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Prior is an ecclesiastical title, derived from the Latin adjective for "earlier, first", with several notable uses.

Monastic superiors[edit]

A Prior (or Prioress for nuns) is a monastic superior, usually lower in rank than an Abbot or Abbess. In the Rule of St. Benedict the term prior occurs several times, but does not signify any particular superior; it is indiscriminately applied to any superior, be he Abbot, Provost, Dean, etc. In other old monastic rules the term is used in the same generic sense.

With the Cluniac reform the term Prior received a specific meaning; it supplanted the Provost or Dean (praepositus), spoken of in the Rule of St. Benedict. The example of the Cluniac congregations was gradually followed by all Benedictine monasteries, as well as by the Camaldolese, Vallombrosians, Cistercians, Hirsau congregations, and other offshoots of the Benedictine Order.


The term is also used by various mendicant Orders, e.g., the Carmelites and the Dominicans. This applies both to the friars and the nuns of these Orders.

Compound and derived titles[edit]

In the Benedictine Order and its branches, in the Premonstratensian Order, and in the military orders there are three kinds of priors: the claustral prior, the conventual prior, and the obedientiary prior.





A Prior Provincial is head of an area of certain Orders, notably the Dominicans, who are not cenobitic (monks) but mendicant friars. Among Dominicans, a convent, male or female, may be headed by a conventual prior, the province by a prior provincial, but the head of the whole Order is not called prior general, but Master General. In all these Orders the second superior of a monastery is called subprior and his office is similar to that of the claustral prior in the Benedictine Order.

Other orders[edit]

Compound and derived titles[edit]

  • In some Orders there is only one Grand prior, e.g. in the Portuguese Order of Christ; in other Orders there are several, each in charge of a geographical province called grand priory after him, as in the Order of Malta.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]