Priory
A priory is a
Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of monks or nuns (as with the Benedictines). Houses of canons regular and canonesses regular
also use this term, the alternative being "canonry".
In pre-Reformation England, if an abbey church was raised to cathedral status, the abbey became a cathedral priory. The bishop, in effect, took the place of the abbot, and the monastery itself was headed by a prior.
History
Priories first came to existence as subsidiaries to the
Cluniac reforms as smaller, lesser houses of Benedictines of Cluny. There were likewise many conventual priories in Germany and Italy during the Middle Ages, and in England all monasteries attached to cathedral churches were known as cathedral priories.[1]
The Benedictines and their offshoots (
military orders
distinguish between conventual and simple or obedientiary priories.
- Conventual priories are those autonomous houses that have no abbots, either because the canonically required number of twelve monks has not yet been reached, or for some other reason.
- Simple or obedientiary priories are dependencies of abbeys. Their superior, who is subject to the abbot in everything, is called a simple or obedientiary prior. These monasteries are satellites of the mother abbey. The Cluniac orderis notable for being organised entirely on this obedientiary principle, with a single abbot at the Abbey of Cluny, and all other houses dependent priories.
Priory is also used to refer to the geographic headquarters of several
commanderies of knights
.
Sources and references
External links
Media related to Priories at Wikimedia Commons
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