Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T08:20:18.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The origins of the dissolution of the monasteries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. W. Hoyle
R. W. Hoyle
Affiliation:
University of Central Lancashire
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The dissolution of the monasteries is one of the most familiar incidents in Tudor history. The genesis of the dissolution is however ill-documented. Here it is traced back to the suppressions of smaller houses authorized in 1528. It is shown how a partial dissolution could be construed as a desirable and necessary reform without challenging either the basis of monasticism or the doctrine of purgatory. A previously unnoticed petition is published to cast light on the anti-clerical agitation of 1529. It is suggested that there was an attempt to secure a dissolution for financial reasons in 1534 and it was the failure of this which forced the crown to adopt a new strategy to achieve a partial dissolution. This was the collection of damaging evidence of monastic corruption during the visitations of 1535. The display of this material to the Commons in 1536 persuaded them to accept a partial dissolution in the guise of a reform of monasticism. It is suggested that there was no ‘public’ demand for a dissolution in the 1530s except in the artificial circumstances of 1536, and that the shape of the dissolution was determined by the inability of government to secure the support of parliament for a dissolution justified on financial grounds.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 275 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Haigh, C., ‘The English Reformation: a premature birth, a difficult labour and a sickly child’, Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), 452.Google Scholar

2 Heal, F., Of prelates and princes: a study of the economic and social position of the Tudor episcopate (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 102–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 British Library (hereafter B.L.), Cotton MS Cleo. E IV, fo. 212r. (All quotations from original sources in this paper have been modernized.)

4 For this view see, for instance, Harper-Bill, C., ‘Dean Colet's convocation sermon and the pre-reformation church in England’, History, LXXIII (1988), 194–7.Google Scholar

5 Burgess, C., ‘“By quick and by dead”: wills and pious provision in late medieval Bristol’, E[nglish] H[istorical] R[eview], CII (1987)Google Scholar; Swanson, R. N., Church and society in late medieval England (Oxford, 1989), pp. 296–8.Google Scholar

6 Harper-Bill, , ‘Dean Colet's convocation sermon’, p. 197.Google Scholar

7 Heal, F., Hospitality in early modern England (Oxford, 1990), pp. 228–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Greg, Walker, Plays of Persuasion. Drama and politics at the court of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1991), ch. 4.Google Scholar

9 For the possible identity of Gybson, Elton, G. R., Studies in Tudor and Stuart politics and government (4 vols., Cambridge, 1974–1992), II, 72–3.Google Scholar

10 BL, Cotton MS Cleo. E IV, fos. 214–20, printed by Stone, L., ’The political programme of Thomas Cromwell’, B[ulletin of the] I[nstitute of] H[istorical] R[esearch], XXIV (1951), 11–17Google Scholar (the quotation from p. 12).

11 For Bigod see below, p. 281. Cowper, J. M. (ed.), Henry Brinklow's complaynt of Roderyck Mors, Early English Text Society, extra ser. XXII (1874), 32–4.Google Scholar

12 Cross, C., ‘Monasticism and society in the diocese of York, 1520–1540’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. XXXVIII (1988), 144–5.Google Scholar

13 These figures are broadly in line with those found by Scarisbrick (although he draws on a much smaller sample), The Reformation and the English people (Oxford, 1984), p. 6Google Scholar; the figures provided by Bowker for three archdeaconries in the diocese of Lincoln tend to be smaller still. No one in 50 Buckinghamshire wills gave money to either religious houses or friars. Bowker, M., The Henrician Reformation. The diocese of Lincoln under John Longland, 1521–1547 (Cambridge, 1981), p. 48 (table 3).Google Scholar

14 The use of beneficed priests in this way was expressly outlawed by the 1529 statute we will have cause to consider later.

15 For a convenient summary see Knowles, , The Religious Orders in England, III, The Tudor age (Cambridge, 1959), ch. 13.Google Scholar

16 Statute 27 Henry VIII c. 28, printed more accessibly in Youings, J., The dissolution of the monasteries (1971), pp. 155–9Google Scholar. It also appears in the draft commission of aid given to the dissolution commissioners cited below, n. 84.

