The bishoprics and the great commendatory abbeys were, with few exceptions, held by that order.
I led the way to Thorney, a lovely village with a great old abbey and many sheltered places where a man might keep from sight.
From the terrace, a visitor leaves the domestic castle and enters in a moment the world of the great Benedictine abbeys.
Monasteries in the congregation were supervised directly by the great abbey at Cluny.
Other notable landmarks are the two great medieval abbeys.
This was a great abbey on the banks of the Loire, which was destroyed in the sixteenth century.
They received in particular the records of the ancient institutions of Normandy and the collections of the great local abbeys.
In 1071, Sergius (now sole ruler) was at Montecassino for the reconsecration of that great abbey.
And to watch an attractive woman in a beautiful dress pledging her troth to a handsome man in a great abbey is a sumptuous sight.
The great abbeys, priories and hospitals all disappeared and their lands were taken by the Crown.