Friary Priory Monastery Abbey?

What's with all the names? Are these really different things?

A monastery is simply a place for monks (and nuns). A monastery may also be caled an abbey, a friary, a priory, a preceptory -- based on the title of the person in charge.

An abbey is under the rule of an abbot or abbess (yes, nuns also live in monasteries.) A priory is the same organization, but the title of the leader is prior or prioress. Originally, priories were offshoots of larger abbeys, and were subordinate to them, but tht distinction was gone by the renaissance

Priories come in two forms - regular (under the government of a prior or prioress) and alien (dependtent on a mother house)

Originally, a secondary house created by an existing abbey. By the end of the medieval period, this was no longer true.

A friary was a subordinate house

(Nuns who are cloistered live in monasteries. Nuns in the active orders live in convents)

Augustianian Canons, names after st. Augustine of Hippo. Roman Catholic. Both men and women based on the Rule of St. Augustine. THere are two groups: Augustinian Canons and Augistinian Friars (a mendicant order). Martin Luther was an Augustinian.

Benedictines (Black Monks) followed the Rule of St. Benedict. Usually catholic or anglican.