Historical development of Consecrated Religious Life in the Catholic Church

The eremitic life was apparently healthy for some, but led to imbalance in others. St Pachomius, a near contemporary of St Antony the Great, recognized that some monks needed the guidance and rhythm of a community (cenobium). He is generally credited with founding, in Egypt, the first community of monks, thus launching cenobitic style monasticism. St Basil in the East in the 300s, and St Benedict in the West in the 500s, authored the most influential "rules" for religious living in their areas of the Christian world ("rule" in this sense refers to a collection of precepts, compiled as guidelines for how to follow the spiritual life). They organized a common life with a daily schedule of prayer, work, spiritual reading and rest. Almost all monasteries in the Eastern Catholic Churches and in the Orthodox Church today follow the Rule of St Basil. The Rule of St Benedict is followed by a variety of orders of monks in the West, including the Benedictines, Cistercians, Trappists, and Camaldolese, and is an important influence in Carthusian life. 

Around the 13th century during the rise of the Medieval towns and cities the Mendicant Orders developed. Whereas the monastic foundations were rural institutions marked by a retreat from secular society, the mendicants were urban foundations organized to engage secular city life and to meet some of its needs such as education and service to the poor. The three primary mendicant orders of the 13th century are the Order of Friars Preachers (the Dominicans), Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans), and the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (the Carmelites). Unlike the monks and nuns of the earlier Orders, the members of the latter Orders called their houses convents, rather than monasteries (in English, Dominican convents for men may also be called 'priories', and Fransciscan convents 'friaries').