ngly
written Life of S. Macrina by her brother Gregory of Nyssa.[5]

The Rule of S. Basil is written in the form of question and answer, and
much of it refers to the relations between monks and nuns, while all
impress upon the religious the duty of giving no occasion to the enemy
to blaspheme. "May the head of the monastery speak often with the
abbess? May he speak with any of the sisters other than the abbess, on
matters of faith? May the abbess be angry if a priest orders the sisters
to do anything without her knowledge? If a sister refuses to sing the
psalms, is she to be compelled to do so?" All the answers urge both
parts of the community to avoid giving ground for scandal. The nuns, in
this case, seem to have had a separate church, for Gregory speaks of the
"Chorus of Virgins" who awaited him when he came to visit his sister
Macrina on her death bed. There were, too, schools for boys and girls
attached to S. Basil's house, for he makes regulations concerning their
education.

There is practically no evidence for double monasteries in the C5, but
at the opening of the C6 we find them again. In the West the earliest
monastic communities had been founded by S. Martin of Tours, first at
Milan in 371 and afterwards in Gaul, which from then became the chief
monastic centre.

It is here, then, that another brother and sister figure as the founders
of a double monastery. S. Caesarius, Bishop of Arles,[6] persuaded his
sister Caesaria to leave Marseilles, where she was in a convent, and
join him at Arles to preside over the women who had gathered there to
live under his guidance; and the rule which he afterwards wrote for
these nuns is the first Western rule for nuns, and was afterwards
followed in many double monasteries.[7] He arranged it, as he himself
says, according to the teachings of the fathers of the Church. He
stipulates that all joining the community shall, on their entry,
renounce all claims to outside property. Only those women are to enter
who accept the rule of their own accord and are prepared to live in
perfect equality and without servants. Much attention is paid in the
rule to the instruction of the nuns; they were to devote considerable
time to music, as being an art through which God could fittingly be
praised; to be taught reading and writing; to practice cooking, and
weaving both of Church vestments and their own clothing.

They were to attend to the sick and infirm, and above all they were not