An abbot ( from Old English abbod, abbad, from Latin abbas (“ father ”), from Ancient Greek ἀββᾶς ( abbas ), from Aramaic ܐܒܐ / אבא (’ abbā, “ father ”); confer German Abt ; French abbé ) is the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the East hegumen or archimandrite.

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

For the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church.

When a vacancy occurred, the bishop of the diocese chose the abbot out of the monks of the convent, but the right of election was transferred by jurisdiction to the monks themselves, reserving to the bishop the confirmation of the election and the benediction of the new abbot.

The monks, then kneeling, gave him the kiss of peace on the hand, and rising, on the mouth, the abbot holding his staff of office.

This permission opening the door to luxurious living, the council of Aachen, AD 817, decreed that the abbot should dine in the refectory, and be content with the ordinary fare of the monks, unless he had to entertain a guest.

The ordinary attire of the abbot was according to rule to be the same as that of the monks.

Sometimes the monks were directly subject to the lay abbot ; sometimes he appointed a substitute to perform the spiritual functions, known usually as dean ( decanus ), but also as abbot ( abbas legitimas, monasticus, regularis ).

The abbot is chosen by the monks from among the fully professed monks.

Once he has received this blessing, the abbot not only becomes father of his monks in a spiritual sense, but their major superior under canon law, and has the additional authority to confer the ministries of acolyte and lector ( formerly, he could confer the minor orders, which are not sacraments, that these ministries have replaced ).

The abbot wears the same habit as his fellow monks, though by tradition he adds to it a pectoral cross.

" This title hails back to England's separation from the See of Rome, when King Henry, as supreme head of the newly independent church, took over all of the monasteries, mainly for their possessions, except for St. Benet, which he spared because the abbot and his monks possessed no wealth, and lived like simple beggars, disposing the incumbent Bishop of Norwich and seating the abbot in his place, thus the dual title still held to this day.

Here the abbot and his monks led the simplest of lives, their food often consisting of nothing but forest herbs, berries, and the bark of young trees.

The monks were to choose the abbot.

The chief theological opponents of iconoclasm were the monks Mansur ( John of Damascus ), who, living in Muslim territory as advisor to the Caliph of Damascus, was far enough away from the Byzantine emperor to evade retribution, and Theodore the Studite, abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople.

Oderisio fortified the monastery, as the people of the town of Cassino forcibly entered the monastery, and after an armed struggle forced the monks to declare Oderisio deposed and to elect another abbot in his place.

Determined to bring the Benedictines to heel, Honorius insisted that the election of Niccolo was uncanonical, and demanded that Seniorectus, the provost of the monastery at Capua, be elected as abbot, to the fury of the Monte Cassino monks.

He reassured the monks of his intentions, and in September 1127, he personally installed Seniorectus as abbot.

Aside from the Benedictines at Monte Cassino, Honorius was also determined to deal with the monks at Cluny Abbey under their ambitious and worldly abbot, Pons of Melgueil.

Eastern monasticism is found in three distinct forms: anchoritic ( a solitary living in isolation ), cenobitic ( a community living and worshiping together under the direct rule of an abbot or abbess ), and the " middle way " between the two, known as the skete ( a community of individuals living separately but in close proximity to one another, who come together only on Sundays and feast days, working and praying the rest of the time in solitude, but under the direction of an elder ).

In a conflict surrounding the investiture of the abbot of Kladruby, the torture and murder of the archbishop's vicar-general John of Nepomuk by royal officials in 1393 sparked a noble rebellion.

In 1252, Camprodon was granted the title of royal city and left the jurisdiction of the abbot of Sant Pere.

As a respected monk there he was elected abbot of the Castillian royal monastery of Santos Fecundo y Primitivo in Sahagún and later was abbot of the monastery of San Pedro el Viejo at Huesca.

They claimed that the royal charter that conferred on the men of Cirencester the liberties of Winchester had been destroyed when fifty years prior the abbot had bribed the burgess who held the charter to give it to him, whereupon the abbot had had it burned.

