Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Maps: The Dependent Priories of the Monasteries of Medieval England (England and Wales)
- Introduction
- Part I The Dependent Priory as Daughter House
- Part II The Dependent Priory as Small Monastery
- 4 Monastic Life in Dependent Priories
- 5 Dependent Priories and their Neighbours
- 6 The Economy of English Cells
- Epilogue: The Dissolution of English Cells
- Appendices
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Other Volumes in Studies in the History of Medieval Religion
Epilogue: The Dissolution of English Cells
from Part II - The Dependent Priory as Small Monastery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Maps: The Dependent Priories of the Monasteries of Medieval England (England and Wales)
- Introduction
- Part I The Dependent Priory as Daughter House
- Part II The Dependent Priory as Small Monastery
- 4 Monastic Life in Dependent Priories
- 5 Dependent Priories and their Neighbours
- 6 The Economy of English Cells
- Epilogue: The Dissolution of English Cells
- Appendices
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Other Volumes in Studies in the History of Medieval Religion
Summary
Although the dissolution of the alien priories has understandably attracted far more attention, the manner in which English cells were suppressed was also highly unusual. This peculiar course of dissolution has never before been traced, and the main source of information for the suppression of daughter houses remains the statistics assembled in Knowles and Hadcock's Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales. These figures present an intriguing picture. Of the sixty-eight Benedictine and twenty-three Augustinian cells which are said to have survived into the sixteenth century, nine are listed as dissolved before 1536, thirteen in 1536, eight in 1537, twenty-two in 1538, thirty in 1539 and seven in 1540, with two others closed at some indefinite time between 1536 and 1540. A comparison of the years of dissolution given for satellite priories with those of their mother houses also indicates that half of these cells (forty-five) survived to be terminated with their parents, whereas the same number were closed early. The final cell, Letheringham Priory, provides a unique example of a dependency that was dissolved several years after its mother house.
These figures, however, are not wholly reliable. They include a number of tiny priories which had probably disappeared before the sixteenth century, and many dates have been taken straight from the notoriously inconsistent Victoria County History. Although for a significant minority of English cells, ironically including those of Norwich and Durham Cathedral Priories, it is very difficult to locate the date of suppression, it can be seen that the statistics given by Knowles and Hadcock over-estimate the number of daughter houses dissolved at the same time as their parents.
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- The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries , pp. 277 - 288Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004