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On April 14, 1536, English King Henry VIII expropriated minor monasteries under £200. From the article:
"Dissolution of the Monasteries
by Ben Johnson
The Reformation in Tudor England was a time of unprecedented change. One of the major outcomes of the Reformation was the destruction of the monasteries which began in 1536.
The Reformation came about when Henry VIII wished to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who had failed to give him a male heir. When the Pope refused to grant the divorce, Henry set up the Church of England. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 confirmed the break from Rome, declaring Henry to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
The monasteries were a reminder of the power of the Catholic Church. It was also true that the monasteries were the wealthiest institutions in the country, and Henry’s lifestyle, along with his wars, had led to a lack of money. Monasteries owned over a quarter of all the cultivated land in England. By destroying the monastic system Henry could acquire all its wealth and property whilst removing its Papist influence.
The idea was not new. Thomas Cromwell had already helped Cardinal Wolsey dissolve monasteries in the past. First of all, a dossier was presented to Parliament outlining the corrupt morals of the clergy. Henry’s chief minister Cromwell then introduced the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ to find out just how much property was owned by the Church. He sent out royal commissioners to all the monasteries in England, Wales and Ireland.
This led to the Act of Suppression in 1536 whereby small monasteries with an income of less than £200 a year were closed and their buildings, land and money taken by the Crown. The Second Suppression Act of 1539 allowed the dissolution of the larger monasteries and religious houses.
Monastic land and buildings were confiscated and sold off to families who sympathised with Henry’s break from Rome. By 1540 monasteries were being dismantled at a rate of fifty a month.
After the disposal of their monastic lands and buildings, the majority of monks, friars and nuns were given money or pensions. However, there were some abbots and religious house leaders who refused to comply. They were executed and their monasteries destroyed. Thousands of monastic servants suddenly found themselves without employment.
Many people, particularly in the North of England, were against the Dissolution. Here the old Catholic faith remained especially strong. In October 1536 a large rebel army of over 30,000 people marched to York and demanded that the monasteries should be reopened. This march became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The rebels were promised a pardon and a Parliament in York to discuss their demands, and they disbanded. However they had been tricked; Henry gave orders that the leaders of the rebellion should be arrested and around 200 people were executed.
So what were the immediate effects of the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Firstly, vast amounts of monastic land, gold and silver plate were transferred to the Crown. It is said that the King’s own treasury profited by about one and a half million pounds. However a great deal of the wealth Henry acquired through the Dissolution was spent on his wars with France and Scotland. The gentry and rich merchants who bought the land also prospered.
One of the saddest legacies of the Dissolution was the loss and destruction of monastic libraries and their precious illuminated manuscripts.
The nursery rhyme ‘Little Jack Horner’ is believed to be connected with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The story goes that Thomas Horner was steward to Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury. Prior to the abbey’s destruction, the abbot is said to have sent Horner to London with a huge Christmas pie which had the deeds to a dozen manors hidden within it. Apparently during the journey Horner opened the pie and stole the deeds of the manor of Mells in Somerset. The manor properties included lead mines, and it is suggested that the plum in the rhyme is a pun on the Latin plumbum, for lead. Records confirm that a Thomas Horner did indeed become the owner of the manor, however this does not confirm the legend.
'Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said ‘What a good boy am I!'"
"Dissolution of the Monasteries
by Ben Johnson
The Reformation in Tudor England was a time of unprecedented change. One of the major outcomes of the Reformation was the destruction of the monasteries which began in 1536.
The Reformation came about when Henry VIII wished to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who had failed to give him a male heir. When the Pope refused to grant the divorce, Henry set up the Church of England. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 confirmed the break from Rome, declaring Henry to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
The monasteries were a reminder of the power of the Catholic Church. It was also true that the monasteries were the wealthiest institutions in the country, and Henry’s lifestyle, along with his wars, had led to a lack of money. Monasteries owned over a quarter of all the cultivated land in England. By destroying the monastic system Henry could acquire all its wealth and property whilst removing its Papist influence.
The idea was not new. Thomas Cromwell had already helped Cardinal Wolsey dissolve monasteries in the past. First of all, a dossier was presented to Parliament outlining the corrupt morals of the clergy. Henry’s chief minister Cromwell then introduced the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ to find out just how much property was owned by the Church. He sent out royal commissioners to all the monasteries in England, Wales and Ireland.
This led to the Act of Suppression in 1536 whereby small monasteries with an income of less than £200 a year were closed and their buildings, land and money taken by the Crown. The Second Suppression Act of 1539 allowed the dissolution of the larger monasteries and religious houses.
Monastic land and buildings were confiscated and sold off to families who sympathised with Henry’s break from Rome. By 1540 monasteries were being dismantled at a rate of fifty a month.
After the disposal of their monastic lands and buildings, the majority of monks, friars and nuns were given money or pensions. However, there were some abbots and religious house leaders who refused to comply. They were executed and their monasteries destroyed. Thousands of monastic servants suddenly found themselves without employment.
Many people, particularly in the North of England, were against the Dissolution. Here the old Catholic faith remained especially strong. In October 1536 a large rebel army of over 30,000 people marched to York and demanded that the monasteries should be reopened. This march became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The rebels were promised a pardon and a Parliament in York to discuss their demands, and they disbanded. However they had been tricked; Henry gave orders that the leaders of the rebellion should be arrested and around 200 people were executed.
So what were the immediate effects of the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Firstly, vast amounts of monastic land, gold and silver plate were transferred to the Crown. It is said that the King’s own treasury profited by about one and a half million pounds. However a great deal of the wealth Henry acquired through the Dissolution was spent on his wars with France and Scotland. The gentry and rich merchants who bought the land also prospered.
One of the saddest legacies of the Dissolution was the loss and destruction of monastic libraries and their precious illuminated manuscripts.
The nursery rhyme ‘Little Jack Horner’ is believed to be connected with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The story goes that Thomas Horner was steward to Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury. Prior to the abbey’s destruction, the abbot is said to have sent Horner to London with a huge Christmas pie which had the deeds to a dozen manors hidden within it. Apparently during the journey Horner opened the pie and stole the deeds of the manor of Mells in Somerset. The manor properties included lead mines, and it is suggested that the plum in the rhyme is a pun on the Latin plumbum, for lead. Records confirm that a Thomas Horner did indeed become the owner of the manor, however this does not confirm the legend.
'Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said ‘What a good boy am I!'"
