Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Part One The Tudor Scene
- Part Two The Gathering Storm
- Chap. XI Erasmus
- Chap. XII Reform and suppression under Wolsey
- Chap. XIII European precedents
- Chap. XIV Acceptance of the royal supremacy
- Chap. XV Elizabeth Barton
- Part Three Suppression and Dissolution
- 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. XIII - European precedents
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
- Chap. XI Erasmus
- Chap. XII Reform and suppression under Wolsey
- Chap. XIII European precedents
- Chap. XIV Acceptance of the royal supremacy
- Chap. XV Elizabeth Barton
- Part Three Suppression and Dissolution
- 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
English historians in the past, and indeed all writers who have touched upon the subject, have tended to treat the suppression of the English and Welsh monasteries as a purely domestic affair, conducted in an insulated area, and brought about solely by causes to be found in the remote or immediate past history of the country. This may be, on a wide view, a true judgment. It is, however, possible that recent writings and events in other countries of Europe had their effect upon English opinion and royal policy: books, travellers and diplomatic agents kept government in touch with the foreign scene. In any case, the suppression of the religious life in England loses all historical context unless it is seen as an act in a great drama that was being played all over Europe.
We have seen in the preceding chapter how pervasive were the raillery and criticism of Erasmus, at first in humanistic circles only, but later among all those of the New Learning, until finally the Erasmian strictures on the religious life became part of the stock-in-trade of all those hostile to the old religion. This attitude of sarcastic or caustic mockery had already become a characteristic of the mental climate in educated Europe when it was adopted and intensified by Luther, who made of the pleas and suggestions of the humanist an immediate and burning practical issue.
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- Information
- The Religious Orders in England , pp. 165 - 172Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1979