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The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, dissolved in the Dissolution.
Early
Joseph of Arimathea Legend of Christ in Britain Christianity in Roman Britain This article describes the archipelago in north-western Europe. ... Image File history File links Glastonburyabbey. ... View from the former location of the North transept in East direction to the choir. ... Joseph of Arimathea by Pietro Perugino. ... For other uses, see Glastonbury (disambiguation). ... Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between 43 and 410. ...
Post-Roman
Celtic Christianity Anglo-Saxon Christianity Celtic Christianity, or Insular Christianity (sometimes commonly called the Celtic Church) broadly refers to the Early Medieval Christian practice that developed around the Irish Sea in the fifth and sixth centuries: that is, among Celtic/British peoples such as the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx (the inhabitants of the British... The history of Christianity in England from the Roman departure to the Norman Conquest is often told as one of conflict between the Celtic Christianity spread by the Irish mission, and Roman Catholic Christianity brought across by Augustine of Canterbury. ...
Medieval
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Reformation
Wars of the Three Kingdoms Dissolution of the Monasteries Scottish Reformation The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in Scotland, Ireland, and England between 1639 and 1651 at a time when these countries had come under the Personal Rule of the same monarch. ... John Knox regarded as the leader of the Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was Scotlands formal break with the papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. ...
Post-Reformation
17th century English Civil War 18th century · 19th century Catholic Emancipation 1900-present For other uses, see English Civil War (disambiguation). ... Catholic Emancipation was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the Penal Laws. ... This box: view • talk • edit

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The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes also referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the formal process between 1538 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monastic communities in England, Wales and Ireland and confiscated their property. He was given the authority to do this by the Act of Supremacy, passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church in England, and by the First Suppression Act (1536) and the Second Suppression Act (1539). Photograph by Keith Edkins File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Dissolution or dissolvetiyny can have the following meanings: Dissolve (song), a song on Gusters album Parachute to crumble into a liquid. ... Henry VIII redirects here. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... This article is about the country. ... First Act of Supremacy 1534 The Act of Supremacy 1534 (26 Hen. ... The English parliament in front of the King, c. ...

Context

The Dissolution of the Monasteries did not take place in political isolation. Other movements against the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church had been under way for some time, most of them related to the Protestant Reformation in Continental Europe; however, the religious changes in England were of a different nature than those taking place in Germany, Bohemia, France and Geneva. Henry VIII's dispute with the Holy See was motivated by politics, not theology. Catholic Church redirects here. ... Reformation redirects here. ... Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands and, at times, peninsulas. ... Flag of Bohemia Bohemia (Czech: ; German: ) is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic. ... Geneva (pronunciation //; French: Genève //, German:   //, Italian: Ginevra //, Romansh: Genevra) is the second most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich), and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). ...

The resulting changes initially changed nothing in England's churches. Protestant innovations seen in the Ten Articles were reversed when Henry VIII expressed the church's continued orthodoxy with the Six Articles of 1539, which remained in effect until after his death. Cardinal Wolsey had obtained from the Pope a Papal Bull authorizing some limited reforms in the English Church as early as 1518. The Ten Articles were published in 1536 by Thomas Cranmer. ... The Six Articles of 1539 (short title ), also called the Bloody Statute and the Bloody Whip with Six Strings, was an Act of Parliament which reaffirmed Henry VIIIs general Catholicism. ... Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Pope (from Latin... A Papal bull is a particular type of patent or charter issued by a pope. ...

Under Henry VIII, acts allegedly reforming certain abusive practices in the Church were passed in November 1529. They set caps on fees for probating wills and mortuary expenses for burial on hallowed ground, tightened regulations covering rights of sanctuary for felons and murderers, and reduced to four the number of church offices to be held by one man. These were less forms of "religious reformation" than they were ways of establishing royal jurisdiction over the Church. Ajax prepares to violate the sanctuary of Athena by abducting Cassandra by force: red-figure vase, c. ...

