ALIEN, 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), acknowledgement, 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. says 110.

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, 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 sequestered 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 reserving 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 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 Fœdera, 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.