Page "Ambrosians" Paragraph 3

Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, certainly did not found religious orders, though he took an interest in the monastic life and watched over its beginnings in his diocese, providing for the needs of a monastery outside the walls of Milam, as Saint Augustine recounts in his Confessions.

Ambrose also made successful efforts to improve the moral life of women in the Milan of his time by promoting the permanent institution of Virgins, as also of widows.

His exhortations and other interventions have survived in various writings: De virginibus, De viduis, De virginitate, De institutione virginis, De exhortatione virginitatis, and De lapsu virginis consecratae.

Ambrose was the only Father of the Church to leave behind so many writings on the subject and his attentions naturally enough led to the formation of communities which later became formal monasteries of women.