The resulting changes were essentially a form of "State Catholicism". Nevertheless, resistance among the pro-Roman ecclesiastics was stiff, and was supported by Reginald Pole. Henry VIII originally offered Pole the position of Archbishop of York or Bishop of Winchester if he would support his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Pole withheld his support and went into self-imposed exile to France and Italy in 1532, where he continued his studies in Padua and Paris. Reginald Pole, cardinal Reginald Pole (1500 - 1558) Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, was the son of Margaret Pole who was the daughter of George, Duke of Clarence. ... Arms of the Archbishop of York The Archbishop of York, Primate of England, is the metropolitan bishop of the Province of York, and is the junior of the two archbishops of the Church of England, after the Archbishop of Canterbury. ... Arms of the Bishop of Winchester The diocese of Winchester is one of the oldest and most important in England. ... Katherine of Aragon (Alcalá de Henares, 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536), Castilian Infanta Catalina de Aragón y Castilla, also known popularly after her time as Catherine of Aragon, was the first wife and Queen Consort of Henry VIII of England. ... Padua, Italy, (Italian: IPA: , Latin: Patavium, Venetian: ) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, the economic and communications hub of the region. ... This article is about the capital of France. ...

English precedents

Visitation of a monastery

By the time Henry VIII launched his campaign against the monasteries, royal confiscations of the property of religious houses had a history stretching back more than 200 years. The first case was that of the so-called 'Alien Priories'. As a result of the Norman Conquest many French abbeys had substantial property and dependent daughter monasteries in England. Some of these were merely agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise things, others were rich foundations in their own right (i.e. Lewes Priory which was a daughter of Cluny and answered to the abbot of that great French house). Due to the fairly constant state of war between England and France in the later middle ages successive English governments had objected to money going overseas to France from these Alien Priories ('trading with the enemy') from whence the French king might get hold of it, and to foreign prelates having jurisdiction over English monasteries. The king's officers first sequestrated the assets of the Alien Priories in 1295-1303 under Edward I, and the same thing happened repeatedly for long periods over the course of the Fourteenth Century, most particularly in the reign of Edward III. Those Alien Priories that had functioning communities were forced to pay large sums to the king, while those that were mere estates were confiscated and run by royal officers, the proceeds going to the king's pocket. Such estates were a valuable source of income for the crown. Some of the Alien Priories were allowed to become naturalised (for instance Castle Acre Priory), on payment of heavy fines and bribes, but for the rest their fates were sealed when Henry V dissolved them by act of Parliament in 1414. The properties went to the crown; some were kept, some were subsequently given or sold to Henry's supporters, others went to his new monasteries of Syon Abbey and the Carthusians at Sheen Priory and yet others went to educational purposes, a trend Henry's son Henry VI continued with his donations to, for example, Eton College. contemporary drawing of one of cromwells visitors leaving a monastery, believed to be colchester abbey, after sacking it and hanging its abbot This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... contemporary drawing of one of cromwells visitors leaving a monastery, believed to be colchester abbey, after sacking it and hanging its abbot This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Bayeux Tapestry depicting events leading to the Battle of Hastings The Norman Conquest of England was the conquest of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy), in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings and the subsequent Norman control of England. ... Lewes Priory was a Cluniac priory established in the valley of the river Ouse in the eleventh century. ... Cluny nowadays The town of Cluny or Clugny lies in the modern-day département of Saône-et-Loire in the région of France, near Mâcon. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Edward I (17 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), popularly known as Longshanks[1], also as Edward the Lawgiver or the English Justinian because of his legal reforms, and as Hammer of the Scots,[2] achieved fame as the monarch who conquered Wales and tried to do the same to Scotland. ... This article is about the King of England. ... Castle Acre Priory, in the village of Castle Acre, Norfolk, is thought to have been founded in 1089 by William de Warenne the son the 1st. ... Henry V of England (16 September 1387 – 31 August 1422) was one of the great English warrior kings of the Middle Ages. ... Syon Abbey, (or Sion Abbey) was a major mediæval monastery of the Bridgettine Order in the late Gothic or Perpendicular style (with alterations to meet the needs of this very distinctive order), its major site bordering Brentford and Isleworth, Middlesex, England. ... A Carthusian Monastery in Jerez, Spain The Carthusians are a Christian religious order founded by St Bruno in 1084. ... Richmond Priory also known as the Priory of Sheen was a Carthusian monastery, at Richmond, Surrey, England. ... Henry VI (December 6, 1421 – May 21, 1471) was King of England from 1422 to 1461 (though with a Regent until 1437) and then from 1470 to 1471, and King of France from 1422 to 1453. ... The Kings College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor, commonly known as Eton College or just Eton, is a public school (privately funded and independent) for boys, founded in 1440 by King Henry VI. It is located in Eton, near Windsor in England, north of Windsor Castle, and...

