Monasticism (from the Greek word monachos meaning 'alone') is a way of life where a person lives outside of society, under religious vows that may restrict where they live, how they may travel, what relationships they may form and what, if any, property they may own. Vows may additionally describe the services or duties they are to perform, such as charitable duties to the poor.

Christian monasticism developed as a spontaneous religious movement, with individuals and groups withdrawing from society throughout the centuries. By the early 5th century, thousands of Christians had chosen to live outside of society. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 officially recognized the Christian monastic way of life, placing all monastic communities and hermits under the authority and supervision of bishops. This move restricted the freedom of movement for monastic individuals.

Egypt was the motherland of Christian monasticism; it came into existence there in the middle of the third century. Paul of Thebes is recognised as the first lone hermit who claimed to have lived alone in the desert for 97 years. The first monk is seen as being St. Anthony. In the year 285, he went into the wilderness, being no longer content with the life of the ascetic. His reputation for holiness attracted a growing circle of followers and in 305 he organised a monastic life for them. He is considered the first of the Desert Fathers. Melania the Elder is seen as one of the first Desert Mothers in the 370s.

Choosing to live in poverty voluntarily, by giving up all worldly possessions, was a challenging concept until the establishment of monasteries. Early Christian figures such as Origen, Cyprian, and Pamphilus had to show, through their own lives, that a monastic lifestyle - living in a religious community separate from society - was feasible. The full practice of obeying the third Evangelical counsel concerning obedience to religious authority only became possible after the idea of monastic life had grown and evolved beyond being just about living alone as a hermit.

In ante-Nicene ascetics a man who wished to lead a spiritual life could lead a single life, practice long and frequent fasts, abstain from meat and wine, and support himself, if he were able, by some small handicraft, keeping only enough money as was absolutely necessary for his own sustenance, and giving the rest to the poor. If he were an educated man, he might be employed by the Church in the capacity of catechist. Very often he would don the kind of dress which marked the wearer as a philosopher of an austere school.

In Egypt, at the time when St. Anthony first embraced the ascetic life, there were a number of ascetics living in huts near towns and villages. When St. Anthony died (356 or 357), two types of monasticism flourished in Egypt. There were villages or colonies of hermits - the eremitical type; and monasteries in which a community life was led - the cenobitic type.

The Greek word μοναχός (monachós), which is now typically used to refer to a monk, was first used to mean 'monk' in a papyrus discovered around the 1970s. It contains a legal petition from June 324 AD filed by Aurelius Isidorus, a man from the town of Karanis in Egypt. This indicates that monasticism was already well established in Egypt during the early 4th century.

The monasticism established under St Anthony's direct influence became the norm in Northern Egypt. In contrast to the fully coenobitical system, established by Pachomius in the South, it continued to be of a semi-eremitical character, the monks living commonly in separate cells or huts, and coming together only occasionally for church services; and the life they lived was not a community life according to rule. This was the form of monastic life in the deserts of Nitria and Scete, as portrayed by Palladius and Cassian. Such groups of semi-independent hermitages were later on called Lauras, or Lavras.