17 Letters and Papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S. et al. , 21 vols. 1862–1910 (hereafter LP), XI no. 780 (2)Google Scholar, printed in State Papers during the reign of Henry VIII (11 vols., London, 1830–1852), I, 463–6Google Scholar; also , M. H. and Dodds, R., The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536–7 and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1915), I, 136–7.Google Scholar

18 Answere made by the Kynges hyghnes to the petitions of the rebelles in Yorkshire (1536, repr. Amsterdam, 1977).Google Scholar

19 Harper-Bill, , ‘Dean Colet's convocation sermon’, pp. 194–6Google Scholar; Gwyn, P., The King's Cardinal. The rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey (1990), ch. 8Google Scholar; and see Walker, G., ‘Cardinal Wolsey and the satirists: the case of Godly Queen Hester reopened’, in Gunn, S. J. and Lindley, P. G. (eds.), Cardinal Wolsey. Church, state and art (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 248–50.Google Scholar

20 Longland had in his charge a small minority of persistently unsatisfactory houses. Bowker, , Henrician Reformation, pp. 7, 17–28, 108–9.Google Scholar

21 Thomas, Starkey, A dialogue between Pole and Lupset, ed. Mayer, T. F., Camden Soc., 4th ser. XXXVII (1989), 103–4Google Scholar, and see the similar point in his Exhortation to unity and obedience (1536, repr. Amsterdam, 1973), fos. 75V–76rGoogle Scholar. The admission of those aged under 24 was forbidden by the 1535 injunctions (Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 277)Google Scholar; for an example of coerced profession at twelve, Bowker, , Henrician Reformation, p. 21.Google Scholar

22 For Bigod see Dickens, A. G., Lollards and protestants in the diocese of York, 1509–1558 (1959), ch. 3Google Scholar. The treatise on impropriations of benefices is to be found most conveniently in Dickens, A. G. (ed.), Tudor treatises, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Records Series, CXXV (1959), 41–58.Google Scholar

23 Calendar State Papers Spanish, IV (i) 1529–30, pp. 788–800Google Scholar. For other instances of reform by deprivation being advocated, see below, pp. 284–286, and n. 64.

24 Anne, Hudson, The premature Reformation. Wycliffite texts and Lollard history (Oxford, 1988), pp. 501–2.Google Scholar

25 For these early dissolutions see Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 157–64Google Scholar. For Wolsey's foundations, Newman, J., ‘Cardinal Wolsey's collegiate foundations’, in Gunn, and Lindley, (eds.), Cardinal Wolsey, p. 249Google Scholar. Wolsey's dissolutions were complained of in the articles moved against him after his fall, LP IV (iii), 6075, art. 19.

26 LP IV (ii), no. 4921; (iii) no. 5607, discussed by Gwyn, , The King's Cardinal, pp. 464–9Google Scholar. See also LP IV (ii) no. 4920 for a discussion of Wolsey's request.

27 See Dickens, A. G., ‘A municipal dissolution of chantries in York, 1536’, in his Reformation studies (London, 1982)Google Scholar, also Hoyle, R. W., ‘The crisis in York's municipal finances in the 1530s’ (forthcoming).Google Scholar

28 Weston was allowed to enter the Grand Priorship on payment of £4,000. SirKing, Edwin and SirLake, Harry, The Knights of St John in the British realm (London, 1967), pp. 98–102.Google Scholar

29 For dissolution dates see Jack, S. M., ‘Dissolution dates for the monasteries dissolved under the act of 1536’, BIHR XLIII (1970).Google Scholar

30 Scarisbrick, J. J., ‘Henry VIII and the dissolution of the secular colleges’, in Cross, C., Loades, D. and Scarisbrick, J. J. (eds.), Law and government under the Tudors (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 63–6.Google Scholar

31 Woodward, G. W. O., ‘The exemption from suppression of certain Yorkshire priories’, EHR LXXVI (1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hallam[-Smith], E. M., ‘Henry VIII's monastic refoundations of 1536–7 and the course of the dissolution’, BIHR LI (1978)Google Scholar. There is some doubt about the number of houses dissolved in 1536–7: see below, p. 298.

32 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 204–5Google Scholar; see also below, p. 296.

33 Jack, S., ‘The last days of the smaller monasteries in England’, J[ournal of] E[cclesiastical] H[istory], XXI (1970), 124.Google Scholar

34 Lehmberg, S. E., The Reformation Parliament 1529–36 (Cambridge, 1970), ch. 5Google Scholar. The most recent account of the parliament's religious legislation is Swanson, R. N., ‘Problems of the priesthood in pre-reformation England’, EHR, CV (1990), 860–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar (although his discussion is necessarily inconclusive).

35 Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire, Select Roll 153. The original may be inspected through the Gloucestershire Record Office (who also have a microfilm). For the text of the manuscript see the appendix.