The royal transfer of monastic estates to educational foundations proved an inspiration to the bishops, and as the Fifteenth Century waned such moves became more and more common. The victims of these dissolutions were usually small and poor Benedictine or Augustinian men's houses or poor nunneries with few friends, the great abbeys and orders exempt from diocesan supervision such as the Cistercians were unaffected. The beneficiaries were most often Oxford University and Cambridge University colleges, instances of this include John Alcock, Bishop of Ely dissolving the Benedictine nunnery of Saint Radegund to found Jesus College, Cambridge(1496), and William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester acquiring Selborne Priory in 1484 for Magdalen College, Oxford. In the following century Lady Margaret Beaufort got hold of Creake Abbey (whose population had all died of Black Death in 1506) to fund her works at Oxford and Cambridge, an action she took on the advice of such a staunch traditionalist as John Fisher Bishop of Rochester. In 1522 Fisher himself is also found dissolving the nunneries of Bromhall and Higham to aid St John's College, Cambridge. That same year Cardinal Wolsey dissolved St Frideswide's Priory (now Oxford Cathedral) to form the basis of his Christ Church College, Oxford; in 1524 he secured a Papal bull to dissolve some 20 other monasteries to provide an endowment for his new college. For the college, see Benedictine College. ... The Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo (died AD 430), are several Roman Catholic monastic orders and congregations of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of Saint Augustine. ... Cistercians coat of arms The Order of Cistercians (OCist) (Latin: ), otherwise White Monks (from the colour of the habit, over which a black scapular or apron is sometimes worn) is a Roman Catholic order of enclosed monks. ... This article is about the city of Oxford in England. ... This article is about the city in England. ... There have been several well-known people named John Alcock, including: John Alcock (aviator) John Alcock (bishop) John Alcock (composer) John Alcock (producer) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Arms of the Bishop of Ely The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. ... Church of St Radegund, Grayingham, England Radegund was born to King Berthar, one of the three kings of Thuringia (a kingdom located in present day Germany), some time in the first half of the 6th century. ... College name The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge Named after The Virgin Mary Saint John the Evangelist Saint Radegund Jesus Lane and Jesus Parish Established 1496 Location Jesus Lane Admittance Men and women Master Prof. ... William Waynflete (1395 - 1486), English Lord Chancellor and bishop of Winchester, was the son of Richard Pattene or Patyn, alias Barbour, of Wainfleet, Lincolnshire ( Reg, f. ... Arms of the Bishop of Winchester The diocese of Winchester is one of the oldest and most important in England. ... College name Magdalen College Latin name Collegium Beatae Mariae Magdalenae Named after Mary Magdalene Established 1458 Sister college Magdalene College, Cambridge President Professor David Clary FRS JCR President Jessica Jones Undergraduates 395 MCR President Eloise Scotford Graduates 230 Location of Magdalen College within central Oxford , Homepage Boatclub Magdalen College (pronounced... Margaret Beaufort, Mother of Henry VII, at prayer, by an anonymous artist, about 1500 Margaret Beaufort (May 31, 1443 – June 29, 1509) was the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, granddaughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt and his mistress... This article concerns the mid fourteenth century pandemic. ... For other persons named John Fisher, see John Fisher (disambiguation). ... College name The College of Saint John the Evangelist of the University of Cambridge Motto Souvent me Souvient (Latin: I often remember) Named after The Hospital of Saint John the Evangelist Established 1511 Location St. ... The priory of St Frideswide, Oxford was established as a priory of Augustinian regular canons, in 1122. ... Christ Church (in full: The Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry VIII) is one of the largest and wealthiest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Christ Church (in full: The Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry VIII) is one of the largest and wealthiest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... A Papal bull is a particular type of patent or charter issued by a pope. ...