In May 1556, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the University of Oxford, and when the royal abbey of Westminster was revived, Feckenham was appointed abbot.

In 1318 the abbot received royal permission to raise the height of the wall and crenelate it ; a stretch of this wall still runs along Bootham and Marygate to the River Ouse.

It was originally the personal chapel for the Muscovite tsars, and its abbot remained a personal confessor of the Russian royal family until the early 20th century.

According to the Chronicle of Ingulphus, abbot of Crowland, who wrote in the reign of William the Conqueror, the bishoprics in England had been, for many years prior to the Norman Conquest, royal donatives conferred by delivery of the ring and of the pastoral staff.

The freedmen, who felt betrayed by the nobles due to the peace treaty, sacked the Harzburg in a frenzy, destroyed the castle, and committed such acts of sacrilege ( tossing the bones of members of the royal family, along with those of an abbot and St. Anastasius ) that they shocked the local population and the religious authorities.

In 838, there was a great royal meeting in Cluain-Conaire-Tommain ( north modern Kildare ) between Fedelmid and Niall Caille mac Áeda, the King of the Northern Uí Néill, as a result of which the Annals of Inisfallen, presumably acting on Munster tradition, that Fedelmid became full king of Ireland that day and occupied the abbot ’ s chair of Clonfert.

It is at this period that the ' secret ' or privy council makes its formal appearance when, in February 1490, parliament elected 2 bishops, an abbot or prior, 6 barons and 8 royal officers to form the king's council for the ostensioun and forthputting of the King's authorite in the administracioun of justice.

Supported by a considerable number of adherents in battle array, and accompanied by the abbot, the royal party moved onwards for Dumbarton, where help from France was expected.

The orchestra under Maestro Barenboim, in the presence of President and Mrs. Giorgio Napolitano, performed for Pope Benedict XVI at the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, the abbot Saint Benedict of Nursia's ( the founder of the Benedictines ) feast day, and thus the name day of the Pope.

Next after the abbot of St Alban's ranked the abbot of Westminster.

** Nicholas Throckmorton, English churchman, last abbot of Westminster ( d. 1571 )

He also intervened at Bardney Abbey to depose the abbot, and put out Ralph de Arundel, abbot of Westminster.

In 1160 a new abbot of Westminster, Laurence, seized the opportunity to renew Edward's claim.

The abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, and relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages.

The land now called Bayswater belonged to the Abbey of Westminster when the Domesday Book was compiled ; the most considerable tenant under the abbot was Bainiardus, probably the same Norman associate of the Conqueror who gave his name to Baynard's Castle.

Milo drew largely upon the Vita Herluini, composed by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster.

The manor of Langham was a property of Westminster Abbey, and he had become a monk in the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Westminster by 1346, and later prior and then abbot of this house.

John Feckenham ( c. 1515 – October, 1584 ), also known as John Howman of Feckingham and later John de Feckenham or John Fecknam, was an English churchman, the last abbot of Westminster.

It was also recorded that the queen offered to let the abbot and his monks stay at Westminster if they conformed to the Church of England.

In 1276 it was recorded that " the church of St. Magnus the Martyr is worth £ 15 yearly and Master Geoffrey de la Wade now holds it by the grant of the prior of Bermundeseie and the abbot of Westminster to whom King Henry conferred the advowson by his charter.

Robert was involved in the conflict not only as a bishop-elect, but as an envoy to Becket from the pope, as he accompanied Philip of Aumone, a French abbot, who was sent by Alexander to Becket in after the Council of Westminster to urge Becket not to inflame the situation.

There is a reference to the king's " rolls " in a writ from 1110, which purports to be a grant from Henry I to the abbot of Westminster of ten shillings, but the writ may be a forgery, or parts of it may be genuine with some interpolations.

Gilbert Crispin ( 1055 ?- 1117 ) was a Christian author and Anglo-Norman monk, appointed by Archbishop Lanfranc in 1085 to be the abbot, proctor and servant of Westminster Abbey, England.

* John Feckenham ( c. 1515 – 1584 ), canonised English ecclesiastic and last abbot of Westminster, was born at Feckenham.