36 It is printed in Myers, A. R. (ed.), English historical documents, 1327–1485 (1969), pp. 668–70Google Scholar, in Hudson, A. (ed.), Selections from English Wycliffite writings (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 135–7Google Scholar, with commentary, pp. 203–7, and partly in Youings, , Dissolution, p. 135Google Scholar. The fullest discussion is Hudson, , Premature Reformation, pp. 114–15, 339–40.Google Scholar

37 A list of papers left over from the 1529 session includes as one of its items a copy of the 1410 petition, a curious thing to find in this context unless it is a copy of the manuscript under discussion. LP IV (iii) no. 6043 (3) (which I owe to Dr Bernard).

38 Henry VI's appearance in this context may seem peculiar, but Henry VIII, in his letter to the Yorkshire rebels, remembered his dissolution of monasteries towards the establishment of King's College, Cambridge, but stressed that he kept some lands for himself.

39 Statute 1 Henry VII c. 4.

40 Chapuys, though, retailed rumours that the king would raise large sums of money through the sale of church lands. Calendar State Papers Spanish, IV (i), 1529–30, p. 367: later in the same letter he speaks of the king's intention to bring forward a measure ‘to bleed the clergy’ (p. 371). In his letter to the Lincolnshire rebels in 1536, Henry rehearsed complaints by the Commons ‘in times past that most of the goods, lands and possessions of the realm were in spiritual men's hands’: this may be an oblique reference to 1529. LP XI 780 (2), printed State Papers, 1, 465 and Dodds, , Pilgrimage of Grace, I, 138.Google Scholar

41 ‘The Life of Fisher’, trans, by Bayne, R., Early English Text Soc., extra ser. CXVII (1921), 68–9Google Scholar. The ‘Life’ appears not to have received a modern critical discussion, but Scarisbrick takes it seriously; Scarisbrick, J. J., ‘Fisher, Henry VIII and the Reformation crisis’ in Bradshaw, B. and Duffy, E. eds., Humanism, reform and Reformation. The career of Bishop John Fisher (Cambridge, 1989), p. 158Google Scholar. A similar outburst is noted by Hall, E., The union of two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (ed. Ellis, H., 1809), p. 766Google Scholar. Fisher's outburst(s?) have never received the attention they deserved. Forty years ago Elton pointed out that ‘no one ever seems to have wondered why Fisher of all men should have let himself go in this fashion’ (Elton, , Studies, II, 120)Google Scholar. Now we know.

42 On one occasion the petition slips into the first person singular, 1. 81.

43 Baker, J. H., The Reports of Sir John Spelman (Selden Soc. XCIII–IV, 1978), II, 64–70Google Scholar; Guy, J. in Fox, A. and Guy, J. A., Reassessing the Henrician age (Oxford, 1986), pp. 165–8Google Scholar; compare Haigh, C., ‘Anticlericalism in the English Reformation’, in Haigh, (ed.), The English Reformation revisited (Cambridge, 1987), p. 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar (who views the common lawyers' motive as being a search for fees).

44 Dr MacCulloch has pointed out to me instances of gentlemen securing benefices without cure of souls in the 1530 for themselves, for instance Cromwell, dean of Wells from 1537.

45 LP IV (iii) no. 5749, printed by Guy, J. A., The public career of Sir Thomas More (Hassocks, 1980), app. 2.Google Scholar

46 Guy, , More, p. 107.Google Scholar

47 Ives has recently shown how some of Darcy's criticisms of Wolsey drawn up in July are carried forwards into the Lords' petition of 1 December. Ives, E. W., ‘The fall of Wolsey’, in Gunn, and Lindley, (eds.), Cardinal Wolsey, pp. 297–8.Google Scholar

48 LP IV (iii) no. 5749, pp. 2550–2, passim.

49 LP IV (iii) no. 5416 (letter of Cardinal Campeggio, 3 April), discussed by German Marc'hardour in Manley, F. and others (eds.), The complete works of St. Thomas More, VII (New Haven, 1990), pp. lxvii–ix.Google Scholar

50 Guy, , More, pp. 109–10Google Scholar. Gunn has reservations about Suffolk's alleged role: Gunn, S. J., Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, 1484–1545 (Oxford, 1988), p. 103.Google Scholar

51 I do not see the drafts against ecclesiastical jurisdiction which were adapted to form the Supplication of the Ordinaries arising from the petition. Elton has offered cogent reasons to persuade us that the earliest of these (his petitions A–C, described in Studies, II, 121–7) date from 1529 and I see no reason to doubt their force. But the drafts are at striking variance with the petition described here. An alternative explanation for them may be offered. We know that the City of London sought the opinions of the City companies as to the legislation it should advance in the 1529 session. The Mercers (and perhaps others) urged some action against the ordinaries. If this proposal was adopted by the City, might we assume that the drafts were drawn up by its counsel, including (perhaps) Cromwell? If this conjecture is accepted, the drafts are not government drafts at all (although they were, of course, drawn in a similar form).

