Affiliation

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) Adoption; association or reception as a member in or of the same family or society.

(2): (n.) The establishment or ascertaining of parentage; the assignment of a child, as a bastard, to its father; filiation.

(3): (n.) Connection in the way of descent.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

a term used among monks to signify the incorporation of a monk with the particular monastery to which he binds himself. and whose son he thence, forth becomes.