European precedents

While these transactions were going on in England, elsewhere in Europe events were taking place which presaged a storm. In 1521, Martin Luther had published 'De votis monasticis' (Latin: 'On the monastic vows'), a treatise which declared that the monastic life had no scriptural basis, was pointless and also actively immoral in that it was not compatible with the true spirit of Christianity. Luther also declared that monastic vows were meaningless and that no one should feel bound by them. These views had an immediate effect: a special meeting of German members of the Augustinian Friars, (of which Luther was part) held the same year accepted them and voted that henceforth every member of the regular clergy should be free to renounce their vows and resign. At Luther's home monastery in Wittenberg all but one man did so at once. For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... Detail of St. ... Statue of Martin Luther in the main square Wittenberg, officially [Die] Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a town in Germany, in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, at 12° 59 E, 51° 51 N, on the Elbe river. ...

News of these events did not take long to spread among reform-minded - and acquisitive - rulers across Europe, and some, particularly in Scandinavia, took action. In Sweden in 1527 King Gustavus Vasa secured an edict of the Diet to allow him to confiscate any monastic lands he deemed necessary to increase the royal revenues, and also to force the return of some properties to the descendents of those who had originally given them. This plan enriched the king greatly and soon deprived the Swedish religious houses of their means of economic support, with the result that some collapsed immediately while others lingered for a few decades before fading away by about 1580. In Denmark, King Frederick I of Denmark made his move in 1528, confiscating 15 of the houses of the extremely wealthy and unpopular friars. Further laws under his successor over the course of the 1530s banned the friars and allowed monks and nuns to abandon their houses to the crown, which was soon gathering in the former abbey lands. Danish monastic life was to gradually vanish in a similar way to that of Sweden. Gustav I of Sweden, commonly known as Gustav Vasa, but originally known as Gustav Eriksson (May 12, 1496 – September 29, 1560) was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death. ... King Frederick I. Frederick I of Denmark and Norway (October 7, 1471 – April 10, 1533) was the son of the first Oldenburg King Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1426-1481) and of Dorothea of Brandenburg (1430-1495). ...

In Switzerland, too, monasteries were under threat. In 1523 the government of the city-state of Zurich allowed nuns to marry if they wished, and followed up the following year by dissolving all monasteries in its territory and using their revenues to fund education and help the poor. The former inhabitants were offered help with learning a trade for their new secular lives and granted pensions. The city of Basel followed suit in 1529 and Geneva adopted the same policy in 1530. An attempt was also made in 1530 to dissolve the famous Abbey of St. Gall, which was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in its own right, but this ultimately failed and St Gall survived. Location within Switzerland   Zürich[?] (German pronunciation IPA: ; usually spelled Zurich in English) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 366,145 in 2004; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ... For other uses, see Basel (disambiguation). ... Geneva (pronunciation //; French: Genève //, German:   //, Italian: Ginevra //, Romansh: Genevra) is the second most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich), and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). ... The Abbey of St. ... This article is about the medieval empire. ...

It is unlikely that these moves went un-noticed by the English government and particularly by Thomas Cromwell, shortly to become Henry VIII's chief minister and to promise to make his sovereign wealthier than any previous English monarch.

Process

Henry had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church in England in February 1531. In April 1533 an Act in Restraint of Appeals eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any spiritual or financial matter. The Supreme Head of the Church of England was a title held by the King Henry VIII of England that signified his leadership over the Church of England. ... The Statute in Restraint of Appeals (citation ) was an English parliamentary Act of 1533, considered by many historians to be the key legal foundation of the English Reformation. ...