Dissolution of the Monasteries
Posted from historic-uk.com
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The Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries is perhaps the most famous symbol of Henry VIII's Break from Rome and is seen as one of the birth pangs of the Anglican Ch...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on April 14, 1536, English King Henry VIII expropriated minor monasteries that earned less than £200 annually.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries
"The Dissolution of the Monasteries is perhaps the most famous symbol of Henry VIII's Break from Rome and is seen as one of the birth pangs of the Anglican Church. In this video I will look in depth at the dissolution.
Music Used:
Suonatore di Liuto - Kevin MacLeod
Willow and the Light - Kevin MacLeod
To the Ends - Kevin MacLeod
Magic Forest - Kevin MacLeod"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDghw4FjqIw
Images:
1. The ruined abbey at Battle – a victim of the Reformation
2. Malmesbury Abbey, one of the last monasteries to be suppressed in 1539
3. The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, one of the largest English Benedictine Monasteries, suppressed in 1539.
Background from {[https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/dissolution-of-monasteries/]}
Dissolution of Monasteries
Key Facts & Summary
• The dissolution of monasteries happened after King Henry VIII’s break with the Church of Rome.
• Henry VIII believed he could maximise the country’s wealth by confiscating the Church’s assets.
• During the dissolution of monasteries, many precious books were destroyed, and the number of poor people (who had previously been helped by the church) augmented.
Overview
The dissolution of the monasteries is an episode of the reign of Henry VIII of England which began in 1534, when the king undertook threats of confiscating the property of the religious orders in England, Wales and Ireland. Rather than finding its basis in political and economic reasons, the dissolution is the consequence of the king’s conflict with the Roman Catholic Pope Clement VII. In fact, the pope had refused to annul the king’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon so that he can marry Anne Boleyn. This dissolution materialised thanks to the introduction of two major laws. The first law of dissolution of the monasteries of 1534 seized any ecclesiastical domain and declared “Property of the State” all the monasteries and churches that earned less than 200 pounds annually; the second law of 1538 concerned those whose annual income exceeded 200 pounds.
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Crown was confronted with a population (including theologians and clergy) divided over the issue of reform. Since John Wyclif, some were in favour of reformist ideas both on the doctrinal level (return to the bible) and on a political level (national independence).
Just as any other foreign bishop, the Pope and Rome had no more authority or jurisdiction on the kingdom of England.
Thomas Cranmer supported the independence of the Church of England; however, many intellectuals, such as Chancellor Thomas More or Reginald Pole, rejected the schism. On the other hand, individuals such as Hugh Latimer called for a much more radical Protestant reform than the one proposed by the king.
Between 1524 and 1527, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had already embarked on a reform project, closing thirty monasteries, notably in Ipswich, his hometown, and Oxford, where he had studied. The profits from the operation were used to build public educational institutions. After closing the priory of Saint Frideswide, Wolsey founded Cardinal College, which was to become the college of Christ Church (Oxford).
In November 1529, under the reign of Henry VIII, the reform laws against the Church were approved, thus putting an end to the control of wills and funeral expenses for burials in consecrated ground, and more rigidly regulating the right to asylum for criminals and murderers. The number of ecclesiastical offices held by a single individual was also limited to four. It was basically more about establishing the king’s jurisdiction in a “Catholic state” rather than about undertaking a sort of “reform” (which came later).
In spite of everything, there was strong resistance from the faithful and from the ecclesiastics loyal to the Catholic Church. The opposition to Henry VIII was exemplified in the controversial figure of Reginald Pole. Initially, Henry VIII offered Pole the archbishopric of York or the diocese of Winchester on condition that he supported his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Pole withdrew his support and voluntarily went into exile in 1532 in France and Italy, continuing his studies in Padua and Paris. In 1536, against his will, he was appointed cardinal by Pope Paul III and attended the Council of Trent. After the Pope’s death in 1549, Pole almost elected pope.
It has been hypothesised that the confiscation of the lands and ecclesiastical properties were some of the main incentives that encouraged Henry VIII’s detachment from the Church of Rome. However, this cannot be directly proved, since before proceeding with the schism and divorce, Henry VIII insisted for five years in asking the Pope for the annulment of the marriage. Rather, once he obtained control over the English church, he was no longer able to resist the temptation to use ecclesiastical assets to clear the country’s debts, considering that the church had three times more revenue than the state. Also, the king was not lacking political motives: as soon as he broke with the Church of Rome, the dissolution of monasteries can be seen as a way to eliminate organisations that were the main source of opposition to Henry VIII’s policy. Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531. In April 1533 the law on the Restriction of Appeals abrogated the right of clerics to appeal to “foreign tribunals”, that is to Rome, and the king became absolute leader in every matter: spiritual and financial.
In 1534 the king, with the parliament’s authorisation, ordered Thomas Cromwell, a layman at the service of the crown from 1530, to visit all the monasteries (a term that includes abbeys and convents) in order to make the religious aware of the new imposed by the king who had substituted the role of the pope in England.
Moreover, the populace was fed with falsehoods, such:
1. monks and nuns of the monasteries were hypocrites and sorcerers, who lived in luxury committing all sorts of sins.
2. These same monks and nuns exploited the work of the people without giving anything in return and therefore they damaged to the economy of England.
3. If the king had possessed the assets of the monasteries, taxes for the people could have been abolished.
Meanwhile, during the second half of 1535, the visiting commissioners sent Cromwell reports on scandals, of a sexual and financial nature, which they falsely claimed to discover. The parliament issued a law in 1536, based largely on these debatable reports to assign to the king all monasteries with annual revenues of less than £ 200: the smaller monasteries were therefore emptied and confiscated. The monastic life, whose reputation for corruption had been falsely amplified, was in decline due to lack of income: in 1536 the thirteen Cistercian houses of Wales numbered 85 monks in all.
The movement obviously did not produce as much money as was expected, even after the sovereign rehabilitated some of the monasteries, and then confiscated them again. In April 1539 a new parliament issued a law that gave the king the remaining English monasteries. Some abbots opposed, and in the autumn the abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury and Reading were sentenced to death for treason.
The other abbots preferred to donate their abbeys to the king. Some of the ecclesiastical buildings were demolished to obtain material for secular buildings. Some of the minor Benedictine houses were assigned to parish churches, or even purchased by wealthy parishes. The tradition according to which the buildings were vandalised by iconoclasts, with the destruction of altars and stained glass windows, is confused with the damages caused by the Puritans in the following century. However, the relics were eliminated and pilgrimages were discouraged. The places that owed their fame to the fact of being the destination of pilgrimages like Glastonbury, Bury St Edmunds and Canterbury suffered however strong repercussions.
