the Dissolution of the Monasteries

he role of religious houses (monasteries and nunneries) in local communities 

1. At the start of Henry’s reign, England had around 8000 monks and 2000 nuns, and the focus of their day was religious contemplation (thinking about how better to serve god).  

2. They were expected to be poor, chaste and obedient. As a result, monks and nuns generally enjoyed a powerful reputation and were treated with respect.  

3. Monasteries owned around one third of all the lands in England.  

4. The top 20 houses had incomes of over £1000 a year, which made them as wealthy as nobles.  

5. Heads of houses played a role in administering local justice, and 30 of them sat in the House of Lords, helping to advise the King.  

6. The children of the wealthy were often educated by monks and nuns.  

7. Monks and nuns would pray for the souls of the dead; wealthy people could leave money in their wills to ensure they would be prayed for after they died.  

8. Travellers on long journeys could use religious houses as safe places to stay.  

9. Monks and nuns produced beautiful works or art such as illuminated manuscripts. 

10. Poor people could go to their local monasteries to receive food and help.  

11. The sick were often treated in hospitals set up by the monasteries.  

Reasons for the dissolutions 

Cromwell’s commission of 1535 

1. The reason given in public for the monasteries’ dissolution was their spiritual and moral decay.  

2. In 1535 Cromwell ordered a series of visitations. The findings, listed in a document called Compendium Compertorum, claimed that hundreds of monks were taking part in homosexual practices or had confessed to keeping mistresses. They found many cases of nuns having children. There were even reports that Abbot Hexham of Whitby was in league with French pirates. This was used as evidence to justify the dissolution of the smaller monasteries.  

3. The evidence was not reliable. The inspectors spent only a few hours at each house, and used bullying tactics when questioning monks and nuns.  

4. It is now generally accepted that, while there were some corrupt monasteries, there were also some good ones – for example, Whalley Abbey in Lancashire distributed 22% of its income to charity.  

5. In reality, the inspectors, like Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, were ambitious men, and knew that to get ahead, they needed to give their master, Cromwell, the evidence he wanted.   

New religious ideas 

1. One of the main roles of monks and nuns was to pray for the souls of the dead, and ordinary people were encouraged to give donations so that this could be carried out; this went against Protestant ideas (Protestants did not believe in purgatory).  

2. These new Protestant ideas had certainly influenced Cromwell. 

3. However, Henry himself showed his support for the traditional role of monasteries by re-founding two of them in 1537 – Bisham Abbey, and the nunnery at Stixwold – to pray for him and his wife Jane Seymour. This suggests Henry did not truly believe the ideas of the religious reformers.  

Loyalty 

1. Henry had doubts about the loyalty of the monasteries. The 1534 Act of Supremacy had placed him in charge of the English Church, but many religious houses still had links to the pope, and resisted the break from Rome fiercely.  

2. However, in the end, nearly every monk and nun ended up swearing the oath accepting the Act of Succession; only eighteen monks resisted, and they were executed.  

Money 

1. Monasteries were hugely wealthy, and Henry needed money. He commissioned a survey into their wealth, known as Valor Ecclesiasticus, which revealed that the monasteries owned one-third of English land and had a total income of £160,000 a year – three times the income of the royal estates.  

2. Henry needed money to finance his wars and protect England against possible Catholic invasion.  

3. If he could get the wealth of the monasteries, he would no longer need to rely on parliament to grant him taxation, and he could avoid another taxpayers’ revolt like the one that occurred after the Amicable Grant.  

4. Any land taken from the monasteries could be given as gifts as a way of buying support from the gentry and nobility.  

The process of dissolution 

1. Parliament passed the first Act of Dissolution in March 1536, which closed 300 smaller monasteries with an income of less than £200 a year.  

2. Towards the end of 1537 the decision was taken to close the larger monasteries too. This was partly because some had supported the Pilgrimage of Grace (see below), but mainly because of their wealth. 

3. To avoid rebellion, no piece of legislation was passed. Instead, each monastery was targeted individually in another series of visitations, and ‘invited’ to surrender their houses to the king as a free gift. In 1539 parliament passed a second Act of Dissolution confirming the ‘voluntary’ surrenders.  

4. The process had been completed by 1540.  

The impact of the dissolutions 

1. After the dissolution, hundreds of buildings the size of cathedrals lay empty. The remains were often looted and the stone was used to build houses and field walls.  

2. The destruction of the monasteries can be seen as an act of cultural vandalism – much beautiful architecture was lost, along with libraries, art, and stained glass windows were destroyed. 95 % of English medieval arts was destroyed.  

The winners 

1. For Protestants, the dissolution removed a powerful symbol of Roman Catholicism.  

2. For Henry, it brought huge financial gain. All land and property from the monasteries became his, and his income more than doubled from around £100,000 to £240,000 a year as a result.  

3. This helped to pay for the war against France and Scotland, and it also allowed for castle-building on the coast to ward off invasion.  

4. Over time, Henry sold most of the monastic land. This gave members of the nobility and gentry the opportunity to buy the land. A lot of estates were also bought by those who would ordinarily have remained landless, like wealthy merchants and lawyers.  

The losers  

5. Heads of houses were granted a relatively generous pension, while ordinary monks and nuns were given a one-off payment of 20 to 30 shillings.  

6. Monks did better than nuns from the dissolution. It is estimated about 6500 out of 8000 monks managed to secure alternative employment with a church, but a significant number were left in hardship.  

7. England’s 2000 nuns suffered the most, as they were not allowed to either marry or work in churches. Their pension was just £2 a year and they usually had to return to their families and hope they would be looked after.  

8. Communities also lost out on the monasteries’ charitable work, and some of the landlords who replaced the monks were ruthless, raising rents and throwing tenants off the land.  

9. Monastic schools were also closed, reducing the opportunities for education for the children of the poor. 

10. Many people were also angry because the tombs of their ancestors in monasteries were demolished, and because there was now no-one to pray for their souls.