The Project Gutenberg EBook of Early Double Monasteries, by Constance Stoney

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Title: Early Double Monasteries
A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914

Author: Constance Stoney

Release Date: February 18, 2008 [EBook #24633]

Language: English

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EARLY
DOUBLE MONASTERIES

A Paper read before the Heretics' Society
on December 6th, 1914

BY
CONSTANCE STONEY
NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

CAMBRIDGE:
DEIGHTON, BELL & CO., LIMITED.
LONDON:
G. BELL & SONS, LIMITED.

1915

EARLY DOUBLE MONASTERIES.

The system of double monasteries, or monasteries for both men and women,
is as old as that of Christian monasticism itself, though the phrase
"monasteria duplicia"[1] dates from about the C6. The term was also
sometimes applied to twin monasteries for men; Bede uses it in this
sense with reference to Wearmouth and Yarrow, while he generally speaks
of a double monastery as "monasterium virginum."

The use of the word "double" is important. The monastery was not mixed;
men and women did not live or work together, and in many cases did not
use the same Church; and though the chief feature of the system was
association, there was in reality very little, when compared with the
amount of separation. In time, the details of organisation varied, such,
for example, as whether an abbot or an abbess ruled the whole monastery,
though it was generally the latter. Details of the rule of the community
naturally altered at different times and in different places, but the
essential character remained the same.

As to the object of such an arrangement, opinions differ. Some have
regarded it as a sort of moral experiment; others have seen in it only
the natural outcome