However, Henry VIII’s financial needs had not ended. Many abbeys were resold, at special prices, to the new Tudor nobility, making it increasingly a social class aligned with the new Protestant institutions.
Among the major cultural losses resulting from the dissolution, we must remember the destruction of the monasteries’ book heritage. it is believed that most of the early Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were lost during this period. The suppression of monastic schools and hospitals also had negative consequences, especially at the local level.
Many of the dismantled monasteries and convents were sold for symbolic amounts (often to the local population); some religious received pensions, others continued to serve in the parishes. Although the total value of the confiscated property had been calculated at around £ 200,000, the actual income made by King Henry from 1536 until 1547 only reached £ 37,000 a year, about a fifth of what the monks had obtained.
The Dissolution was not popular throughout England. In 1536 there were popular uprisings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and the following year there was a further uprising in Norfolk. Rumours also spread that the king was about to demolish the parishes as well, and to tax the cattle. The rioters demanded an end to the dissolution of the monasteries, the removal of Cromwell, and the appointment of Henry’s eldest daughter, the Catholic Mary as his successor instead of his younger son Edward. Henry coaxed the representatives of the rebellion with vague promises, then ordered the execution of some of the leaders.
Consequences
The abbeys of England, Wales and Ireland played a vital role in traveller accommodation, knowledge transfer, charity, hospital and health care while providing work for local artisans. The destruction of libraries is among the greatest losses of the English reform. There remain only six of the six hundred volumes possessed by the priory of Worcester at the time of the dissolution. Only three volumes survive from the York Augustine Library after the destruction of six hundred and forty-six books.
Religious hospitals were also closed, which brought serious consequences at the local level. The monasteries had fed the poor and distributed alms during times of scarcity. The disappearance of the monasteries gave rise to an army of stout beggars who were a constant preoccupation during the Tudor reign. In addition, the abbeys were more understanding employers than the new aristocratic owners who increased rents by demanding increased productivity from their farmers and sharecroppers. More generally, the disappearance of the monasteries contributed to the decline of contemplative practices in Western Europe over the following centuries.
Bibliography
[1.] Cornwall, J.C.K. (1988). Wealth and Society in Early Sixteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
[2.] Hoskins, William George (1976). The Age of Plunder: King Henry’s England 1500–1547. London, New York: Longman
[3.] Scarisbrick, J. J. (1968). Henry VIII. Berkeley, California: University of California Press
[4.] Woodward, G.W.O. (1974). The Dissolution of the Monasteries. London: Pitkin Pictorials Ltd.Concentrates on England and Wales
[5.] Youings, J. (1971). The Dissolution of the Monasteries. London: Allen and Unwin
FYISSG Diane R. LTC Hillary LutonMaj Kim Patterson Sgt Kelli Mays SFC (Join to see) COL Mikel J. BurroughsSFC William Farrell SSgt (Join to see)LTC Wayne Brandon Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D.SSgt Brian Brakke SFC James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" Col Carl Whicker Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen SSG Robert Mark OdomSP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-CwikTSgt David L.PO1 Robert George
The Dissolution of the Monasteries
"The Dissolution of the Monasteries is perhaps the most famous symbol of Henry VIII's Break from Rome and is seen as one of the birth pangs of the Anglican Church. In this video I will look in depth at the dissolution.
Music Used:
Suonatore di Liuto - Kevin MacLeod
Willow and the Light - Kevin MacLeod
To the Ends - Kevin MacLeod
Magic Forest - Kevin MacLeod"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDghw4FjqIw
Images:
1. The ruined abbey at Battle – a victim of the Reformation
2. Malmesbury Abbey, one of the last monasteries to be suppressed in 1539
3. The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, one of the largest English Benedictine Monasteries, suppressed in 1539.
Background from {[https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/dissolution-of-monasteries/]}
Dissolution of Monasteries
Key Facts & Summary
• The dissolution of monasteries happened after King Henry VIII’s break with the Church of Rome.
• Henry VIII believed he could maximise the country’s wealth by confiscating the Church’s assets.
• During the dissolution of monasteries, many precious books were destroyed, and the number of poor people (who had previously been helped by the church) augmented.
Overview
The dissolution of the monasteries is an episode of the reign of Henry VIII of England which began in 1534, when the king undertook threats of confiscating the property of the religious orders in England, Wales and Ireland. Rather than finding its basis in political and economic reasons, the dissolution is the consequence of the king’s conflict with the Roman Catholic Pope Clement VII. In fact, the pope had refused to annul the king’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon so that he can marry Anne Boleyn. This dissolution materialised thanks to the introduction of two major laws. The first law of dissolution of the monasteries of 1534 seized any ecclesiastical domain and declared “Property of the State” all the monasteries and churches that earned less than 200 pounds annually; the second law of 1538 concerned those whose annual income exceeded 200 pounds.
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Crown was confronted with a population (including theologians and clergy) divided over the issue of reform. Since John Wyclif, some were in favour of reformist ideas both on the doctrinal level (return to the bible) and on a political level (national independence).
Just as any other foreign bishop, the Pope and Rome had no more authority or jurisdiction on the kingdom of England.
Thomas Cranmer supported the independence of the Church of England; however, many intellectuals, such as Chancellor Thomas More or Reginald Pole, rejected the schism. On the other hand, individuals such as Hugh Latimer called for a much more radical Protestant reform than the one proposed by the king.
Between 1524 and 1527, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had already embarked on a reform project, closing thirty monasteries, notably in Ipswich, his hometown, and Oxford, where he had studied. The profits from the operation were used to build public educational institutions. After closing the priory of Saint Frideswide, Wolsey founded Cardinal College, which was to become the college of Christ Church (Oxford).
In November 1529, under the reign of Henry VIII, the reform laws against the Church were approved, thus putting an end to the control of wills and funeral expenses for burials in consecrated ground, and more rigidly regulating the right to asylum for criminals and murderers. The number of ecclesiastical offices held by a single individual was also limited to four. It was basically more about establishing the king’s jurisdiction in a “Catholic state” rather than about undertaking a sort of “reform” (which came later).
