History Main / LockedAwayInAMonastery

->'''Father Ted Crilly''': That would be quite common you know. The favourite son would become a doctor and then the idiot brother would be sent off to the priesthood.\\
'''Father Dougal Maguire''': Your brother's a doctor, isn't he?\\
'''Father Ted''': Yes, he is.

* ''[[Literature/TalesOfTheKettyJay Retribution Falls]]''. Captain Frey once seduced the daughter of a powerful businessman, who packed her off to a religious hermitage. When he infiltrates the hermitage to get her help (because her father has framed Frey for an assassination) her initial response it to try and kick Frey's head in, because her last letter had the coordinates of the hermitage and she's been waiting two years for him to rescue her. Frey pretends he never received the letter and that he's spent the past two years searching for her.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', The Night's Watch is frequently used for this purpose. While it's a military order, its [[ReassignedToAntarctica location on the edge of civilization in the frozen North]] and the vows of chastity and non-inheritance its brothers take mean that anyone sent there is rendered fairly harmless. Two examples stand out:

* ''[[Literature/TalesOfTheKettyJay Retribution Falls]]''. Captain Frey once seduced the daughter of a powerful businessman, who packed her off to a religious hermitage. When he infiltrates the hermitage to get her help (because her father has framed Frey for an assassination) her initial response it to try and kick Frey's head in, because her last letter had the coordinates of the hermitage and she's been waiting two years for him to rescue her. Frey pretends he never received the letter and he's spent the past two years searching for her.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* A xianxia variant in ''Fanfic/AnotherTimeAnotherPlaceAnotherStory'' -- any scion from a wealthy family needs to renounce their rights to the family business if they want to cultivate immortality in earnest. It mainly happens with the younger kids, so the Shen family isn't really bothered when their third son picks this path.

[[folder:Film]]

%%* This happens to Amena, Count D'Elmont's first "love" in ''Literature/LoveInExcess''.

* ''Literature/TheElenium'':
** This was the punishment of Arissa, the ''very'' wanton sister of the previous king. She was sent to a convent because she couldn't be executed, and made life miserable for everyone there. This ended up backfiring on the main characters. The convent was lightly defended and the nuns were massacred when Arissa's accomplices sprung her.
** A minor character (a Pelosian noble) ships his son off to a monastery (with the threat of [[TakingTheVeil forcing him to take vows and turning the inheritance over to a cousin]]) after the son tries bullying a party of Church Knights. He also announces that he'll be sending his wife to a convent, since it was her spoiling of her only child that produced a son who would try to bully Church Knights.

* Angelina Dorma is sent to a nunnery in the end of ''Literature/TheShadowOfTheLion''.
* Eventually happens to Maria Clara on ''Literature/NoliMeTangere''.

* This is common as both a threat and an actual practice in the ''Literature/{{Videssos}}'' books. Not surprising as the Empire of Videssos is the Byzantine Empire with magic. People who just need to be out of the public eye can get exiled to a monastery in the capital, but the people who need to be ReassignedToAntarctica get sent to a monastery in Prista, on the border with the Pardrayan steppes.

