What do we call a community of monks living together?

It’s the term for a monastic house where monks live, pray, and work together under a rule—often the Rule of St. Benedict (“ora et labora,” pray and work)—and leadership of an abbot. By contrast, a convent typically houses nuns, a friary is for mendicant friars like Franciscans or Dominicans who engage more directly with towns, and a hermitage is for a solitary hermit. In the Middle Ages, such communities were engines of learning and stability: monks preserved classical texts in scriptoria, advanced agriculture with managed estates and watermills, brewed beer, offered charity and hospitality, and often anchored nearby settlements. Their libraries and schools helped transmit knowledge through turbulent centuries.