In spite of everything, there was strong resistance from the faithful and from the ecclesiastics loyal to the Catholic Church. The opposition to Henry VIII was exemplified in the controversial figure of Reginald Pole. Initially, Henry VIII offered Pole the archbishopric of York or the diocese of Winchester on condition that he supported his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Pole withdrew his support and voluntarily went into exile in 1532 in France and Italy, continuing his studies in Padua and Paris. In 1536, against his will, he was appointed cardinal by Pope Paul III and attended the Council of Trent. After the Pope’s death in 1549, Pole almost elected pope.
It has been hypothesised that the confiscation of the lands and ecclesiastical properties were some of the main incentives that encouraged Henry VIII’s detachment from the Church of Rome. However, this cannot be directly proved, since before proceeding with the schism and divorce, Henry VIII insisted for five years in asking the Pope for the annulment of the marriage. Rather, once he obtained control over the English church, he was no longer able to resist the temptation to use ecclesiastical assets to clear the country’s debts, considering that the church had three times more revenue than the state. Also, the king was not lacking political motives: as soon as he broke with the Church of Rome, the dissolution of monasteries can be seen as a way to eliminate organisations that were the main source of opposition to Henry VIII’s policy. Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531. In April 1533 the law on the Restriction of Appeals abrogated the right of clerics to appeal to “foreign tribunals”, that is to Rome, and the king became absolute leader in every matter: spiritual and financial.
In 1534 the king, with the parliament’s authorisation, ordered Thomas Cromwell, a layman at the service of the crown from 1530, to visit all the monasteries (a term that includes abbeys and convents) in order to make the religious aware of the new imposed by the king who had substituted the role of the pope in England.
Moreover, the populace was fed with falsehoods, such:
1. monks and nuns of the monasteries were hypocrites and sorcerers, who lived in luxury committing all sorts of sins.
2. These same monks and nuns exploited the work of the people without giving anything in return and therefore they damaged to the economy of England.
3. If the king had possessed the assets of the monasteries, taxes for the people could have been abolished.
Meanwhile, during the second half of 1535, the visiting commissioners sent Cromwell reports on scandals, of a sexual and financial nature, which they falsely claimed to discover. The parliament issued a law in 1536, based largely on these debatable reports to assign to the king all monasteries with annual revenues of less than £ 200: the smaller monasteries were therefore emptied and confiscated. The monastic life, whose reputation for corruption had been falsely amplified, was in decline due to lack of income: in 1536 the thirteen Cistercian houses of Wales numbered 85 monks in all.
The movement obviously did not produce as much money as was expected, even after the sovereign rehabilitated some of the monasteries, and then confiscated them again. In April 1539 a new parliament issued a law that gave the king the remaining English monasteries. Some abbots opposed, and in the autumn the abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury and Reading were sentenced to death for treason.
The other abbots preferred to donate their abbeys to the king. Some of the ecclesiastical buildings were demolished to obtain material for secular buildings. Some of the minor Benedictine houses were assigned to parish churches, or even purchased by wealthy parishes. The tradition according to which the buildings were vandalised by iconoclasts, with the destruction of altars and stained glass windows, is confused with the damages caused by the Puritans in the following century. However, the relics were eliminated and pilgrimages were discouraged. The places that owed their fame to the fact of being the destination of pilgrimages like Glastonbury, Bury St Edmunds and Canterbury suffered however strong repercussions.
However, Henry VIII’s financial needs had not ended. Many abbeys were resold, at special prices, to the new Tudor nobility, making it increasingly a social class aligned with the new Protestant institutions.
Among the major cultural losses resulting from the dissolution, we must remember the destruction of the monasteries’ book heritage. it is believed that most of the early Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were lost during this period. The suppression of monastic schools and hospitals also had negative consequences, especially at the local level.
Many of the dismantled monasteries and convents were sold for symbolic amounts (often to the local population); some religious received pensions, others continued to serve in the parishes. Although the total value of the confiscated property had been calculated at around £ 200,000, the actual income made by King Henry from 1536 until 1547 only reached £ 37,000 a year, about a fifth of what the monks had obtained.
The Dissolution was not popular throughout England. In 1536 there were popular uprisings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and the following year there was a further uprising in Norfolk. Rumours also spread that the king was about to demolish the parishes as well, and to tax the cattle. The rioters demanded an end to the dissolution of the monasteries, the removal of Cromwell, and the appointment of Henry’s eldest daughter, the Catholic Mary as his successor instead of his younger son Edward. Henry coaxed the representatives of the rebellion with vague promises, then ordered the execution of some of the leaders.
Consequences
The abbeys of England, Wales and Ireland played a vital role in traveller accommodation, knowledge transfer, charity, hospital and health care while providing work for local artisans. The destruction of libraries is among the greatest losses of the English reform. There remain only six of the six hundred volumes possessed by the priory of Worcester at the time of the dissolution. Only three volumes survive from the York Augustine Library after the destruction of six hundred and forty-six books.
Religious hospitals were also closed, which brought serious consequences at the local level. The monasteries had fed the poor and distributed alms during times of scarcity. The disappearance of the monasteries gave rise to an army of stout beggars who were a constant preoccupation during the Tudor reign. In addition, the abbeys were more understanding employers than the new aristocratic owners who increased rents by demanding increased productivity from their farmers and sharecroppers. More generally, the disappearance of the monasteries contributed to the decline of contemplative practices in Western Europe over the following centuries.
Bibliography
[1.] Cornwall, J.C.K. (1988). Wealth and Society in Early Sixteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
[2.] Hoskins, William George (1976). The Age of Plunder: King Henry’s England 1500–1547. London, New York: Longman
[3.] Scarisbrick, J. J. (1968). Henry VIII. Berkeley, California: University of California Press
[4.] Woodward, G.W.O. (1974). The Dissolution of the Monasteries. London: Pitkin Pictorials Ltd.Concentrates on England and Wales
[5.] Youings, J. (1971). The Dissolution of the Monasteries. London: Allen and Unwin
FYISSG Diane R. LTC Hillary LutonMaj Kim Patterson Sgt Kelli Mays SFC (Join to see) COL Mikel J. BurroughsSFC William Farrell SSgt (Join to see)LTC Wayne Brandon Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D.SSgt Brian Brakke SFC James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" Col Carl Whicker Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen SSG Robert Mark OdomSP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-CwikTSgt David L.PO1 Robert George
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LTC Stephen F.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries (In Our Time)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Was Henry’s decision to destroy monastic culture in this country a tyranni...
