So this question might be a little morbid, but it seems like nunneries would be easy /attractive targets for thieves, roaming hordes and rapists. A place filled with women, no men around, a lot of them old/frail. How were these places and the nuns themselves protected throughout more brutal time periods?
Was it simply isolation and dressing as nonsexual as possible? Seems like it had to be more.
EDIT: Thanks for all the comments. Convent was the word I was looking for, I just kept thinking of the “get thee to a nunnery” line in Hamlet. Everything I know about life in a convent is pretty much from Sound of Music and a handful of shows.
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Religious orders historically have had self defense and defensive architecture in mind. Helps that a nunnery would probably have alliances with locals and like militant religious orders depending on what time period and location. You’d be in for a world of hurt if you wanted to go against something backed by the knights templar or HRE
There was a strict social order, and also a strong and genuine belief in the Christian religion that was adhered to and enforced.
Nuns were/are the brides of Christ, lay a finger on one and you would believe that you were damned to hell for all time.
For the vast majority of recorded history, organized religion-more specifically, Christianity-has been a more powerful element in society than anything else, up to and including actual monarchs. Attacking a monastery or a convent would basically be signing your own death warrant.
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Even in the most brutal time periods, most people are peaceful most of the time. Roaming hordes were not really a thing that existed.
Nunneries protected themselves with walls, gates, and support from their religious community. They relied on prayer and isolation in remote areas for safety and followed strict rules to maintain order. Sometimes, they also had help from local allies.
Nunneries were not isolated. They were set up in or near villages, usually in connection with a local church. The nunnery often acted as a hospital or otherwise took on important long term community tasks. So they were located in the community and worked closely with the other community members. They therefore had the protection of the community around them.
They weren’t. Nunneries were attacked and burned all the damn time. They still are. If you google “nunnery attacked” you’ll get a wide selection of modern and historical events.
During the medieval period Christian nunneries and monasteries were largely populated by members of wealthy merchant families or noble families. That meant that many orders had the wealth to develop economic relationships with their local communities and to hire people to protect them if they faced a period of unrest.
While the church didn’t exactly charge an “admission fee” to join a holy order it was expected that families would contribute to the upkeep of the order. Even the Franciscan order, which was established in 1209 with a vow of poverty partly in reaction to the wealthier orders of the time, was initially founded with the wealth of Francis and a few other wealthy early members. (Amusing note: the Franciscans wore brown robes as an open commentary on the black robes of some other monastic orders – black is an expensive color to dye, so it was a sign of wealth and power to wear black, and a sign of poverty to wear brown homespun).
With the level of personal wealth and secularism in the West now it’s hard to picture the amount of power held by the church in medieval Europe. Unless someone was backed by a huge local political force or was just psychotic it really made little sense to piss off the church.
Religion at the time for most of the countries was basically compulsory, so all of the potential attackers would risk eternal damnation and hunting down the perpetrators would be highly motivated.
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