in church-history, a name given to a collection of little cells, at some distance from each other, in which the hermits, in ancient times, lived together in a wilderness.

These hermits did not live in community, but each monk provided for himself in his distinct cell. The most celebrated lauras mentioned in ecclesiastical history, were in Palestine; as the Laura of St Euthymius, at four or five leagues distance from Jerusalem; the laura of St Saba, near the brook Cedron; the laura of the Towers, near the river Jordan, &c.