A Christian religious community of professed nuns, and the building that houses it, where members live communally in prayer, work, and service. Such houses exist in Catholic, Orthodox, and some Anglican traditions.
Julie d'Aubigny (La Maupin), a 17th-century French swordswoman, infiltrated a convent as a novice nun to rescue her imprisoned lover. She placed a dead nun's body in her lover's bed, set the room on fire, and escaped—only to be sentenced to death by burning and flee.