Definition of "preceptory" []

• A community of medieval Knights Templars located on a provincial estate and subordinate to the main temples at Paris and London. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Poor Isaac was hurried off accordingly, and expelled from the preceptory; all his entreaties, and even his offers, unheard and disregarded."
• "Master of the Temple within a preceptory of his Order? —"
• "It is significant that the town of Troyes, from which Chrétien took his surname, was a cabalistic centre and the site of the original Templar preceptory—and it was where the Count of Champagne held his court."