In 1534 Henry had Parliament authorize Thomas Cromwell, to "visit" all the monasteries (which included all abbeys, priories and convents), ostensibly to make sure their members were instructed in the new rules for their supervision by the King instead of the Pope, but actually to inventory their assets (see Valor Ecclesiasticus). A few months later, in January 1535 when the consternation at having a lay visitation instead of a bishop's had settled down, Cromwell's visitation authority was delegated to a commission of laymen including Layton, Pollard and Moyle. This phase is termed the "Visitation of the Monasteries." The English parliament in front of the King, c. ... Thomas Cromwell: detail from a portrait by Hans Holbein, 1532-3 Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex ( 1485 - July 28, 1540) was an English statesman, one of the most important political figures of the reign of Henry VIII of England. ... A canonical visitation is the act of an ecclesiastical superior who in the discharge of his office visits persons or places with a view of maintaining faith and discipline, and of correcting abuses by the application of proper remedies. ... Buddhist monastery near Tibet A monastery is the habitation of monks. ... Bold textTHIS IS THE PAGE THAT A.S. REALLY NEEDS!! THIS IS NOW MARKED!!! ] ps i like A.O. This article is about an abbey as a Christian monastic community. ... A priory is an ecclesiastical circumscription run by a prior. ... A Beguine convent in Amsterdam. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Pope (from Latin... The Valor Ecclesiasticus (Latin: church valuation) was a survey of the finances of the church in England, Wales and English controlled parts of Ireland made in 1535 on the orders of Henry VIII. In 1534 King Henry broke with the Pope and by the Act of Supremacy made himself the... Moyle District Council is a Local Council in County Antrim in the north-east corner of Northern Ireland. ...

In the summer of that year, the visitors started their work, and "preachers" and "railers" were sent to deliver sermons from the pulpits of the churches on three themes:

• The monks and nuns in the monasteries were sinful "hypocrites" and "sorcerers" who were living lives of luxury and engaging in every kind of sin;
• Those monks and nuns were sponging off the working people and giving nothing back and, thus, were a serious drain on England's economy;
• If the King received all the property of the monasteries, he would never again need taxes from the people.

Meanwhile, during the autumn of 1535, the visiting commissioners were sending back to Cromwell written reports of all the scandalous doings they said they were discovering, sexual as well as financial. A law that Parliament enacted in early 1536, relying in large part on the reports of impropriety Cromwell had received, provided for the King to take all the monasteries with annual incomes of less than £200, and that was done: the smaller, less influential houses were emptied, their few inhabitants pensioned and their property confiscated. Monastic life had already been in decline. By 1536, the thirteen Cistercian houses in Wales had only 85 monks among them. Their reputation for misbehaviour was likely overstated, however. For other uses, see Monk (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Nun (disambiguation). ... Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, virtues and feelings that one does not truly possess. ... John Dee and Edward Kelley evoking a spirit: Elizabethans who claimed magical knowledge A magician is a person skilled in the mysterious and hidden art of magic, which can be described as either the act of entertaining with tricks that are in apparent violation of natural law, such as those... The Order of Cistercians (OCist) (Latin Cistercenses), otherwise Gimey or White Monks (from the colour of the habit, over which is worn a black scapular or apron) are a Catholic order of monks. ...

These moves did not raise as much capital as had been expected, even after the king re-chartered some of the confiscated monasteries and confiscated them again. In April 1539 a new Parliament passed a law giving the King the rest of the monasteries in England. Some of the abbots resisted, and that autumn the abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury, and Reading were executed for treason. (The Carthusian priors of Beauvale, London, and Axholme, had been executed in 1535 for refusal to recognize Henry's Act of Supremacy.) St. Benet's Abbey in Norfolk was the only abbey in England which escaped dissolution. For other uses, see Abbot (disambiguation). ... This article is about the town in England. ... View from the former location of the North transept in East direction to the choir. ... Reading Abbey Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in Reading, Berkshire, founded by Henry I in 1121 for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors. // History... For other uses, see Treason (disambiguation) or Traitor (disambiguation). ... St. ... Norfolk (IPA: //) is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England. ...

The other abbots signed their abbeys over to the King. Some of the confiscated church buildings were destroyed by having the valuable lead removed from roofs and stone reused for secular buildings. Some of the smaller Benedictine houses were taken over as parish churches, and were even bought for the purpose by wealthy parishes. The tradition that there was widespread destruction and iconoclasm, that altars and windows were smashed, partly confuses the damage done in the 1530s with the greater damage wreaked by the Puritans in the next century. Relics were discarded and pilgrimages discouraged, however. Places like Glastonbury, Walsingham, Bury St Edmunds, Shaftesbury and Canterbury, which had thrived on the pilgrim trade, suffered setbacks. For the college, see Benedictine College. ... Statues in the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht, attacked in Reformation iconoclasm in the 16th century. ... Look up Altar in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Window (disambiguation). ... The Puritans were members of a group of radical Protestants which developed in England after the Reformation. ... A relic is an object, especially a piece of the body or a personal item of someone of religious significance, carefully preserved with an air of veneration as a tangible memorial, Relics are an important aspect of Buddhism, some denominations of Christianity, Hinduism, shamanism, and many other personal belief systems. ... This article is about the religious or spiritual journey. ... For other uses, see Glastonbury (disambiguation). ... Seal of the Medieval Shrine The Anglican National Procession to Walsingham proceeds through the ruined abbey, May 2003. ... , Bury St Edmunds is a town in the county of Suffolk, England, and was formerly the county town of West Suffolk. ... For other uses, see Shaftesbury (disambiguation) Shaftesbury is a town in North Dorset, England, situated on the A30 road near the Wiltshire border 20 miles west of Salisbury. ... Canterbury is a cathedral city in east Kent in South East England and is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of All England, head of the Church of England and of the worldwide Anglican Communion. ...

