priory

The Priory de Graville, France

A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows headed by a prior or prioress. Priories are Catholic institutions.

Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters (as the Dominicans, Augustinians and Carmelites, for instance), or monasteries of monks or nuns (as the Carthusians).

The Benedictines and their offshoots (Cistercians and Trappists among them), the Premonstratensians, and the military orders distinguish between conventual and simple or obedientiary priories. Conventual priories are those autonomous houses which have no abbots, either because the canonically required number of twelve monks has not yet been reached or for some other reason. At present the Benedictine Order has twenty-seven conventual priories. Simple or obedientiary priories are dependencies of abbeys. Their superior, who is subject to the abbot in everything, is called simple or obedientiary prior. These monasteries are satellites of the mother abbey.

Priory may also refer to schools operated or sponsored by the Benedictines, such as the Saint Louis Priory School.

Sources and references

• "Priory". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12428b.htm. 

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This article incorporates text from the entry Priory in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.