Editing Priory

{{Short description|Religious houses that are presided over by a prior or prioress}}
{{Other uses}}
{{One source|date=June 2024}}
[[Image:Prieuré de graville1.jpg|right|300px|thumb|The Priory de Graville, France]]
A '''priory''' is a [[monastery]] of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a [[Prior (ecclesiastical)|prior]] or prioress. They were created by the [[Catholic Church]]. Priories may be monastic houses of [[monks]] or [[nuns]] (such as the [[Benedictines]], the [[Cistercians]], or the [[Carthusians|Charterhouses]]). Houses of [[canon regular|canons & canonesses regular]] also use this term, the alternative being "canonry". [[mendicant order|Mendicant]] houses, of [[friar]]s, nuns, or tertiary sisters (such as the [[Dominican Order|Friars Preachers]], [[Augustinian Hermits]], and [[Carmelites]]) also exclusively use this term. 

In [[English Reformation|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 [[Cluny Abbey|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 [[Benedictines|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.<ref name="ott">Ott, Michael. [[wikisource:Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Prior|"Priory"]]. ''The Catholic Encyclopedi''a. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 4 May 2014.</ref>

The Benedictines and their offshoots ([[Cistercians]] and [[Trappists]] among them), the [[Premonstratensians]], and the [[Military order (society)|military orders]] distinguish between '''conventual''' and simple or '''obedientiary''' priories.

*'''Conventual priories''' are those autonomous houses that have no [[abbot]]s, 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 [[Commandry (feudalism)|commanderies]] of [[knight]]s.

==Sources and references==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{Commons category-inline|Priories}}

{{RC consecrated life}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Christian monasteries]]

[[pl:Klasztor]]