COURT OF CONVOCATION
COURT OF CONVOCATION, eccles. law. The name of an English ecclesiastical court. It is composed of every bishop, dean, and archdeacon, a proctor for the chapter, and two proctors for the clergy of each diocese in the province of Canterbury, for the province of York, there are two proctors for each archdeaconry.
2. This assembly meets at the time appointed in the king's writ, and constitute an ecclesiastical parliament. The archbishop and his suffragans, as his peers, are sitting together, and composing one house, called the upper house of convocation the deans, archdeacons, and a proctor for the chapter, and two proctors for the clergy, the lower house. In this house a prolocutor, performing the duty of a president, is elected.
8. The jurisdiction of this tribunal extends to matters of heresy, schisms, and other mere spiritual or ecclesiastical causes. Bac. Ab. Ecclesiastical Courts, A 1.