How common were monks and nuns in the middle ages?
There were a lot of monks, but not so many nuns. Monks might come from any social background, but nuns were mostly women of the upper classes or the prosperous merchant class. There were always far more monks than nuns. But some nuns achieved positions of importance, like for instance Hilda of Whitby, who was abbess of the large doulbe monastery of Whitby in the 7th century (a mixed monastery of monks and nuns) or Hildegarde of Bingen, who was a famous scholar and musician of the 12th century. The middle ages was not (contrary to what an answer above says) a particularly chaotic age, not more so than any other. Religion was very important in th emedieval era, and monks and nuns performed valuable social functions. They cared for the sick and the old in their infirmaries (the town I live in still has a building that was a monastic hospital), gave alms tot he poor, hospitality to poor travellers, and taught children in their monastic schools. ‘Dark AGes’ does not properly speaking refer
