ds of monks were established, who lived
in companies together. Sometimes they were lodged in clusters of little
cells, each of them having his separate cell, or two or three living
together; sometimes the cells were all in one large building, called a
_monastery_. The head of each monastery, or of each cluster of cells,
was called _abbot_, which means _father_. And in some cases there were
many monasteries belonging to one _order_, so that they were all
considered as one society, and there was one chief abbot over all. Thus
the order founded by Pachomius, on an island in the Nile, soon spread,
so that before his death it had eight monasteries, with three thousand
monks among them; and about fifty years later, it had no fewer than
fifty thousand monks.

These monks of Pachomius lived in cells, each of which contained three.
Each cluster of cells had its abbot; the head of the order, who was
called the _archimandrite_ (which means _chief of a sheep-fold_), went
round occasionally to visit all the societies which were under him; and
the whole order met every year at the chief monastery, for the festival
of Easter, and a second time in the month of August. The monks of St.
Pachomius prayed many times a-day. They fasted every Wednesday and
Friday, and communicated every Sunday and Saturday. They took their
meals together and sang psalms before each. They were not allowed to
talk at table, but sat with their hoods drawn over their faces, so that
no one could see his neighbours, or anything but the food before him.
Their dress was coarse and plain; the chief article of it was a rough
goat-skin, in imitation of the prophet Elijah. They slept with their
clothes on, not in beds, but in chairs, which were of such a shape as to
keep them almost standing. They spent their time not only in prayers and
other religious exercises, but in various kinds of simple work, such as
labouring in the fields, weaving baskets, ropes, and nets, or making
shoes. They had boats in which they sent the produce of their labour
down the Nile to Alexandria; and the money which they got by selling it
was not only enough to keep them, but enabled them to redeem captives,
and to do such other acts of charity.

This account of the monks of St. Pachomius will give some notion of the
monkish life in general, although one order differed from another in
various ways. All that the monks had was considered to belong to them in
common, after the pattern of the firs