Page "Abbot" Paragraph 6

In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was but loosely defined.

Sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well.

Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him.

By the Rule of St Benedict, which, until the Cluniac reforms, was the norm in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one community.

The rule, as was inevitable, was subject to frequent violations ; but it was not until the foundation of the Cluniac Order that the idea of a supreme abbot, exercising jurisdiction over all the houses of an order, was definitely recognized.