The Dissolution of the Monasteries (In Our Time)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Was Henry’s decision to destroy monastic culture in this country a tyrannical act of grand larceny or the pious destruction of a corrupt institution? When he was an old man, Michael Sherbrook remembered the momentous events of his youth: “All things of price were either spoiled, plucked away or defaced to the uttermost…it seemed that every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could. Nothing was spared but the ox-houses and swincotes…” He was talking about the destruction of Roche Abbey, but it could have been Lewes or Fountains, Glastonbury, Tintern or Walsingham, names that haunt the religious past as their ruins haunt the landscape. These were the monasteries, suddenly and for many shockingly, destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII.The conflict was played out with a mix of violence, heroism, political manoeuvring and genuine theological disputation. But what was lost in terms of architecture, painting, treasure and in the religious habits of the monasteries themselves and of the common people who lived with them?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University; Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor at Keble College, Oxford; George Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2eq7iHZV4s
Images
1. Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire
2. Rievaulx Abbey of the Cistercian Order from the terrace high above.
3. The setting of the ruins in the grounds of the Studley Royal Estate is truly unique.
4. Studley Royal
Background from {[https://englishhistory.net/tudor/dissolution-of-the-monasteries/]}
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Reformation was a period of rapid change in Europe, and England was no exception. Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church, and in doing so he left the church’s monasteries, priories, and other holdings in an awkward position. They had a great deal of wealth, but they no longer had government patronage or a clear role in society. Henry found a simple solution to that problem when he seized all of their assets for the English crown. This act came to be known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and it was more than enough to prove that it was the king, not the church, that held ultimate power in England.
When Did It Happen?
The Dissolution took place between 1536 and 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII. His authority to order the Dissolution was granted under the Act of Supremacy, which passed in 1534.
Why Did It Happen?
Henry VIII was a monarch with two great problems. First, he needed to get his marriage nullified, but the Pope refused to grant his request. Second, he needed money to fund his military ambitions and support his government. The combination of these two problems eventually led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
He dealt with his first problem by breaking away from the Catholic church and founding the Anglican church with himself as the head. Some branches of the Catholic church in England objected, but most submitted to his decree. The major exceptions were found in the nation’s monastic communities, which helped to start the conflict between them and the crown.
Many of those communities were quite wealthy. One of the chief complaints among religious reformers and secular writers of the time was that monasteries were too wealthy, encouraged pilgrimages to view fraudulent relics, and that the monks maintained an inappropriate lifestyle. Many of them owned a significant amount of productive land, while other religious communities extracted significant revenues from the local population. The Catholic church also had a long history of taking tithes from the people. Given that Henry was already an enemy of the Catholic church, it should come as no surprise that he wanted to claim all of that money for himself.
What Happened?
Henry laid the foundation for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, two years before the process began in earnest. He sent his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to visit all of the monasteries, with the intention of encouraging them to submit to the king’s authority and abandon their inappropriate lifestyles. Cromwell picked several minions to help with the work, and he sent them to as many of the monasteries as possible. They did not have the time to perform thorough examinations, but they did interview individual monks and servants. Cromwell’s team encouraged them to confess their moral failings and inform on their peers, which led to a generally negative assessment of their behavior. Some of the reports may have been exaggerated, but the interviewers did not have to make up any claims to make the monasteries look bad.
The reports were clear. The monks were living lives of excessive luxury and frequently violated their vows. They also raised money by lending out false relics and charms that were said to bring good luck to their owners or to have healing powers. This led to the Suppression of Religious Houses Act in 1535, which gave the king the power to close down monasteries with an income of less than 200 pounds and seize their wealth. This formed the legal basis for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The king then sent his followers out to visit all of the monasteries that he wanted to close, so that they could take an inventory of their wealth. Many of the targeted monasteries sent requests to the king to cancel their closure in return for paying fines or providing gifts, and some of them were accepted. Other monasteries remained open by request of the committee in charge of the visits. The remainder closed down, and the monks were given the choice of either returning to secular life with some money from the government or of joining a larger monastery. The small minority of monks that offered violent resistance were treated as traitors to the crown.
These closures were unpopular, and contributed to a popular rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even so, the policy continued for several years, with the government encouraging monastic leaders to surrender their property voluntarily in return for better treatment. This led to a second major round of closures in 1538, and most of the monks who lived at the newly-closed monasteries received fairly generous payments in return for their cooperation. The closured continued on a smaller scale for several more years, until monasticism was largely extinct in England.
What Was The Impact?
It is impossible to remove a wealthy and powerful institution from a society without having a huge impact on it. In the case of the Dissolution of Monasteries, the impact can be seen in both the nation’s economy and its culture.
The monasteries had controlled a great deal of wealth and land in England, so their removal left an economic gap that needed to be filled. In general, the land and the income that it could provide passed to secular landowners. The rights to any income from other sources that the monasteries once held was often sold in the same way as the land. As such, there were many cases where the overall economic system could remain in one piece, with the wealth simply flowing to a secular landlord instead of the monks.
The monasteries had also been centers for healing and charity work. Unfortunately, the new landowners rarely felt the need to continue that tradition. The monasteries had only donated a small part of their income to the purpose, but it had made as significant difference to the poor. The loss of that charity led to the increasing number of beggars that would prove to be problematic for later rulers.
The monastic libraries deserve special attention. They had huge collections at a time when books were relatively rare, and many of those collections were lost. Some of the more valuable books were collected by specialists to be kept in private collections, but many were sold for scrap paper or so that valuable decorations could be salvaged.
On the whole, the Dissolution of the Monasteries was a mixed blessing. On one hand, the charges of corruption and moral laxness against the monks were often justified, and their monasteries controlled a huge portion of the nation’s wealth. On the other hand, closing the monasteries resulted in the loss of valuable services and some historical artifacts. It also caused a certain degree of political unrest. For better or for worse, it had a lasting impact on the nation.'
