During the Middle Ages, Corrodians were in essence pensioners who lived in monasteries or nunneries.
They were usually well-to-do elderly lay people who paid or were sponsored for accommodation[1] and food for the rest of their lives.
[citation needed] This was a way for abbeys to gain income,[4] especially in their later days in England, when their numbers were in decline so they had space to accommodate pensioners, and less money coming in as dowers from new entrants to the orders.
[5][6] In 1468, for example, Marham Abbey in Norfolk, a house of Cistercian nuns, had three corrodians.
[7] In the third part of Sigrid Undset's trilogy novel Kristin Lavransdatter, the main character, Kristin, in her final years enters the monastic life as a corrodian at the convent of Rein Abbey, Norway.