Wow. How completely marvellous.
As to the viking raids: most likely even an order of monks living aesthetic lives would still have had valuable books. The norsemen used to take the books and strip off the valuable metals and even jewels which were often used to cover them. Likewise there may well have been silver items in their chapel.
Also, given their position, it's possible they were hoping to find food stores, and used it as a staging post.
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