A priory is a
monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a
prior
Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be l ...
or prioress. Priories may be houses of
mendicant
A mendicant (from la, mendicans, "begging") is one who practices mendicancy, relying chiefly or exclusively on alms to survive. In principle, mendicant religious orders own little property, either individually or collectively, and in many inst ...
friars or
nuns (such as the
Dominicans,
Augustinians
Augustinians are members of Christian religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about 400 AD by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13 ...
,
Franciscans, and
Carmelites), or monasteries of
monks or nuns (as with the
Benedictines
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
). 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
Abbey of Cluny. Many new houses were formed that were all subservient to the abbey of Cluny and called Priories. As such, the priory came to represent the
Benedictine ideals espoused by 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.
[Ott, Michael. "Priory". ''The Catholic Encyclopedi''a. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 4 May 2014.]
The Benedictines and their offshoots (
Cistercians
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...
and
Trappists among them), the
Premonstratensians, and the
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 order is 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
In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and Gr ...
of
knights.
Sources and references
External links
*
{{Authority control
Christian monasteries
pl:Klasztor