gremial

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or pertaining to the lap.

noun

1. A decorated cloth placed on a bishop's lap whilst celebrating mass or ordaining priests.
2. (obsolete)A bosom friend.

   “These Friars living in these convents were capable of degrees, and kept their Acts, as other University-men. Yet were they gremials and not gremials, who sometimes would so stand on the tiptoes of their privileges, that they endeavoured to be higher than other students: so that oftentimes they and the scholars could not set their horses in one stable, or rather their books on one shelf.”