of the necessity for having priests close at hand to
celebrate Mass, hear confessions and minister in general to the
spiritual needs of the nuns. There is, too, the practical side of the
plan--namely, that each side of the community was economically dependant
on the other, as will be seen later. However this may be, the practice
of placing the two together under one head seems to be as ancient as
monasticism itself.

The double monastery in its simplest form was that organisation said to
have been founded in the C4 by S. Pachomius,[2] an Egyptian monk. He
settled with a number of men, who had consecrated themselves to the
spiritual life, at Tabenna, by the side of the Nile. About the same
time, his sister Mary went to the opposite bank of the Nile, and began
to gather round her women disciples.

This settlement soon became a proper nunnery under the control of the
superior of the monks, who delegated elderly men to care for its
discipline. With the exception of regulations concerning dress, both
monks and nuns observed the same rule which S. Pachomius wrote for
them[3]. It was very simple. There were to be twelve prayers said
during the day, twelve at twilight, twelve at night, and a psalm at each
meal. Mass was celebrated on Saturday and Sunday. Meals were to be eaten
all together and the amount of food was unlimited. A monk could eat or
fast as he pleased, but the more he ate, the more work must he do. They
were to sleep three in a cell. No formal vows were to be taken, but the
period of probation before entry into the community, was to be three
years. The men provided the food, and did the rough work for the women,
building their dwellings, etc., while the women made clothes for the
men. When a nun died her companions brought her body to the river bank
and then retired; presently some monks fetched away the body, rowed back
across the Nile, and buried it in their cemetery.[4]

That the communities of S. Basil and his sister Macrina (also in the C4)
were of this type, may be seen from the rule of S. Basil. The
communities, like those of Pachomius, were on opposite banks of a
river--in this case, the Iris; and Macrina's nunnery is supposed to have
been in the village of Annesi, near Neo-Caesarea, and founded 357 A.D.
In her nunnery lived her mother and her younger brother Peter, who
afterwards became a priest. The life of this saintly family and the
relation between the two communities may be learned from the charmi