What did Medieval nuns do?

Sit around praying? Not hardly.

One unnamed nun was almost certainly a scribe...they found flecks of a pigment from (very expensive) paint on her teeth, no doubt from the habit even some modern artists engage in of licking her paintbrush. She was at a tiny convent and may have indicated that even this small nunnery (15 to 20) had the resources to produce its own books.

A lot of people still believe that most illuminated manuscripts were made by men.

However, entering a convent was literally the only way a woman could get a decent education. Wealthy women were often literate so they could make notes and keep records for their household, but...

The first woman in the west to earn a university degree was Juliana Morell, a Spanish Dominican nun. She was a prodigy and a genius who, no doubt, would be a household name if she was a man. She received her law doctorate at the age of 14, and then became a nun...because there was nothing else she could do with it. She spent the rest of her life being a prioress, writing poetry in multiple languages, and working as a translator. Think what we lost there because women were seen as inferior.

In fact, many nuns were authors, although their work was primarily religious, and composers. Medieval monasteries and nunneries hired lay people to do the lowest labor to free them for more interesting work. Nuns would also embroider robes and textiles, and appear to have made robes for local priests. This was in addition to charitable work.

Like making illustrated manuscripts. It makes far more sense that a nunnery would create its own copies of texts, especially those written within its walls, than outsource this task to men. Yet, somehow, people are surprised...