Definition of "consistory"

To council summons all his mighty peers, / Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, / A gloomy consistory.

1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […]

In 1551 we find Bertholier excommunicated by the consistory because he would not allow that he had done wrong in asserting that he was as good a man as Calvin

1860-1876, Walter Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury

Pius […] [was] then hearing of causes in consistory.

1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]

And so were many greate and heighnous maters Obiected against S. Ambrose, because he refused to haue the cause betwene himselfe and the Heretike Auxentius, to be tried in the Consistorie of the Emperour, before Secular Iudges.

1566, John Rastell, The Third Book, Declaring by Examples out of Ancient Councels, Fathers, and Later Writers, that it is Time to Beware of M. Iewel, Antwerp, folio 23r