(transitive) To clothe (as) in a cowl; to make (someone) a monk.
1655, anonymous poem from the collection The Marrow of Compliments, in A. H. Bullen (ed.), Speculum Amantis, London, 1889, p. 98,
And is’t not brave when summer’s robes
Have all the fields encowled
To have a green gown on the grass
And wear it uncontroul’d?