52 Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament, ch. 5 and Guy, , More, pp. 112–15Google Scholar discuss the session. Hall, , The union…of Lancastre and Yorke, pp. 766–7.Google Scholar

53 ‘The life of Fisher’, pp. 71–2.Google Scholar

54 The suggestion that mortmain licences should be examined (and perhaps revoked) may explain why such licences disappear in the early 1530s. Kreider has suggested that the granting of licences was deliberately stopped, but one might equally ask who would want to obtain one when their validity and purpose had been challenged. Kreider, A., English chantries. The road to dissolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp. 82–5.Google Scholar

56 Starkey, D., ‘Court and government’, in Coleman, C. and Starkey, D. (eds.), Revolution reassessed (1986), p. 44Google Scholar. Dr Bernard has questioned the belief that the crown was hard up at this time. Whilst his argument is not (in my view) conclusive, it does reveal the very narrow basis of our understanding of the financial situation in those years. Bernard, G. W., ‘The pardon of the clergy reconsidered’, JEH, XXXVII (1986), 259–62.Google Scholar

56 ‘The life of Fisher’, p. 71.Google Scholar

57 BL, Cotton MS Cleo. E IV, fo. 212r (also cited above, p. 276).

58 LP VII, nos 14, 24, 144.

59 BL Cotton MS Titus B I, fo. 161r, printed in abstract, LP VI, no. 1381 (3). For the dating, see Lehmberg, , Reformation Parliament, p. 190n.Google Scholar

60 Ibid. p. 204.

61 It will be observed that the title of the manuscript links the ‘increase and augmentation’ of the royal estate with the ‘taking away of the excess which is the great cause of the abuses within the church’, a clear throwback to the cleansing notions of 1529.

62 Ellis, Steven G., Tudor Ireland, crown, community and the conflict of cultures, 1470–1603 (London, 1985), esp. p. 125Google Scholar; McCorristine, L., The revolt of Silken Thomas, a challenge to Henry VIII (Dublin, 1987).Google Scholar

63 Stone, , ‘Political programme’, pp. 9–11Google Scholar; Youings, Dissolution, app. 5.

64 Interestingly, a similar proposal for turning the religious and bishops into annuitants on stipends appears in the ‘Gybson’ proposals of 1537. Having argued the conventional line that the failings of the church arose from ‘the superabundance of riches and temporal possessions’, ‘Gybson’ then proposed that all bishops or archbishops ordained in the future should have 1,000 marks annually. The religious were to be confined to their convents to a life of contemplation, study and manual labour, receiving a stipend of 40s. per monk and 5 marks for each prior or abbot whilst their lands were placed in the hands of an hereditary lay warden, who was to allow the convent 1,000 marks annually for hospitality and other necessary provisions. Stone, , ‘Political programme’, pp. 13–15.Google Scholar

65 Heal, , Of prelates and princes, p. 104.Google Scholar

66 LP VII, no. 1356, Elton, , Studies, II, 76 n. 2.Google Scholar

67 LP VII, no. 1482 (i), and see also his account in (ii) (of 5 December).

68 Stone, , ‘Political programme’, 7Google Scholar; Elton, , Studies, II, 72–7Google Scholar. I am not persuaded that a standing army was meant; were these to be garrisons for Henry's new fortifications?

69 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 291Google Scholar; Youings, , Dissolution, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

70 Mayer, T. F., Thomas Starkey and the commonweal. Humanist politics and religion in the reign of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1989), p. 241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 221–3Google Scholar is the fullest account of the methods employed.

72 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 275–7.Google Scholar

73 Ibid. p. 278 and Youings, , Dissolution, pp. 38–9 summarize.Google Scholar

74 It appears that the visitors sent to Oxford and Cambridge in the autumn of 1535 were not instructed to search out moral lapses. This perhaps gives some idea of the government's intention towards the colleges. Logan, F. D., ‘The first royal visitation of the English universities, 1535’, EHR, CVI (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 302–3.Google Scholar

76 Hoyle, R. W., ‘Thomas Masters' narrative of the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Northern History, XXI (1985), 78Google Scholar (letter of 24 March 1537).

77 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 308–9Google Scholar; his app. VIII shows the grosser instances of such discrepancies.

