The consistory was the institutional foundation of the French Reformed Churches during the early modern period. Every local church had a consistory, composed of pastors, elders and deacons. Presided over by the pastor, it met each week to discuss matters of ecclesiastical administration, the spiritual and liturgical life of the congregation, assistance to the poor and, above all, morals control. Accordingly, the registers of consistorial deliberation constitute a remarkable source for the study of church discipline, the implementation of new liturgical forms and the organization of social welfare. They also disclose the details of human sociability, everyday behavior and popular culture. R. Mentzer has identified 309 surviving manuscript registers of consistorial deliberation for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They come from 156 different churches. The manuscripts are housed primarily at Paris in the Archives Nationales and the Bibliothèque du Protestantisme Français, and in the provincial departmental and municipal archives.