a. [ad. L. comitiāl-is pertaining to the comitia.]
1. Roman Antiq. Of or pertaining to the comitia (q.v.). Comitial day (L. dies comitialis): a day on which the comitia could be held.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, I. (1822), 31. Quhen ony officis or digniteis ar desirit on the commiciall dayis.
1618. Bolton, Florus, III. xiv. 219. When upon a comitiall day he laboured to have his authority continued for a longer time.
a. 1832. J. Taylor, Poems & Transl. (1839), 183. Lawful, Unlawful, and Comitial Days.
1880. Muirhead, trans. Instit. Gaius, II. § 5. By a comitial enactment [lege] or a senatus consult.
b. Comitial sickness, fit, evil, etc.: the ‘falling sickness’ or epilepsy. [L. morbus comitialis, so called because its occurrence during the comitia was considered ominous and broke up the meeting.]
1562. Bulleyn, Bk. Simples, 80 b. Castor is good to helpe the Comitiall or fallyng sicknesse.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. Furies, Wks. (1605–7), I. 346. And Megrim growes to the Comitiall-Ill.
1627. H. Burton, Baiting Pope’s Bull, 43. His epilepsian or comitial fit.
1660. Howell, Parley of Beasts, ii. 26. The epilepsy or comitiall sicknesse.
† 2. transf. Of or pertaining to a Diet or other modern political assembly. Obs.
1603. Bp. Barlow, Summe of Confer. at Hampton Crt., To Rdr. An expectation of this late Comitial Conference, much threatned before and triumphed in by many.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1655), I. 244. That Imperiall or Comitial Ban, pronounc’d in the Diet at Ratisbon.
1791. State Papers, in Ann. Reg., 184* [Scheme of a Constitution for Poland.] There shall be one supreme general tribunal … called a comitial tribunal. Ibid. (1795), 236. The constitutional regard which his Imperial Majesty has always paid to that comitial decree.
3. Of or pertaining to the Academic comitia.
1714. Ayliffe, Univ. Oxf. (1723), II. III. i. 132. Then the Comitial Exercises beginning, the Senior Proctor mounts the Pew on the West Side of the [Sheldonian] Theatre, and the Junior Proctor the Pew opposite to him to on the East side … At these Comitial Disputations the same method is used … as at Vespers.
† 4. Applied to certain general assemblies or synods of the presbyterians in the 16th c.
held ‘at London at terms and parliament times, in Oxford at the act, in Cambridge at the times of commencement.’ Articles agst. Cartwright, xxvi. in Fuller, Ch. Hist., V. ix. 150.
1593. Bancroft, Dang. Positions, III. ii. Another meeting was also appointed to be helde, that year at the Commencement at Cambridge. Ibid., iii. The Brethren are to be requested, to ordaine a distribution of all Churches according to these rules … that are set downe in the Sinodicall Discipline, touching Classicall, Prouinciall, Comitiall or of Commencements, and assemblies for the whole kingdome. The Classes are to be required to kepe acts of memorable matters: which they shall see deliuered to the Comitiall assembly that from thence they may be broght by the prouincial assembly.
1656. Fuller, Ch. Hist., IX. v. Their Comitial assemblies, kept in the Universities at the Commencements … were conveniently chosen as safely shadowed under a confluence of people.
1755. Neal, Hist. Puritans, I. vi. 273. The Comitial Assemblies are to be admonished to make collections for the relief of the poor, [etc.].
† B. sb. pl. = COMITIA 1. Obs.
1566. Painter, Pal. Pleas., I. 30. Get ye therfore to the mounte Auentine … and there yee shall create your tribunes: the chiefe bishop shall be present to kepe the comitialles.
