in general, something before or nearer the beginning than another, to which it is compared.

more particularly denotes the superior of a convent of monks, or the next under the abbot. See ABBOT.

Priors are either claustral or conventual. Conventual are the same as abbots. Claustral prior, is he who governs the religious of an abbey or priory in commendam, having his jurisdiction wholly from the abbot.

Grand PRIOR, is the superior of a large abbey, where several superiors are required.

Matthew, an eminent English poet, was born at London in 1664. His father dying while he was very young, an uncle, a vintner, having given him some education at Westminster school, took him home in order to breed him up to his trade. However, at his leisure hours he prosecuted his study of the classics, and particularly of his favourite Horace. This introduced him to some polite company who frequented his uncle's house; among whom the earl of Dorset took particular notice of him, and procured him to be sent to St John's college in Cambridge, where, in 1686, he took the degree of A.B. and afterwards became fellow of that college. Upon the revolution, Mr Prior was brought to court by the earl of Dorset; and in 1690 he was made secretary to the earl of Berkeley, plenipotentiary at the Hague; as he was afterward the ambassador and plenipotentiaries at the treaty of Ryswick in 1697; and the year following to the earl of Portland, ambassador to the court of France. He was in 1697 made secretary of state for Ireland; and in 1700 was appointed one of the lords commissioners of trade and plantations. In 1710, he was supposed to have had a share in writing The Examiner. In 1711, he was made one of the commissioners of the customs; and was sent minister plenipotentiary to France, for the negotiating a peace with that kingdom. Soon after the accession of George I. to the throne in 1714, he presented a memorial to the court of France, requiring the demolishing of the canal and new works at Mardyke. The year following he was recalled; and upon his arrival was taken up by a warrant from the house of commons, and strictly examined by a committee of the privy-council. Robert Walpole, Esq. moved the house of commons for an impeachment against him; and Mr Prior was ordered into into close custody. In 1717, he was excepted out of the act of grace; however, at the close of that year, he was set at liberty. The remainder of his days he spent in tranquillity and retirement, and died in 1721. His poems are well known, and justly admired. He is said to have written the following epitaph for himself:

"Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and of Eve: Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher."

Alien Priories, were cells of the religious houses in England which belonged to foreign monasteries: for when manors or tithes were given to foreign convents, the monks, either to increase their own rule, or rather to have faithful stewards of their revenues, built a small convent here for the reception of such a number as they thought proper, and constituted priors over them.—Within these cells there was the same distinction as in those priories which were cells subordinate to some great abbey; some of these were conventional, and, having priors of their own choosing, thereby became entire societies within themselves, and received the revenues belonging to their several houses for their own use and benefit, paying only the ancient apport (A), acknowledgment, or obvention, at first the surplusage, to the foreign house; but others depended entirely on the foreign houses, who appointed and removed their priors at pleasure. These transmitted all their revenues to the foreign head houses; for which reason their estates were generally seized to carry on the wars between England and France, and restored to them again on return of peace. These alien priories were most of them founded by such as had foreign abbeys founded by themselves or by some of their family.

The whole number is not exactly ascertained; the Monasticon hath given a list of 100: Weever, p. 338.

Some of these cells were made indigenous or denizen, or endenized. The alien priories were first seized by Edward I. 1285, on the breaking out of the war between France and England; and it appears from a roll, that Edward II. also seized them, though this is not mentioned by our historians; and to these the act of restitution, 1 Edw. III. seems to refer.

In 1237, Edward III. confiscated their estates, and let out the priories themselves with all their lands and tenements, at his pleasure, for 23 years; at the end of which term, peace being concluded between the two nations, he restored their estates 1361, as appears by his letters patent to that of Montacute, county of Somerset, printed at large in Rymer, vol. vi. p. 311, and translated in Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 339. At other times he granted their lands, or lay pensions out of them, to divers noblemen. They were also feued during Richard II.'s reign, and the head monasteries abroad had the king's licence to sell their lands to other religious houses here, or to any particular persons who wanted to endow others.

Henry IV. began his reign with showing some favour to the alien priories, restoring all the conventional ones, only referring to himself in time of war what they paid in time of peace to the foreign abbeys.

They were all dissolved by act of parliament 2 Henry V. and all their estates vested in the crown, except some lands granted to the college of Fotheringhay. The act of dissolution is not printed in the statute book, but it is to be found entire in Rymer's Foedera, ix. 283, and in the Parliament Rolls, vol. iv. p. 22. In general, these lands were appropriated to religious uses. Henry VI. endowed his foundations at Eton and Cambridge with the lands of the alien priories in pursuance of his father's design to appropriate them all to a noble college at Oxford. Others were granted in fee to the prelates, nobility, or private persons. Such as remained in the crown were granted by Henry VI. 1440, to Archbishop Chicheley, &c., and they became part of his and the royal foundations. See Some Account of Alien-Priories, &c. in two volumes octavo.