Definition of "cenobium"

There were the cenobia, or monasteries proper, where the life was according to the lines laid down by St Basil; and there were the lauras, wherein a semi-eremitical life was followed, the monks living in separate huts within the enclosure.

1911, E. C. Butler, “Monasticism”, in H[enry] M[elvill] Gwatkin, J[ames] P[ounder] Whitney, editors, The Cambridge Medieval History, volumes I (The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, page 529

Psalmody refers to singing or reciting psalms; in the cenobium this was performed communally seven times a day.

2002, Robert Imperato, “Desert Tradition: Cassian and Benedict”, in Early and Medieval Christian Spirituality, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, page 45

We are part of a community, a cenobium, and we are under the spiritual direction of an abbot and his delegates.

2011, John Michael Talbot, “The Observance of Lent”, in Blessings of St. Benedict, Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, page 79

The cenobium is the proper locus for the acquisition of virtue and in the nineteenth conference he has the Abbot John [Cassian], who had passed thirty years in the cenobium, twenty as an anchorite and then returned to the cenobium, expound the dangers of the desert and the advantages of the cenobium.

2012, Mark Sheridan, “John Cassian and the Formation of Authoritative Tradition”, in From the Nile to the Rhone and Beyond: Studies in Early Monastic Literature and Scriptural Interpretation, Rome: Studia Anselmiana, part II (To the Rhone), page 417