What did it mean to live in a medieval monastery?

Walking through the remains of a medieval monastery, we are often struck by an unusual sense of immediacy. Cloisters, refectories and dormitories appear to lend themselves readily to imagination, encouraging us to picture the rhythms of communal prayer, labour and silence that once structured monastic life (Hedstrom Reference Hedstrom, Pettegrew, Caraher and Davis2019). This enduring visibility is reflected not only in the archaeological record but also in modern heritage landscapes. Of the approximately 1200 international monuments currently designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, more than five per cent can be broadly classified as monasteries (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/?search=monasteries&components=1&order=country).