Oblati

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n. pl.) Children dedicated in their early years to the monastic state.

(2): ( n. pl.) A class of persons, especially in the Middle Ages, who offered themselves and their property to a monastery.

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

Secular persons who devoted themselves and their estates to some monastery, into which they were admitted as a kind of lay-brothers. The form of their admission was putting the bell-ropes of the church round their necks, as a mark of servitude. They wore a religious habit, but different from that of the monks.