Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Part One The Tudor Scene
- Part Two The Gathering Storm
- Part Three Suppression and Dissolution
- Chap. XVI Before the Dissolution
- Chap. XVII The end of the Observants
- Chap. XVIII Syon
- Chap. XIX The London Charterhouse and its sister houses
- Chap. XX The economy of the monasteries in 1535
- Chap. XXI Servants, almsgiving and corrodians
- Chap. XXII The visitation of 1535–6
- Chap. XXIII The Act of Suppression and the case for the defence
- Chap. XXIV The dissolution of the lesser houses
- Chap. XXV The Northern Rising
- Chap. XXVI The last phase
- Chap. XXVII The attack on the greater houses
- Chap. XXVIII The suppression of the friars
- Chap. XXIX The cankered hearts
- Chap. XXX The transformation of the buildings
- Chap. XXXI The new cathedrals and colleges
- Chap. XXXII The disposal of the lands
- Chap. XXXIII The treatment of the dispossessed
- Part Four Reaction and Survival
- Appendix I Sir Thomas More's letter ‘to a monk’
- Appendix II Religious houses suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey
- Appendix III The witness of the Carthusians
- Appendix IV Houses with incomes exceeding £1000 in the Valor Ecclesiasticus
- Appendix V The sacrist of Beauvale
- Appendix VI Itinerary of the visitors, 1535–6
- Appendix VII The commissioners for the survey of the Lesser Houses in 1536
- Appendix VIII The conflict of evidence on the monasteries
- Appendix IX The last abbots of Colchester, Reading and Glastonbury
- Appendix X Regulars as bishops
- Bibliography
- Index
Chap. XXVI - The last phase
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Part One The Tudor Scene
- Part Two The Gathering Storm
- Part Three Suppression and Dissolution
- Chap. XVI Before the Dissolution
- Chap. XVII The end of the Observants
- Chap. XVIII Syon
- Chap. XIX The London Charterhouse and its sister houses
- Chap. XX The economy of the monasteries in 1535
- Chap. XXI Servants, almsgiving and corrodians
- Chap. XXII The visitation of 1535–6
- Chap. XXIII The Act of Suppression and the case for the defence
- Chap. XXIV The dissolution of the lesser houses
- Chap. XXV The Northern Rising
- Chap. XXVI The last phase
- Chap. XXVII The attack on the greater houses
- Chap. XXVIII The suppression of the friars
- Chap. XXIX The cankered hearts
- Chap. XXX The transformation of the buildings
- Chap. XXXI The new cathedrals and colleges
- Chap. XXXII The disposal of the lands
- Chap. XXXIII The treatment of the dispossessed
- Part Four Reaction and Survival
- Appendix I Sir Thomas More's letter ‘to a monk’
- Appendix II Religious houses suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey
- Appendix III The witness of the Carthusians
- Appendix IV Houses with incomes exceeding £1000 in the Valor Ecclesiasticus
- Appendix V The sacrist of Beauvale
- Appendix VI Itinerary of the visitors, 1535–6
- Appendix VII The commissioners for the survey of the Lesser Houses in 1536
- Appendix VIII The conflict of evidence on the monasteries
- Appendix IX The last abbots of Colchester, Reading and Glastonbury
- Appendix X Regulars as bishops
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
SOME WORCESTERSHIRE PRELATES
With the departure of the visitors in the autumn and winter of 1535–6 there began, for such of the monasteries as were not liable to suppression under the Act of 1536, a short period of three to four years that may truly be called the last phase of their existence. Though their ultimate fate was still uncertain, they could have had few illusions as to the change in their condition. Any hopes that the inmates may have cherished of permanent survival became more and more forlorn with every new political event; domestic authority was impaired; sincere and sensitive spirits must have been assailed by every kind of doubt and despondency, while the discontented, the selfish, the neurotic and the malicious had every opportunity for restlessness and for intrigue. The visitation, coming as the climax of a series of harassing demands, had shown conclusively, even brutally, that the royal supremacy was not a matter of words alone. Their independence, their freedom of manœuvre, was gone for ever. They could not take any serious decision or make any notable change in their arrangements without coming into immediate contact with a master who, besides being powerful and efficient, was also entirely wanting in any appreciation of religious or spiritual values. His visitors had dismissed a whole section of the community, and thrown the machinery of recruitment out of gear; they had imposed a number of restraints which, if observed literally, would have brought the economic and social life of the monastery to a standstill, if not to an explosion; they had made it possible for any discontented subject to delate his superior's words or acts to Cromwell, or to obtain complete or partial dispensation from his monastic obligations.
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- Information
- The Religious Orders in England , pp. 336 - 349Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1979