Cloistered MONKS, are those who actually reside in the house: in opposition to extra-monks, who have benefices depending on the monastery.
Monks are also distinguished into reformed, whom the civil and ecclesiastical authority have made masters of ancient convents, and put in their power to retrieve the ancient discipline, which had been relaxed; and ancient, who remain in the convent, to live in it according to its establishment at the time when they made their vows, without obliging themselves to any new reform.
Anciently the monks were all laymen, and were only distinguished from the rest of the people by a particular habit and an extraordinary devotion. Not only the monks were prohibited the priesthood, but even priests were expressly prohibited from becoming monks, as appears from the letters of St Gregory. Pope Syricius was the first who called them to the clerical, on occasion of some great scarcity of priests, that the church was then supposed to labour under: and since that time, the priesthood has been usually united to the monastic profession.