testamentary matters, and their corrective jurisdiction over criminous clerks has been transferred to other tribunals. It is not necessary, nor is it usual for the bishops to hold their diocesan visitations in their consistorial courts.

The term “consistory” is used in certain of the Reformed churches, which do not recognize the order of bishops, to signify the supreme governing council of presbyters and elders, and such churches are hence termed consistorial chu. rch βs

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 292
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