The huge estate, which was previously home to the wealthy Crawley family and their household workers, was once an ecclesiastical property, therefore the "abbey" in the title. In truth, their fictitious quarters stand in for the real Highclere Castle west of London, with grounds over 20% bigger than Central Park in New York. Abbeys were important sites during the Middle Ages, where monks would live and work on behalf of their churches. They would grow crops to feed themselves and their community, build large libraries, and collect art that now hangs in museums all over the world. Although abbeys were originally built for monks, today they are usually used by nuns. People started calling this type of estate an abbey after the famous ones in England because there were so many other rich people like the Crawleys who had religious houses built for them too. The term "abbot" comes from the monk at an abbey who looked after its affairs; hence "abbotical residence." Today, most abbeys have been converted into other uses, such as prisons or schools. But a few remain, including Buckfast Abbey in Devon and St Mary's Abbey in York. The word "cite" means "to call out," and that's what lawyers do when they go to visit you in your home town to see if you can be sued away from your own country.