* The Jedi Sentinels from ''Franchise/StarWars'' originally served as the Jedi Orders' dedicated black ops specialists that were tasked with tracking down hidden Sith and elements of Dark Side corruption within the Galaxy and neutralizing them by any means necessary, oftentimes spending years if not decades away from the Jedi Temple on missions deep undercover on various worlds posing as regular {{Muggles}} within security and local law enforcement branches, [[MugglesDoItBetter and picking up various skills that many Jedi often overlooked or frowned upon.]] After the Ruusan Reformation with the collapse of the Sith Order and the beginning of Darth Bane's RuleOfTwo, many Jedi had thought that the Sith were gone for good, and resolved to cut back on the Sentinels' practices; turning them into glorified Honor Guards tasked with protecting the Jedi Temple. This decision ultimately served to bite the Jedi Order in the ass millennia later with the outbreak of The Clone Wars, where the Orders' other two [[ThePaladin Jedi Guardian]] and [[TheArchmage Jedi Consular]] branches were called into fighting and losing countless members of their order, while the only group of Jedi specially-designed to hunt down the Sith Lords that were orchestrating the Clone Wars from the shadows; were left to protect the Temple grounds on Coruscant no matter what.
* This is how [[spoiler: Fernanda Buendia del Carpio]] deals with [[spoiler: her daughter Meme]] in ''Literature/OneHundredYearsOfSolitude'', after [[spoiler: she has Meme's secret boyfriend Mauricio gunned down when he was sneaking into their home.]]
* Variation in Creator/SidneySheldon's ''Literature/TheOtherSideOfMidnight'', in that it's the result of a coincidence: [[spoiler: Catherine, fleeing her would-be murderers, is rescued by nuns but is now amnesiac]]. It turns out that this particular order of nuns is supported by [[spoiler: Constantin, who knows her but lets her be -- so the world will think she ''was'' murdered and he can get revenge on the would-be culprits for his own reasons]].
* Happens more than once in the [[Literature/{{Deryni}} Deryni]] series by Katherine Kurtz:
** The [[RegentForLife corrupt regents]] in the "Heirs of Saint Camber" trilogy do their best to push Javan Haldane into taking vows so they can name his younger and more malleable brother Rhys Michael as heir to the throne of Gwynedd. It doesn't work, [[spoiler:so they murder Javan a year into his reign, and Rhys Michael ends up on the throne anyway]].
** Edmund Loris, a [[FantasticRacism violently anti-Deryni]] archbishop of Kelson Haldane's time, is exiled to a remote monastery by the Gwynedd Curia (the council of bishops who runs the Church in Gwynedd) after the events of ''High Deryni''. It's considered a merciful alternative to executing him. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, he escapes, and becomes a leader of the Mearan rebellion against Kelson Haldane]].
** Princess Caitrin of Meara is permitted to retire to a nunnery for the rest of her life after [[spoiler:her rebellion against Kelson is defeated in ''The King's Justice'']].
** In an interesting twist, Kelson's mother Jehana does this to ''herself'' twice. First, she goes into seclusion after she discovers that her husband King Brion wields Deryni powers, and intends to pass them on to their newborn son Kelson. Later, she returns to the nunnery in a desperate attempt to make peace with herself and God after she discovers [[spoiler:she herself has Deryni blood]].
* Brother Aiden in ''Literature/TheMonkAndTheViking'' was sent to a monastery as a toddler because he was illegitimate.
* In ''Literature/TheGoblinEmperor'', this was Maia's intended fate if the attempted coup to place his teenage nephew on the throne had been successful.
* ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'': In ''Brightly Burning'', when Lavan Chitward's Gift of Firestarting first manifests, it results in the (unintended) deaths of several of the bullies who had been tormenting him including the leader, a boy named Tyron Jelnack. Tyron's mother Jisette Jelnack goes insane with rage and grief; after she tries twice to get revenge against Lavan (who is now a Herald-Trainee and therefore sacrosanct), she is sentenced to life in a cloistered monastery, where she will live out her days in a cell with a sealed door and one small window.
* ''Literature/TheMoonAndTheSun'' has the less permanent kind. After Marie-Josèphe's parents died, her older brother sent her to live for five years in a convent, where she was miserable. She was forbidden from listening to or composing music or learning about the natural world, and was punished harshly for asking the wrong questions.
* ''Literature/TheMermaidsDaughter'': Kathleen's great-grandmother, Caolinn, was a lesbian in TheForties. She and her lover, Marie, couldn't be open about their relationship. After Caolinn was [[ChildByRape raped and impregnated]], they agreed that they would live together as spinsters and raise her child together. But Marie's father forced her into a convent. They never saw each other again, and after Caolinn's daughter was born, she committed suicide. Seventeen years later, Kathleen and her girlfriend Harry meet the elderly nun Marie by chance at a pub, where Marie recognizes Kathleen's resemblance to Caolinn.

* The ''Series/{{Cadfael}}'' series uses this at least once or twice. In one episode, "The Devil's Novice," the main suspect in a murder is sent to live in Brother Cadfael's monastery, because the clergy are not subject to secular law.
* In ''Series/TheNanny'' episode, "The Kibbutz", Maxwell considers sending Maggie to a Swiss convent over the winter break to stop her from spending the entire break making out with her boyfriend.

* ''Series/{{Attila}}'': After Honoria conspires to usurp her brother Valentinian as ruler of Rome, he sends her away to a puritanical Christian convent in the Eastern Roman Empire. She tries to get out of there by promising Attila half the Roman Empire as dowry if he marries her, which is just the [[PretextForWar pretext]] that he had been waiting for.
* A variant in ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'': In "The Archbishop", [[SecretHistory King Richard IV]] [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial totally doesn't have the Archbishop of Canterbury assassinated]] and then appoints Prince Edmund (second in line to the throne and TheUnfavorite) to replace him, the idea being to ensure that the Church does what Richard wants as well as getting Edmund out of court. [[spoiler:Edmund manages to get himself expelled from the priesthood and excommunicated by the end of the episode.]]
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': A variation where a kidnap victim is handcuffed to a wall in an abandoned monastery. Unfortunately, he gets desperate and gnaws off his hand in an attempt to escape, but dies of blood loss before making it out.

* The nuns at Kiersau Abbey in Videogame/{{Pentiment}} spend much of their lives cloistered in the convent, with most of them forbidden from speaking with men. Some of them, such as Sister Susanne, have been placed there unwillingly due to their families' connections with the Church.

* A xianxia variant in ''Fanfic/AnotherTimeAnotherPlaceAnotherStory'' -- any scion from a wealthy family needs to renunce their rights to the family business if they want to cultivate immortality in earnest. It mainly happens with the younger kids, so the Shen family isn't really bothered when their third son picks this path.

[[folder: Fan Works]]

* Variation in Creator/SidneySheldon's ''The Other Side of Midnight'', in that it's the result of a coincidence: [[spoiler: Catherine, fleeing her would-be murderers, is rescued by nuns but is now amnesiac]]. It turns out that this particular order of nuns is supported by [[spoiler: Constantin, who knows her but lets her be -- so the world will think she ''was'' murdered and he can get revenge on the would-be culprits for his own reasons]].

* This happens to Amena, Count D'Elmont's first "love" in ''Love in Excess''.

* A now-debunked UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheory claimed that Russian President UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin did this to his former wife Lyudmila while they were estranged, used to explain the lack of attention directed at her by the Russian media (seeing as it's rare for ''any'' Russian First Ladies to appear in public, this was likely just a rumor started by one of his detractors).