FYI SSG Stephen RogersonLTC Stephan PorterPO3 Phyllis MaynardSSG Michael NollSFC (Join to see)1stsgt Glenn BrackinCPT Paul Whitmer1SG Steven ImermanSSG Samuel KermonSP5 Geoffrey VannersonSFC Richard WilliamsonSSG Pete FishGySgt Gary CordeiroPO2 (Join to see)Cpl (Join to see)TSgt George RodriguezPO1 H Gene LawrenceSPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Was Henry’s decision to destroy monastic culture in this country a tyrannical act of grand larceny or the pious destruction of a corrupt institution? When he was an old man, Michael Sherbrook remembered the momentous events of his youth: “All things of price were either spoiled, plucked away or defaced to the uttermost…it seemed that every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could. Nothing was spared but the ox-houses and swincotes…” He was talking about the destruction of Roche Abbey, but it could have been Lewes or Fountains, Glastonbury, Tintern or Walsingham, names that haunt the religious past as their ruins haunt the landscape. These were the monasteries, suddenly and for many shockingly, destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII.The conflict was played out with a mix of violence, heroism, political manoeuvring and genuine theological disputation. But what was lost in terms of architecture, painting, treasure and in the religious habits of the monasteries themselves and of the common people who lived with them?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University; Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor at Keble College, Oxford; George Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2eq7iHZV4s
Images
1. Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire
2. Rievaulx Abbey of the Cistercian Order from the terrace high above.
3. The setting of the ruins in the grounds of the Studley Royal Estate is truly unique.
4. Studley Royal
Background from {[https://englishhistory.net/tudor/dissolution-of-the-monasteries/]}
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Reformation was a period of rapid change in Europe, and England was no exception. Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church, and in doing so he left the church’s monasteries, priories, and other holdings in an awkward position. They had a great deal of wealth, but they no longer had government patronage or a clear role in society. Henry found a simple solution to that problem when he seized all of their assets for the English crown. This act came to be known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and it was more than enough to prove that it was the king, not the church, that held ultimate power in England.
When Did It Happen?
The Dissolution took place between 1536 and 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII. His authority to order the Dissolution was granted under the Act of Supremacy, which passed in 1534.
Why Did It Happen?
Henry VIII was a monarch with two great problems. First, he needed to get his marriage nullified, but the Pope refused to grant his request. Second, he needed money to fund his military ambitions and support his government. The combination of these two problems eventually led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
He dealt with his first problem by breaking away from the Catholic church and founding the Anglican church with himself as the head. Some branches of the Catholic church in England objected, but most submitted to his decree. The major exceptions were found in the nation’s monastic communities, which helped to start the conflict between them and the crown.
Many of those communities were quite wealthy. One of the chief complaints among religious reformers and secular writers of the time was that monasteries were too wealthy, encouraged pilgrimages to view fraudulent relics, and that the monks maintained an inappropriate lifestyle. Many of them owned a significant amount of productive land, while other religious communities extracted significant revenues from the local population. The Catholic church also had a long history of taking tithes from the people. Given that Henry was already an enemy of the Catholic church, it should come as no surprise that he wanted to claim all of that money for himself.
What Happened?
Henry laid the foundation for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, two years before the process began in earnest. He sent his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to visit all of the monasteries, with the intention of encouraging them to submit to the king’s authority and abandon their inappropriate lifestyles. Cromwell picked several minions to help with the work, and he sent them to as many of the monasteries as possible. They did not have the time to perform thorough examinations, but they did interview individual monks and servants. Cromwell’s team encouraged them to confess their moral failings and inform on their peers, which led to a generally negative assessment of their behavior. Some of the reports may have been exaggerated, but the interviewers did not have to make up any claims to make the monasteries look bad.
The reports were clear. The monks were living lives of excessive luxury and frequently violated their vows. They also raised money by lending out false relics and charms that were said to bring good luck to their owners or to have healing powers. This led to the Suppression of Religious Houses Act in 1535, which gave the king the power to close down monasteries with an income of less than 200 pounds and seize their wealth. This formed the legal basis for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The king then sent his followers out to visit all of the monasteries that he wanted to close, so that they could take an inventory of their wealth. Many of the targeted monasteries sent requests to the king to cancel their closure in return for paying fines or providing gifts, and some of them were accepted. Other monasteries remained open by request of the committee in charge of the visits. The remainder closed down, and the monks were given the choice of either returning to secular life with some money from the government or of joining a larger monastery. The small minority of monks that offered violent resistance were treated as traitors to the crown.
These closures were unpopular, and contributed to a popular rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even so, the policy continued for several years, with the government encouraging monastic leaders to surrender their property voluntarily in return for better treatment. This led to a second major round of closures in 1538, and most of the monks who lived at the newly-closed monasteries received fairly generous payments in return for their cooperation. The closured continued on a smaller scale for several more years, until monasticism was largely extinct in England.
What Was The Impact?
It is impossible to remove a wealthy and powerful institution from a society without having a huge impact on it. In the case of the Dissolution of Monasteries, the impact can be seen in both the nation’s economy and its culture.
The monasteries had controlled a great deal of wealth and land in England, so their removal left an economic gap that needed to be filled. In general, the land and the income that it could provide passed to secular landowners. The rights to any income from other sources that the monasteries once held was often sold in the same way as the land. As such, there were many cases where the overall economic system could remain in one piece, with the wealth simply flowing to a secular landlord instead of the monks.
The monasteries had also been centers for healing and charity work. Unfortunately, the new landowners rarely felt the need to continue that tradition. The monasteries had only donated a small part of their income to the purpose, but it had made as significant difference to the poor. The loss of that charity led to the increasing number of beggars that would prove to be problematic for later rulers.
The monastic libraries deserve special attention. They had huge collections at a time when books were relatively rare, and many of those collections were lost. Some of the more valuable books were collected by specialists to be kept in private collections, but many were sold for scrap paper or so that valuable decorations could be salvaged.
On the whole, the Dissolution of the Monasteries was a mixed blessing. On one hand, the charges of corruption and moral laxness against the monks were often justified, and their monasteries controlled a huge portion of the nation’s wealth. On the other hand, closing the monasteries resulted in the loss of valuable services and some historical artifacts. It also caused a certain degree of political unrest. For better or for worse, it had a lasting impact on the nation.'
FYI SSG Stephen RogersonLTC Stephan PorterPO3 Phyllis MaynardSSG Michael NollSFC (Join to see)1stsgt Glenn BrackinCPT Paul Whitmer1SG Steven ImermanSSG Samuel KermonSP5 Geoffrey VannersonSFC Richard WilliamsonSSG Pete FishGySgt Gary CordeiroPO2 (Join to see)Cpl (Join to see)TSgt George RodriguezPO1 H Gene LawrenceSPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant
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LTC Stephen F.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries (In Our Time)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Was Henry’s decision to destroy monastic culture in this country a tyranni...
