This chapter talks about the impact of the powerful, kings and aristocrats, on the inner world of the cloister. Monastic life was lived in close contact with the world outside, and responded to its needs. This constant proximity necessitated a repeated redrawing of boundaries and renewal of distance, which is usually called 'monastic reform'. The tension between separation and integration is a recurrent theme in the writings of Carolingian monastic authors, precisely because their communities were so much at the centre of social and political life. The architectural solution to this problem was the claustrum, an inner enclosure within the monastery which should keep the outside at bay. The first section of the chapter deals with the demands of society on monks and nuns, and with the political function of monasteria. The second section treats the way in which these demands shaped the vita communis, the persisent ideal of a communal life within the cloister.