Polysynodial System

The Polysynodial System or Polysynodial Regime (Spanish: Régimen Polisinodial) was a political organization proper of the authoritarian system valid in the Spanish Monarchy (or Hispanic Monarchy) of the Austrias and displaced after the promulgation of the Nueva Planta Decrees at the beginning of the 18th century, which organized the central administration in a group of collegiate bodies that receive the name of Councils already existing or created ex novo.

Its origin goes back to the Middle Ages in the consultative bodies of the crowns of Castile, Aragon and Navarre. The basic mechanism of operation was the elevation of a consultation to the monarch, who resolved according to their opinion.

The councils were of three types:

Since the start of Enlightenment, these institutions would be laid aside because of the creation of the Secretaries of State and Universal Dispatch, which took all the Councils' power. The Councils that survived served as a tool of the King to concentrate and increase his power, and with this going into a absolutist system. The Councils, many of them distorted with respect to their initial origin, disappeared altogether during the nineteenth century, replacing it at the outset with the figure of the Central Supreme Board recognized by the liberal constituents, being this organ the anteroom of the Council of Ministers created during the reign of Elizabeth II.

...
Wikipedia