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. , an
Evangelical-Lutheran monastery in the Benedictine tradition (Germany) 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 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 of
knights. ==References==