abbotry

plural abbotries

1. The position of abbot.

   The abbot's body was lifted onto a dray and carried thus in haste to the abbotry offices.

   2000, Robert Brunner, Letters from Martin: Summer, 1252 A.D, →ISBN, page 18

   3 more examples

   Thus ended the long and prosperous succession of the Abbotry of this renowned monastry, which, being a mitered one, gave its abbots great power and influence both in church and state.

   1781, Samuel Saunders, A description of the curiosities of Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, page 43

   This gives an average to the reign of each abbot of nearly a quarter of a century, but Abbot Walter, elected in 1323, found the abbotry so good that he held it no less than fifty-five years.

   1871, James Redding Ware, The Isle of Wight, page 93

   Philip Whalen was stung and nonplussed by Spicer's criticism, though in later years, mellowed by Zen abbotry, he dismissed Spicer as "unpleasant to everyone."

   1998, Lewis Ellingham, Kevin Killian, Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance, →ISBN

   Synonyms: see at abbacy