78 LP X, no. 406.

79 The evidence for this point is uncertain and turns on a single unspecific letter; Lehmberg, , Reformation Parliament, p. 227Google Scholar; Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 292 n. 1.Google Scholar

80 The very limited evidence for the passage of the bill is retailed in Lehmberg, , Reformation Parliament, pp. 223–8Google Scholar. The unattributed chronicle of the reformation published by Professor Loades claims that Cromwell advised against proceeding by statute but the king was persuaded to do so by Audeley and Rich; it was they who drafted the dissolution statute and the statute establishing Augmentations. This writer also understood that the visitation materials were opened to the Commons. But it is not clear what evidence the writer drew upon. ‘A chronicle and defence of the English Reformation’, in Loades, D. (ed.), The papers of George Wyatt esq., Camden Soc. 4th ser. V (1968), 159–60.Google Scholar

81 Wright, T., Three chapters of letters relating to the suppression of monasteries, Camden Soc., old ser. XXVI (1843), 114.Google Scholar

82 Quoted in Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 204.Google Scholar

83 Statute 27 Henry VIII c. 28, conveniently abstracted in Youings, , Dissolution of the monasteries, pp. 155–9.Google Scholar

84 What the government wanted people to believe may further be seen from the preamble to a draft commission of aid for the commissioners. ‘Forasmuch as for the extirpation and avoiding of sin used as commonly as detestably within the most part of the petty monasteries of this our realm and the increase and augmentation of good religion which with an inward zeal we desire, it has been thought to us and the [e]states of our realm…expedient and necessary to dissolve and suppress so many of the same petty monasteries…as a means also to cause the great houses to have more vigilant respect and regard to their professions than they have had of many years used and accustomed…’. Public Record Office, E36/116, fo. 50r–v.

85 Statute 26 Henry VIII, c. 3.

86 Dodds, , Pilgrimage of Grace, I, 137.Google Scholar

87 Jack, , ‘Dissolution dates’, p. 161Google Scholar; Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 315–16.Google Scholar

88 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 315–19.Google Scholar

89 Lambeth Palace Library, Talbot MS P, fos. 21r–v (noticed in LP XII (i) no. 334); Youings, , Dissolution, p. 220Google Scholar (account of sums due but unpaid at the moment houses surrendered).

90 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 305.Google Scholar

91 Lambeth Palace Library, Talbot MS P, fo. 37 (poorly abstracted in LP XII (i) no. 352). MrsJack, offers no date for the dissolution, ‘Dissolution dates’, p. 172Google Scholar. The earl bought the house in the following year and had a licence to convert the church into a chantry to pray for the soul of the king and the earl. LP XIII (i) no. 1309 (12).

92 For the text of the statute, The statutes at large passed in the parliaments held in Dublin, 1310–1786 (Dublin, 1786), I, 127–32Google Scholar and see Bradshaw, B., The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1974), chs. 2–4.Google Scholar

93 Herrtage, S. J., England in the reign of Henry the Eighth, Early English Text Soc., extra ser. XXXII (1888), liv–lix.Google Scholar

94 31 Henry VIII c. 9. Dr Harriss has suggested to me that the Commons may have acceded to the statute at a moment when royal expenditure was very high, and so traded monasteries against a demand for additional subsidies.

95 Houses unamenable to pressure could have their lands seized by the indictment of their heads for treason.

96 Knowles, , Religious Orders, III, 332–3.Google Scholar

97 The authoritative study is Heal, Of prelates and princes, ch. 5.

98 Lehmberg, , Reformation Parliament, pp. 133–4, 137–8, 254–5.Google Scholar

99 See Ives, E. W., ‘The genesis of the Statute of Uses’, EHR LXXXII (1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Professor Guy has now shown that the desire to profit from uses can be traced back to 1526. Guy, J. A., Christopher St German on Chancery and Statute, Selden Soc. supp. ser. VI (1985), 78–9.Google Scholar

100 Kreider, , English chantries, pp. 168, 193–9.Google Scholar

a I.e. delight.

b I.e. vice.

c I.e. know.

d Pampered, petted.

e I.e. resume.

f I.e. against.

g The reference is to the Ordinatio de Libertatibus Perquirendis of 27 Edward I (Statutes of the Realm, I, 131), which provides for the issue of writs out of Chancery for the holding of inquisitions for religious houses who wished to amortize land.

h The reference here is to the confirmation of Magna Carta issued by Edward I in 1297 (Statutes of the Realm, I, 114–19), where cl. 36 forbids grants of land to religious houses which were then regranted to the grantee to be held of the house, and certain other forms of grants.

1 The writ ad quod damnum was sued out by religious bodies, etc. wishing to have a licence to buy lands contrary to the Statute of Mortmain, upon which an inquest would be held by the escheator of the county. For the procedure see Raban, S., Mortmain legislation and the English church, 1279–1500 (Cambridge, 1982), esp. pp. 40–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar