Monasticism, from the greek words mònos (one) and oikìa (home), is a religious phenomenon characterised by the voluntary decision to abandon every single kind of social interaction to devote entirely to the contemplative life as a persistent search of God and a corporal mortification. One of the key elements of the monastic life was the lecture and the memorisation of many traits of the Holy Scriptures.
Monasticism was born in the III century CE in Egypt thanks to Anthony the Great (about 250 in the Thebaid Desert- 356 CE), the first one to ever dedicate himself to the monastic life in the desert, giving birth to eremitism, which consists in complete solitude, ongoing prayer, permanent or temporary confinement, searching of a bond between the man and God, poorness, not taking care of themselves, hunger strike and having a long beard.
Shortly after, Pachomius (292-348 CE) gave birth to cenobitism and, by gathering a small community of monks in Egypt, he founded the first cenoby on the banks of the river Nile. He also prescribed, in addition to the contemplative life and the prayer, the use of manual work as a form of self-sustaining.
From Egypt, the monasticism reached the territories of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, northern Minor Asia and Europe.
In Minor Asia, in about 350, Basil from Caesarea (330-379 CE) founded many cenobites and created only for Christians- not for everyone- a sample of habits that would later be relatively or completely adopted by other superior authority from other monasteries. Basil didn’t write a monastic Rule so now monks in the East follow the ones of the monastery to which they belong; as a matter of fact, oriental monks have never been arranged in monastic orders as occidental ones.
Instead, in Europe, Benedict from Nursia (480-547 CE) wrote a monastic Rule, by taking inspiration from Basil, to which monks would refer when organised into specific monastic orders.
Firstly in the monastery of Sakkudion in Bitinia and then in the one of Studion in Constantinople, Theodore the Studite (759-826 CE) reformed monasticism on the basis of discipline, study and manual work and decided to introduce in the community a scriptorium and a library to promote the copying of manuscripts and their studies.
An intermediate form of monasticism, between the eremitism and the cenobitism, is lavrism that comes from the word lavra (laura), generally a valley in which are located many caverns where the monks lived as hermits, except for some moments of the day when they gathered to pray and eat together.
The written and archeological sources attest the presence of these places of meditation and prayer in mountainous and solitary areas.