The Dissolution of the Monasteries (In Our Time)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Was Henry’s decision to destroy monastic culture in this country a tyrannical act of grand larceny or the pious destruction of a corrupt institution? When he was an old man, Michael Sherbrook remembered the momentous events of his youth: “All things of price were either spoiled, plucked away or defaced to the uttermost…it seemed that every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could. Nothing was spared but the ox-houses and swincotes…” He was talking about the destruction of Roche Abbey, but it could have been Lewes or Fountains, Glastonbury, Tintern or Walsingham, names that haunt the religious past as their ruins haunt the landscape. These were the monasteries, suddenly and for many shockingly, destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII.The conflict was played out with a mix of violence, heroism, political manoeuvring and genuine theological disputation. But what was lost in terms of architecture, painting, treasure and in the religious habits of the monasteries themselves and of the common people who lived with them?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University; Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor at Keble College, Oxford; George Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2eq7iHZV4s
Images
1. Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire
2. Rievaulx Abbey of the Cistercian Order from the terrace high above.
3. The setting of the ruins in the grounds of the Studley Royal Estate is truly unique.
4. Studley Royal
Background from {[https://englishhistory.net/tudor/dissolution-of-the-monasteries/]}
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Reformation was a period of rapid change in Europe, and England was no exception. Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church, and in doing so he left the church’s monasteries, priories, and other holdings in an awkward position. They had a great deal of wealth, but they no longer had government patronage or a clear role in society. Henry found a simple solution to that problem when he seized all of their assets for the English crown. This act came to be known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and it was more than enough to prove that it was the king, not the church, that held ultimate power in England.
When Did It Happen?
The Dissolution took place between 1536 and 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII. His authority to order the Dissolution was granted under the Act of Supremacy, which passed in 1534.
Why Did It Happen?
Henry VIII was a monarch with two great problems. First, he needed to get his marriage nullified, but the Pope refused to grant his request. Second, he needed money to fund his military ambitions and support his government. The combination of these two problems eventually led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
He dealt with his first problem by breaking away from the Catholic church and founding the Anglican church with himself as the head. Some branches of the Catholic church in England objected, but most submitted to his decree. The major exceptions were found in the nation’s monastic communities, which helped to start the conflict between them and the crown.
Many of those communities were quite wealthy. One of the chief complaints among religious reformers and secular writers of the time was that monasteries were too wealthy, encouraged pilgrimages to view fraudulent relics, and that the monks maintained an inappropriate lifestyle. Many of them owned a significant amount of productive land, while other religious communities extracted significant revenues from the local population. The Catholic church also had a long history of taking tithes from the people. Given that Henry was already an enemy of the Catholic church, it should come as no surprise that he wanted to claim all of that money for himself.
What Happened?
Henry laid the foundation for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, two years before the process began in earnest. He sent his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to visit all of the monasteries, with the intention of encouraging them to submit to the king’s authority and abandon their inappropriate lifestyles. Cromwell picked several minions to help with the work, and he sent them to as many of the monasteries as possible. They did not have the time to perform thorough examinations, but they did interview individual monks and servants. Cromwell’s team encouraged them to confess their moral failings and inform on their peers, which led to a generally negative assessment of their behavior. Some of the reports may have been exaggerated, but the interviewers did not have to make up any claims to make the monasteries look bad.
The reports were clear. The monks were living lives of excessive luxury and frequently violated their vows. They also raised money by lending out false relics and charms that were said to bring good luck to their owners or to have healing powers. This led to the Suppression of Religious Houses Act in 1535, which gave the king the power to close down monasteries with an income of less than 200 pounds and seize their wealth. This formed the legal basis for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The king then sent his followers out to visit all of the monasteries that he wanted to close, so that they could take an inventory of their wealth. Many of the targeted monasteries sent requests to the king to cancel their closure in return for paying fines or providing gifts, and some of them were accepted. Other monasteries remained open by request of the committee in charge of the visits. The remainder closed down, and the monks were given the choice of either returning to secular life with some money from the government or of joining a larger monastery. The small minority of monks that offered violent resistance were treated as traitors to the crown.
These closures were unpopular, and contributed to a popular rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even so, the policy continued for several years, with the government encouraging monastic leaders to surrender their property voluntarily in return for better treatment. This led to a second major round of closures in 1538, and most of the monks who lived at the newly-closed monasteries received fairly generous payments in return for their cooperation. The closured continued on a smaller scale for several more years, until monasticism was largely extinct in England.
What Was The Impact?
It is impossible to remove a wealthy and powerful institution from a society without having a huge impact on it. In the case of the Dissolution of Monasteries, the impact can be seen in both the nation’s economy and its culture.
The monasteries had controlled a great deal of wealth and land in England, so their removal left an economic gap that needed to be filled. In general, the land and the income that it could provide passed to secular landowners. The rights to any income from other sources that the monasteries once held was often sold in the same way as the land. As such, there were many cases where the overall economic system could remain in one piece, with the wealth simply flowing to a secular landlord instead of the monks.
The monasteries had also been centers for healing and charity work. Unfortunately, the new landowners rarely felt the need to continue that tradition. The monasteries had only donated a small part of their income to the purpose, but it had made as significant difference to the poor. The loss of that charity led to the increasing number of beggars that would prove to be problematic for later rulers.
The monastic libraries deserve special attention. They had huge collections at a time when books were relatively rare, and many of those collections were lost. Some of the more valuable books were collected by specialists to be kept in private collections, but many were sold for scrap paper or so that valuable decorations could be salvaged.
On the whole, the Dissolution of the Monasteries was a mixed blessing. On one hand, the charges of corruption and moral laxness against the monks were often justified, and their monasteries controlled a huge portion of the nation’s wealth. On the other hand, closing the monasteries resulted in the loss of valuable services and some historical artifacts. It also caused a certain degree of political unrest. For better or for worse, it had a lasting impact on the nation.'
