Visualization of pre-Viking Age Lindisfarne made by Jean-Claude Golvin / Contemporary
Monasteries served many purposes and needs. Pilgrims and other visitors would arrive seeking spiritual guidance, medicine, education, and more. As seen in this image, monasteries could grow to great sizes to meet their community's needs.
Monasteries were also among the biggest local landowners, and by extension, the biggest local employers in a given territory. Because they controlled people's lands and livelihoods, monasteries held immense social power and could help shape the political landscape.
The authority and influence of the monasteries made them helpful meeting sites for other powerful elites. Local aristocracy and even royalty would gather at monastic centres to discuss politics. These nobles would often be joined by their entourage, whose presence offered its own set of challenges to their hosts. Not only did the monasteries have to provide food for all of these guests, a huge undertaking, they also had to take care of their own monks and nuns would not be tempted to sinfulness by the presence of so many worldly visitors.