The Dissolution of the Monasteries
In 1535 there were over 800 monastic sites in England, Wales and Ireland. A decade later there were none left in England and Wales, and the last Irish sites disappeared soon after. These events are known as the dissolution of the monasteries, but what happened?
The major figure in the dissolution of the monasteries is Henry VIII. Royal intervention in monastic affairs was nothing new, but never before had anything happened on this scale. Early in his reign Henry had appeared to be a model Catholic, whilst in Europe the first seeds of reform were being sown. Many felt that the Catholic Church was too rich, powerful and corrupt, and had drifted away from what it originally stood for. A reformer in Germany, Martin Luther, had already outlined his issues with the church, but these early idealists risked being excommunicated (which meant you would go straight to hell) and being charged with heresy. Henry soon changed his tune however, when the pope refused to grant him a divorce. This was a concept completely alien to the church, but Henry thought that as monarch, the Pope should grant him special dispensation. When the pope refused, Henry divorced anyway, and began forming a new Church of England, independent of the Pope in Rome and with Henry as its head. Now he could grant himself a divorce whenever he wished, and better still the Pope had no influence over Henry’s subjects.
But how did this affect the monasteries? They remained the most loyal supporters of the Pope and the Catholic Church, and they were also some of the richest and most influential organizations in the country. If Henry could only break their power and take their money, he could complete the reformation.
In 1534, Henry was proclaimed head of the Church of England. Around this time, he ordered his chief minister Thomas Cromwell to organise investigations into the monastic houses. In the hundreds of years since they had been founded, many of the monasteries had become somewhat lax in following their rules, and Henry hoped to find that they were engaging in all sorts of inappropriate and heretical activities. Despite the fact that all was not in order in many monasteries and it was clear some reform was needed, the inspectors knew Henry wanted them closed, and so the reports became greatly embellished in order to condemn these houses.
In 1536, Henry began closing the monasteries. The small houses (those with an income of £200 or less) were the first to go. In the same year there was an uprising against the reformation, known as the pilgrimage of grace, which originated in the north. Henry promised to investigate the claim of the ‘pilgrims’, but in reality he was simply playing for time and it was quickly put down and the leaders executed.
This simply sped up the dissolution. Now the large houses were under threat. Cromwell’s commissioners either convinced them to close and the monks and abbots were given pensions, some of which were quite generous, or the monasteries were closed with the threat of force. One by one the monasteries fell. The great bulk of their wealth passed to the king, he in turn gave many of their lands to his loyal supporters. Some buildings continued in use as parish churches, but many more were torn down.
In the space of a few years Henry had destroyed a huge amount of religious houses, some stretching back to Saxon times. A way of life had been effectively extinguished forever.