FYI SSG Stephen RogersonLTC Stephan PorterPO3 Phyllis MaynardSSG Michael NollSFC (Join to see)1stsgt Glenn BrackinCPT Paul Whitmer1SG Steven ImermanSSG Samuel KermonSP5 Geoffrey VannersonSFC Richard WilliamsonSSG Pete FishGySgt Gary CordeiroPO2 (Join to see)Cpl (Join to see)~874029:TSgt George Rodriguez]SGT Rick ColburnPO1 H Gene LawrenceSPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Was Henry’s decision to destroy monastic culture in this country a tyrannical act of grand larceny or the pious destruction of a corrupt institution? When he was an old man, Michael Sherbrook remembered the momentous events of his youth: “All things of price were either spoiled, plucked away or defaced to the uttermost…it seemed that every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could. Nothing was spared but the ox-houses and swincotes…” He was talking about the destruction of Roche Abbey, but it could have been Lewes or Fountains, Glastonbury, Tintern or Walsingham, names that haunt the religious past as their ruins haunt the landscape. These were the monasteries, suddenly and for many shockingly, destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII.The conflict was played out with a mix of violence, heroism, political manoeuvring and genuine theological disputation. But what was lost in terms of architecture, painting, treasure and in the religious habits of the monasteries themselves and of the common people who lived with them?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University; Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor at Keble College, Oxford; George Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2eq7iHZV4s
Images
1. Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire
2. Rievaulx Abbey of the Cistercian Order from the terrace high above.
3. The setting of the ruins in the grounds of the Studley Royal Estate is truly unique.
4. Studley Royal
Background from {[https://englishhistory.net/tudor/dissolution-of-the-monasteries/]}
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Reformation was a period of rapid change in Europe, and England was no exception. Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church, and in doing so he left the church’s monasteries, priories, and other holdings in an awkward position. They had a great deal of wealth, but they no longer had government patronage or a clear role in society. Henry found a simple solution to that problem when he seized all of their assets for the English crown. This act came to be known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and it was more than enough to prove that it was the king, not the church, that held ultimate power in England.
When Did It Happen?
The Dissolution took place between 1536 and 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII. His authority to order the Dissolution was granted under the Act of Supremacy, which passed in 1534.
Why Did It Happen?
Henry VIII was a monarch with two great problems. First, he needed to get his marriage nullified, but the Pope refused to grant his request. Second, he needed money to fund his military ambitions and support his government. The combination of these two problems eventually led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
He dealt with his first problem by breaking away from the Catholic church and founding the Anglican church with himself as the head. Some branches of the Catholic church in England objected, but most submitted to his decree. The major exceptions were found in the nation’s monastic communities, which helped to start the conflict between them and the crown.
Many of those communities were quite wealthy. One of the chief complaints among religious reformers and secular writers of the time was that monasteries were too wealthy, encouraged pilgrimages to view fraudulent relics, and that the monks maintained an inappropriate lifestyle. Many of them owned a significant amount of productive land, while other religious communities extracted significant revenues from the local population. The Catholic church also had a long history of taking tithes from the people. Given that Henry was already an enemy of the Catholic church, it should come as no surprise that he wanted to claim all of that money for himself.
What Happened?
Henry laid the foundation for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, two years before the process began in earnest. He sent his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to visit all of the monasteries, with the intention of encouraging them to submit to the king’s authority and abandon their inappropriate lifestyles. Cromwell picked several minions to help with the work, and he sent them to as many of the monasteries as possible. They did not have the time to perform thorough examinations, but they did interview individual monks and servants. Cromwell’s team encouraged them to confess their moral failings and inform on their peers, which led to a generally negative assessment of their behavior. Some of the reports may have been exaggerated, but the interviewers did not have to make up any claims to make the monasteries look bad.
The reports were clear. The monks were living lives of excessive luxury and frequently violated their vows. They also raised money by lending out false relics and charms that were said to bring good luck to their owners or to have healing powers. This led to the Suppression of Religious Houses Act in 1535, which gave the king the power to close down monasteries with an income of less than 200 pounds and seize their wealth. This formed the legal basis for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The king then sent his followers out to visit all of the monasteries that he wanted to close, so that they could take an inventory of their wealth. Many of the targeted monasteries sent requests to the king to cancel their closure in return for paying fines or providing gifts, and some of them were accepted. Other monasteries remained open by request of the committee in charge of the visits. The remainder closed down, and the monks were given the choice of either returning to secular life with some money from the government or of joining a larger monastery. The small minority of monks that offered violent resistance were treated as traitors to the crown.
These closures were unpopular, and contributed to a popular rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even so, the policy continued for several years, with the government encouraging monastic leaders to surrender their property voluntarily in return for better treatment. This led to a second major round of closures in 1538, and most of the monks who lived at the newly-closed monasteries received fairly generous payments in return for their cooperation. The closured continued on a smaller scale for several more years, until monasticism was largely extinct in England.
What Was The Impact?
It is impossible to remove a wealthy and powerful institution from a society without having a huge impact on it. In the case of the Dissolution of Monasteries, the impact can be seen in both the nation’s economy and its culture.
The monasteries had controlled a great deal of wealth and land in England, so their removal left an economic gap that needed to be filled. In general, the land and the income that it could provide passed to secular landowners. The rights to any income from other sources that the monasteries once held was often sold in the same way as the land. As such, there were many cases where the overall economic system could remain in one piece, with the wealth simply flowing to a secular landlord instead of the monks.
The monasteries had also been centers for healing and charity work. Unfortunately, the new landowners rarely felt the need to continue that tradition. The monasteries had only donated a small part of their income to the purpose, but it had made as significant difference to the poor. The loss of that charity led to the increasing number of beggars that would prove to be problematic for later rulers.
The monastic libraries deserve special attention. They had huge collections at a time when books were relatively rare, and many of those collections were lost. Some of the more valuable books were collected by specialists to be kept in private collections, but many were sold for scrap paper or so that valuable decorations could be salvaged.
On the whole, the Dissolution of the Monasteries was a mixed blessing. On one hand, the charges of corruption and moral laxness against the monks were often justified, and their monasteries controlled a huge portion of the nation’s wealth. On the other hand, closing the monasteries resulted in the loss of valuable services and some historical artifacts. It also caused a certain degree of political unrest. For better or for worse, it had a lasting impact on the nation.'
FYI SSG Stephen RogersonLTC Stephan PorterPO3 Phyllis MaynardSSG Michael NollSFC (Join to see)1stsgt Glenn BrackinCPT Paul Whitmer1SG Steven ImermanSSG Samuel KermonSP5 Geoffrey VannersonSFC Richard WilliamsonSSG Pete FishGySgt Gary CordeiroPO2 (Join to see)Cpl (Join to see)~874029:TSgt George Rodriguez]SGT Rick ColburnPO1 H Gene LawrenceSPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant
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I was just watching about this on the History Buff's Elizabeth video on You Tube last evening.
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