And for another, the Carolingians founded and enriched monasteries and other Christian holy sites. Large amounts of movable wealth were placed in the hands of monks: physically the weakest men in society. Moreover, many monasteries—such as the Saint-Philibert at Noirmoutier, nestled on a spit of land at the mouth of the Loire—were on the coast or beside rivers, or in locations far from secular society, where the brothers were deliberately isolated from social violence—or so they thought.
