Double monastery

A double monastery (also double house) is a monastery combining a separate community of monks and one of nuns, joined in one institution. More common in the monasticism of Eastern Christianity, where they are found since the 4th century, in the West the establishment of double monasteries became popular after Columbanus and were found in Anglo-Saxon England and Gaul. Double monasteries were forbidden by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, though it took many years for the decree to be enforced. In a significantly different way, double monasteries were revived again after the 12th century, when a number of religious houses were established on this pattern, among Benedictines and possibly the Dominicans. The 14th-century Bridgittines were consciously founded using this form of community.

Examples include the original Coldingham Monastery in Scotland, Barking Abbey in London, and Einsiedeln Abbey and Fahr Abbey in Switzerland, controlled by the abbot of Einsiedeln. In general, monks and nuns lived in separate buildings but were usually united under an Abbess as head of the entire household, and would have chanted the Liturgy of the Hours and attended Mass together in the Chapel. Either an abbess or an abbot would normally have control over both houses, and it was only in exceptional circumstances that each would have its own superior.

The double monasteries of the 7th and 8th centuries had their roots in early Christian religious communities. The trend of early female monasticism, while not as well-documented as that of its male counterpart, began in the fifth century with the founding of a female monastery in Marseille by John Cassian in 410, which preceded several female monasteries in Rome. St. Basil and Pachomius both established female religious communities in close proximity to those of men in the East. In 512, Bishop Caesarius of Arles founded the monastery of St. John the Baptist for his sister and her religious community of women. It is this latter monastery and the Rule that Caesarius established that served as the framework for the evolution of the double monastery. According to Caesarius, women should be in charge of women's monasteries. The abbess of the monastery should be "superior in rank" and "obeyed without murmuring". Caesarius ensured that the abbesses of his monastery would be free from forced obedience to their diocese's bishop by obtaining a Papal letter exempting his female monastery from episcopal rule. He also wrote the Regula sanctarum virginum, the first known rule specifically created for a female monastery. This rule featured a combination of old and new restrictions on monastic life, including the surrendering of private property, obedience to one's abbess, and strict enclosure for life, which served the dual purpose of protecting the chastity of the monastery's inhabitants and preventing the intrusion of the secular world.

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