who founded the first monastery ever in the history of christianity
344
title: History of Christianity text: inspired by the organisation of the Apostolic community as recorded in Acts 2. Eremetic monks, or hermits, live in solitude, whereas cenobitics live in communities, generally in a monastery, under a rule (or code of practice) and are governed by an abbot. Originally, all Christian monks were hermits, following the example of Anthony the Great. However, the need for some form of organised spiritual guidance lead Pachomius in 318 to organise his many followers in what was to become the first monastery. Soon, similar institutions were established throughout the Egyptian desert as well as the rest of the eastern half title: Iona text: Ages. According to tradition the monastery was founded in 563 by the monk Columba, also known as Colm Cille, who had been exiled from his native Ireland as a result of his involvement in the Battle of Cul Dreimhne. Columba and twelve companions went into exile on Iona and founded a monastery there. The monastery was hugely successful, and played a crucial role in the conversion to Christianity of the Picts of present-day Scotland in the late 6th century and of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in 635. Many satellite institutions were founded, and Iona became the centre of one title: Christian monasticism text: and for monasteries, and evidence suggests that metalwork was produced in both monastic and royal workshops. The monastery of Saint Brigit, at Kildare was a double monastery, with both men and women ruled by the Abbess, a pattern found in other monastic foundations. Irish monasticism spread widely, first to Scotland and Northern England, then to Gaul and Italy. Columba and his followers established monasteries at Bangor, on the northeastern coast of Ireland, at Iona, an island north-west of Scotland, and at Lindisfarne, which was founded by Aidan, an Irish monk from Iona, at the request of King Oswald of Northumbria. title: Christian monasticism text: Abbots of Iona were normally appointed from the founders kin, with an abbot often naming hhis successor. Columbanus, an abbot from a Leinster noble family, traveled to Gaul in the late 6th century with twelve companions. Columbanus and his followers spread the Irish model of monastic institutions to the continent. A whole series of new monastic foundations under Irish influence sprang up, starting with Columbanus's foundations of Luxeuil and Fontaine-lès-Luxeuil and, sponsored by the Frankish King Childebert II. After Childebert's death Columbanus traveled east to Metz, where Theudebert II allowed him to establish a new monastery among the semi-pagan Alemanni title: Christian monasticism text: King Alfred sought a scholar for his court, he summoned Asser of St David's. Contemporary with David were Teilo, Cadoc, Padarn, Beuno and Tysilio among them. Many early medieval settlements in the region were occupied by hermitage chapels which are often dedicated to St Michael as the conventional slayer of pagan demons, as at St Michael's Mount. The earliest monastic settlements in Ireland emerged at the end of the fifth century. It was from Illtud and his colleagues that the Irish sought guidance on matters of ritual and discipline. Enda of Aran is called the "patriarch of Irish monasticism". A