Definition of "prelaty"

prelaty

/ˈpɹɛləti/

noun
uncountable
1. (now historical) The system of ecclesiastic governance by prelates or bishops; episcopacy, prelacy.
  Quotations
  That those evills of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were distributivly charg'd upon the whole people, will now light wholly upon learning, is not obscure to us […]
  1644, John Milton, Areopagitica