the religious life of contemplation, said a medieval homilist, is ‘of the few, that is, of monks, hermits, recluses, and some clerics and laymen whose mind is so fixed on the Lord that it wants nothing else in the world. They are on the earth only in body; in thought and desire they are already in heaven.’ Although their numbers were small in relation to the population as a whole, more people – probably in absolute as well as in relative terms – were attracted to the life of religion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries than at any other time in the history of Europe, and most of them lived in some sort of community. Monks and nuns lived in monasteries; groups of clerics adopted a common life and were called regular (as distinct from secular) canons, because they followed a rule (regula); hermits often lived in small groups; and recluses or anchorites, who were walled into their dwellings, were inevitably dependent on a religious house, parish church or lay community. Lay men and women also lived a life dedicated to God either in groups or in their own homes.

It is impossible to give exact figures for the number of religious men and women in medieval Europe, especially in view of the overall increase in population, but some regional estimates have been made. The number of monks, nuns and canons in England grew from fewer than 1000 to over 10,000 between the Norman Conquest and the thirteenth century, and the number of anchorites to about 300, of whom at least half were women.