<P> Women's communities were normally much smaller and poorer . The nuns had to do everything themselves, unless they had a couple of tenant - farmers to supply food, or pious who made donations . They spun and wove, kept their huts clean, milked their cows, and made their own meals, which could be meager . </P> <P> Around 397, Ninian, a Briton probably from the area south of the Firth of Clyde, dedicated his church at Whithorn to St. Martin of Tours . According to Bede, Ninian evangelized the southern Picts . </P> <P> Kentigern was an apostle of the British Kingdom of Strathclyde in the late 6th century, and the founder and patron saint of the city of Glasgow . Due to anti-Christian sentiment he re-located for a time to Wales, where he established a monastery at St. Asaph's . Here he divided the monks into three groups . The unlettered were assigned to the duty of agriculture, the care of cattle, and the other necessary duties outside the monastery . He assigned 300 to duties within the cloister of the monastery, such as doing the ordinary work, and preparing food, and building workshops . The remaining monks, who were lettered, he appointed to the celebration of Divine service in church by day and by night . </P> <P> Cadoc founded Llancarfan in the latter part of the fifth century . He received the religious habit from an Irish monk, St. Tathai, superior of a small community near Chepstow, in Monmouthshire . Returning to his native county, Cadoc built a church, and monastery, which was called Llancarfan, or the "Church of the Stags". There he also established a college and a hospital . His legend recounts that he daily fed a hundred clergy and a hundred soldiers, a hundred workmen, a hundred poor men, and the same number of widows . When thousands left the world and became monks, they very often did so as clansmen, dutifully following the example of their chief . Bishoprics, canonries, and parochial benefices passed from one to another member of the same family, and frequently from father to son . Their tribal character is a feature which Irish and Welsh monasteries had in common . </P>

One main way monasteries contributed to the spread of christianity in europe was by —