Henry needed more money; so many of the abbeys now in his possession were resold to the new Tudor gentry, aligning them as a class more firmly to the new Protestant settlement. Allegory of the Tudor dynasty (detail), attributed to Lucas de Heere, c. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ...

Consequences

Ruins of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire

The abbeys of England, Wales and Ireland had been among the greatest landowners and the largest institutions in the kingdom. Particularly in areas far from London, the abbeys were among the principal centres of hospitality, learning, patronage of craftspeople and sources of charity and medical care. The removal of over eight hundred such institutions virtually overnight left many gaps. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1405x1896, 636 KB) Photo of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, England. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1405x1896, 636 KB) Photo of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, England. ... Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, England, is a ruined Cistercian monastery, founded in 1132. ... Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England. ...

It is unlikely that the monastic system could have been broken simply by royal action, if there had not been a strong feeling of resentment against the church amongst the gentry and the mercantile population. Anti-clericalism was a familiar feature of late-medieval Europe, producing its own strain of satiric literature that was aimed at a literate middle class.^[1] This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious (generally Catholic) institutional power and influence, real or imagined[1], in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. ...

The related destruction of the monastic libraries was one of the greatest cultural losses caused by the English Reformation. Worcester Priory (now Worcester Cathedral) had 600 books at the time of the dissolution. Only six of them have survived intact to the present day. At the abbey of the Augustinian Friars at York, a library of 646 volumes was destroyed, leaving only three surviving books. Some books were destroyed for their precious bindings, others were sold off by the cartload, including irreplaceable early English works. It is believed that many of the earliest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were lost at this time. Julio Pérez Ferrero Library - Cúcuta, Colombia A modern-style library in Chambéry A library is a collection of information, sources, resources, and services: it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. ... A plan of Worcester Cathedral made in 1836. ... Old English redirects here. ...

Monastic hospitals were also lost, with serious consequences locally. Monasteries had also supplied charitable food and alms for the poor and destitute in hard times. The removal of this resource was one of the factors in the creation of the army of "sturdy beggars" that plagued late Tudor England, causing the social instability that led to the Edwardian and Elizabethan Poor Laws. In addition, monastic landlords were generally considered to be more lax and easy-going than the new aristocrats who replaced them, demanding higher rents and greater productivity from their tenants. The Poor Law was the system for the provision of social security in operation in England and the United Kingdom from the 16th century until the establishment of the Welfare State in the 20th century. ...

More generally, the suppression of the English monasteries and nunneries contributed as well to the overall decline in attention to contemplative spiritual practices in Protestant Europe in subsequent centuries, with the relatively rare exceptions of groups like the Society of Friends ("Quakers"). Quaker redirects here. ...

The destruction of the monastic institutions was unpopular in some areas. In the north of England, centering on Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, the suppression of the monasteries led to a popular rising, the Pilgrimage of Grace, that threatened the crown for some weeks. The demand for the restoration of some monasteries resurfaced later, in the West Country Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549. Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England. ... For other places with the same name, see Lincolnshire (disambiguation). ... The Pilgrimage of Grace was a popular rising in Northern England in 1536, in protest against Englands break with Rome and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, as well as other specific political, social and economic grievances. ... The Prayer Book Rebellion or Western Rebellion occurred in the southwest of England in 1549. ...

