A monastery having a prior for superior. A conventual priory is an autonomous house having no abbot; a simple or obedientiary priory is a dependency of an abbey. In England, monasteries attached to cathedral churches were termed cathedral priories. Only one priory exists today as a diocesan organization, Ciudad Real, in Spain, founded in 1875, and ruled by a prior, who is always titular Bishop of Dora.
A monastery whose superior is a prior. The Dominicans, Augustinian Hermits, Carthusians, Carmelites, Servites, and Brothers of Mercy call all their monasteries priories. The Benedictines and their offshoots, 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. The Congregation of Cluny had many conventual priories. 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. Nearly all the monasteries of the famous Maurist Congregation in France (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) were called priories. 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.-----------------------------------For bibliography see PRIOR.MICHAEL OTT Transcribed by Herman F. Holbrook Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus per Iesum Christum. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York