Note 91 — Chapter XIX · : The Monastery of St. Aliquis[89]: Buildings. Organization. An Ill-Ruled Abbey.
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By its very nature, a monastery would contain a disproportionately large number of doddering old men, or sick and helpless individuals. "Stagnarii" or "stationarii" they are significantly called. Besides, a monk was supposed to be bled for his health four or five times a year. While recovering from this operation he could stay in the infirmary.
The Church usually rejected candidates for regular priesthood who labored under serious physical disabilities. The monasteries had to be less arbitrary. Thus they probably obtained more than their share of blind, semi-invalids, purblind, halt, deaf, etc. In 1161, at an abbey near Boulogne, there are said to have been so many lame, one-eyed, or one-armed monks that the abbot refused to admit any more defectives for thirty years. This was probably an extreme case.
For similar reasons many women, unmarriageable through physical defects, seem to have been placed in nunneries.