Many of the dismantled monasteries and friaries were sold for nominal amounts (often to the local aristocrats and merchants), and some of the lands the King gave to his supporters; there were also pensions to be paid to some of the dispossessed clerics. Many others continued to serve the parishes. Although the total value of the confiscated property has been calculated to have been £200,000 at the time, the actual amount of income King Henry received from it from 1536 through 1547 averaged only £37,000 per year, about one fifth of what the monks had derived from it.

In 1536 there were major popular risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and, a further rising in Norfolk the following year. Rumours were spread that the King was going to strip the parish churches too, and even tax cattle and sheep. The rebels called for an end to the dissolution of the monasteries, for the removal of Cromwell, and for Henry's daughter, and eldest child, the Catholic Mary to be named as successor in place of his younger son Edward. Henry defused the movement with promises, and then summarily executed some of the leaders. For other places with the same name, see Lincolnshire (disambiguation). ... Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England. ... Norfolk (IPA: //) is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England. ... Thomas Cromwell: detail from a portrait by Hans Holbein, 1532-3 Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex ( 1485 - July 28, 1540) was an English statesman, one of the most important political figures of the reign of Henry VIII of England. ... Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 6 July 1553 (de facto) or 19 July 1553 (de jure) until her death on 17 November 1558. ... Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) became King of England, King of France (in practice only the town and surrounding district of Calais) and Edward I of Ireland on 28 January 1547, and crowned on 20 February, at just nine years of age. ...

See also

• The earlier dissolution of the Knights Templar
• List of monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII of England
• Little Jack Horner, a children's rhyme allegedly based on the episode.
• Religion in the United Kingdom
• The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc

For other uses, see Knights Templar (disambiguation). ... These monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII of England in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. ... William Wallace Denslows illustrations for Little Jack Horner, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose Little Jack Horner is a nursery rhyme. ... St Pauls Cathedral The United Kingdom is traditionally a Christian state, though of the four constituent countries, only England still has a state faith in the form of an established church. ... The Servile State is a book written by Hilaire Belloc in 1912 about economics. ... Photograph of Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. ...

References

• Geoffrey Baskerville, English Monks and the Suppression of the Monasteries (1937)
• Brendan Bradshaw, The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (1974)
• Howard Colvin, The History of the King's Works
• J.C.K. Cornwall, Wealth and Society in Early Sixteenth-Century England (Cambridge 1988)
• A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation ((2nd ed. London 1989)
• Eamon Duffy (1992). The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580. Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-06076-9. An interpretation radically different from that contained in this article. Duffy maintains that Henry VIII's reformation was in many ways a radical Protestant reformation, that Mary I's attempt to restore Catholicism was a Counter-Reformation effort and that her form of Catholicism was considerably different from that which Henry VIII had swept away.
• F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (8th ed. London 1925)
• C. Haigh, The Last Days of the Lancashire Monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace (1969)
• ——, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge 1975)
• David Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, vol III (1959)
• H. F. M. Prescott (1952). The Man on a Donkey. A finely researched novel, set in the form of a chronicle, of Henry VIII's dissolution of monasteries and the answering rebellion in the North, the Pilgrimage of Grace
• A. Savine, English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution (Oxford 1909)
• J. Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1971)

Sir Howard Montagu Colvin is the author of A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 ISBN 0300072074 published the Yale University Press in 1997. ... A. G. Dickens was a English academic and author. ... Eamon Duffy is an Irish Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College. ... The Stripping of the Altars is a work of history written by Eamon Duffy and published in 1992 by Yale University Press. ... His Eminence Francis Aidan Cardinal Gasquet, O.S.B. (1846–1929) was an English Benedictine monk and historical scholar. ... David Knowles (Studley, Warwickshire 1896-1974) was an English Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey and historian. ... Hilda Francis Margaret Prescott (1896 - 1972) H F M Prescott, FRSL, author, academic and historian, was born Feb 22, 1896, the daughter of Rev James Mulleneux Prescott and Margaret Prescott (nee Warburton). ... The Pilgrimage of Grace was a popular rising in Northern England in 1536, in protest against Englands break with Rome and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, as well as other specific political, social and economic grievances. ...

External links

• Dissolution of the Monasteries
• BBC Timeline: Tudors
• BBC History: English Reformation
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Suppression of English Monasteries