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DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES - Coggle Diagram
DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES
CAUSES
THE 'IMPERIAL' IDEA - monasteries owing an allegiance to institutions outside England was unacceptable to Henry, especially after the Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome and the Act of Supremacy. Evidence of Henry's growing sense of xenophobia.
END TO OPPONENTS OF THE BREAK WITH ROME - some of the most vociferous opponents of recent legislation had come from monastic houses, especially the Franciscans and Carthusians.
PATRONAGE & GREED - following 1536 Act, laity gained an increasing appetite for land. Even Catholics like Norfolk were quick to cash in on sales of monastic land. Served a useful political purpose for Henry by pacifying potential critics of his break with Rome.
CONTINENTAL INFLUENCE - religious houses were being dissolved in Germany and Scandinavia, giving a model of what was possible in England. The ideas of Erasmus, Tyndale and Fish, criticising monastic life, were gaining currency.
FINANCIAL MOTIVES - financial resources of the Church were huge. Clear concern about the possibility of a Catholic crusade. Larger monasteries had incomes of over £1000 per annum, could be used for fortifications of the south coast. Money from the Church gave Cromwell the chance to free Henry from the need to impose taxation again. A.G. Dickens - Cromwell's chief aim was to 'endow the Crown in perpetuity'.
VISITATION & THE COMPERTA MONASTICA
Handpicked because able and ambitious, supported reformist agenda. Expressed doubts about value and quality of monastic vocation. Rhys and Vaughan were especially dismissive of relics, pilgrimages and miraculous tokens.
The commissioners were instructed to record whether or not monasteries were complying with Oath of Supremacy and detail any alleged offences against the Crown.
Much of the work done in compiling the Comperta Monastica was carried out by some of Cromwell's most trusted servants - Thomas Legh, Richard Layton, John ap Rhys, John Tregonwell and John Vaughan.
Comperta Monastica - a book compiled by Cromwell's agents which contained lists of transgressions and abuses admitted by monks and nuns.
In 1535, Cromwell began exercising powers as king's vicegerent. First objective was to assess state of monasteries, assembled team of agents entrusted with task of visiting vast majority of nations' religious houses.
VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS, 1535
Every parish and monastic institution in England and Wales was visited. As a result of their work the govt gained a solid understanding of the scale of the wealth of the church and of monasteries in particular.
Net annual income of the church was put at between £320,000 and £360,000 when omissions are taken into account, £103 million to £122 million in today's value.
Valor valued taxes paid to Crown from ecclesiastical property and income that had previously been paid to the Pope, work of the Valor was undertaken by local gentry.
Represented Cromwell's most ambitious project. Greatest survey of ecclesiastical wealth and property ever undertaken, has been described as a kind of Tudor Domesday Book.
IMPACT
This misapplication of funds, fraud and clerical corruption were highlighted by Cromwell, who managed to convince the initially sceptical king of the necessity and value of the dissolution.
Tales of widespread immorality and sexual perversion contained in Comperta.
Cromwell was able to demonstrate the bankruptcy of monasticism by revealing that, in spite of the considerable income enjoyed by the religious orders, only 3% was regularly allocated to charitable works.
To help ensure that the reports compiled by his agents would be believed, Cromwell was able to provide the signed confessions of monks and nuns who'd admitted breaking their vows of chastisy.
Valor provided a list o itemised expenditures as well as income, which Cromwell manipulated and then used to show evidence of widespread corruption.
The more lurid tales dealt on stories of monks taking part in homosexual practices and nuns who had borne children.
Valor and Comperta provided the ammunition for those determined to close the monasteries.
MONASTERIES
Benedictines - largest of monks & nuns, probably richest.
Centres of arts and learning, monks produced illuminated texts using gold, as well as carvings, music and paintings.
Cistercians - breakaway movement from Benedictines, aimed for a simpler life, famous for sheep farming.
Monks said prayers or masses for the souls of the dead to ease their path through purgatory - Henry VI had 10,000 masses said for his soul in the month after his death.
Carthusians - strictest.
Central to the lives of both the rich and the poor.
Dominicans or Black Friars.
Carmelites or White Friars.
Franciscans or Grey Friars.
In the early 1500s there were at least 825 religious houses in England and Wales, over 500 were monasteries.