This rule proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the ordination of some monks. For the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church. Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception. 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 recognised. 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. Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him. Sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well. In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was but loosely defined. The English version for a female monastic head is abbess. Monastic historyīenedictine Archabbot Schober in prelate's dress and cappa magnaĪn abbot (from Old English: abbod, abbad, from Latin: abbas ('father'), from Ancient Greek: ἀββᾶς ( abbas), from Aramaic: אבא/ ܐܒܐ ( 'abbā, 'father') compare German: Abt French: abbé) is the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the East hegumen or archimandrite.

The title of abbot came into fairly general use in western monastic orders whose members include priests. at the court of the Frankish monarchy the Abbas palatinus ('of the palace'') and Abbas castrensis ('of the camp') were chaplains to the Merovingian and Carolingian sovereigns’ court and army respectively. At times it was applied to various priests, e.g. At first it was employed as a respectful title for any monk, but it was soon restricted by canon law to certain priestly superiors. The word is derived from the Aramaic av meaning 'father' or abba, meaning 'my father' (it still has this meaning in contemporary Hebrew: אבא and Aramaic: ܐܒܐ) In the Septuagint, it was written as 'abbas'.

The title had its origin in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, spread through the eastern Mediterranean, and soon became accepted generally in all languages as the designation of the head of a monastery.

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