The Rule of St Benedict provided a guide for the practice of cenobitic, or communal, monasticism. Yet it recognized that there was another aspiration, the eremitical life, the solitary existence of the hermit. Throughout the history of monasticism these two strands have coexisted, sometimes in tension, at others, as Benedict intended, as complementary sides of the same spiritual ambition. In the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries the appeal of eremiticism, and its associations with the birthplace of monasticism, that is, the deserts of Egypt and Palestine, was a powerful factor in the rise of the new orders. However, the development of monasticism was not just about the spiritual ambitions of the monk; it involved the aspirations of those who required his spiritual services: the founder. In the second half of the eleventh century, for those seeking to establish a new monastic foundation, the obvious choice was still a Benedictine abbey. The first generation of monastic growth in Yorkshire was characterized by the twin impulses of the eremitical aspirations of monks and the desire of lay patrons for full, corporate monastic communities. The fusion of these led to the establishment of three Benedictine abbeys, at Selby, Whitby, and St Mary's, York.

The major source for the foundation by Benedict, monk of Auxerre, of Selby Abbey, the first monastic house to be founded in the north after the Conquest, is the Historia Selebiensis monasterii. This is in some ways a conventional monastic history.