Cell

CELL: Usually the room or hut in which a monk, nun, hermit, or friar lives, but also a dependency of a large monastery, ruled by a prior, dean, or abbot, who was the virtual choice of the abbot of the mother house. Such "cells" were frequently country houses which with the grounds were bestowed upon the abbey as a source of revenue, as the monks living therein had to pay a certain part of their revenue to the mother house. Sometimes the "cell" was an important building, as Tynemouth Priory near Newcastle, England, which was a "cell" of the Benedictine abbey of St. Albans (20 m. n. of London); or Bermondsey, which was a "cell" of the Cluniac abbey of La Charité (140 m. s. of Paris). Originally a "cell" was an oratory erected over the grave of a martyr or saint.