Conventicle

[Lat. conventiculum, dim. of con vent us.] A minor a embly or meeting. (Eccl. Hist .) A cabal, or secret a embly, of a part of the monks of a convent to form a party in the election of an abbot. It is said by some to have been first applied in England to the schools of Wickliffe, and has since been used by way of reproach for those religious a emblies which di ent from the established church of England. In 1664, what is called the C. Act was pa ed, decreeing that if any person or persons above 16 years of age were present at any meeting for worship different from the Church of England, where there should be five persons more than the household, they should, for the first offence, suffer three months' imprisonment or pay £25; for the second the punishment was to be doubled; and for the third, they were to be banished to America, or pay £100 ($500); and if they returned, to suffer death. It was not till 1812 that the C. Act was repealed by 52 Geo. III. c. 112. -A meeting of di enters from the Established Church of England, for religious worship, or the place where they meet; -generally used in a contemptuous sense. "Who far from steeples and their sacred sound, In fields their sullen conventicles found."-Dryden. -A secret a embly; as, a conventicle of conspirators. "Ay, all of you had laid your heads together, (Myself had notice of your conventicles.)" -Shaks. conventicle.