  We extend the basic concepts of Street's formal theory of monads from the
setting of 2-categories to that of double categories. In particular, we
introduce the double category Mnd(C) of monads in a double category C and
define what it means for a double category to admit the construction of free
monads. Our main theorem shows that, under some mild conditions, a double
category that is a framed bicategory admits the construction of free monads if
its horizontal 2-category does. We apply this result to obtain double
adjunctions which extend the adjunction between graphs and categories and the
adjunction between polynomial endofunctors and polynomial monads.
