Priory

A priory is the monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by the prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns such(a) as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, as well as Carmelites, or monasteries of monks or nuns as with the Benedictines. Houses of canonsas alive as canonesses regular also usage this term, the choice being "canonry".

In pre-Reformation England, whether 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 number one came to existence as subsidiaries to the Abbey of Cluny. numerous new houses were formed that were all subservient to the abbey of Cluny and called Priories. As such, the priory came to live 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 any monasteries attached to cathedral churches were invited as cathedral priories.

The Benedictines and their offshoots Cistercians and Trappists among them, the Premonstratensians, and the military orders distinguish between conventual and simple or obedientiary priories.

Priory is also used to refer to the geographic headquarters of several commanderies of knights.