Feel I ought to do a few explanations of the terms and stuff I keep using in the Monastery Quest™ thread. You may have picked them up, you may have not. 1/20
(Leicester Abbey)
(Leicester Abbey)
What is the difference between an ABBEY and PRIORY? Well basically an abbey is headed by an ABBOT and a priory by a PRIOR. What this means in practice is a prior is subordinate to another body, another body or a secular authority who has the right of patronage over the house 2/20
The monastic houses I am going through are from the Valor Ecclesiasticus, the biggest survey of the holdings of the English Church for over 200 years, and made to assess its wealth after parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534 to make the monarch head of the Church. 3/20
It assessed the gross/net general (average) and temporal (that year) of each house. The deduction for the net was the running of the estates which financed the house - stewards and bailiffs - rather than the running of the house itself. 4/20
True monasteries that followed the Benedictine rule were ideally completely cut off from the secular world. Hence they would have their own water supply, crops, fishponds and livestock within their precinct. Cistercian and Cluniac houses fall in with this. 5/20 (Halesowen, Brum)
However this Monastery Quest™ also includes Augustinian (Austin) Canons which follow the rule of St Augustine of Hippo. While Austin Canons did have dormitories and refectories, they were allowed to interact with the laity and own worldly goods. 6/20 (St Augustine, Bristol)
All monasteries have same pattern around a central cloister. At the top is the church, the most important part architecturally, an east range with a chapter house and their dormitory above, and refectory opposite the church. The W range tends to be storage and guest quarters 7/20
You also have a seperate infirmary for sick and elderly members of the community, and a prior/abbot's lodging for him to receive secular guests. 8/20 (Muchelney, Soms)
Being a priest is a JOB, but being a monk was your LIFE. You had to attend prayer as part of the divine office eight times a day, as well as Mass and other studies of the scriptures. an Austin Canon had a bit more free time. but not much. 9/20 (Rievaulx, reconstruction)
There are the mendicant orders who were also dissolved at this time: the Franciscans (Greyfriars), Dominicans (Blackfriars), Carmelites (Whitefriars) but they aren't in my base list and also their houses, being urban, are a big pain in the arse to say much about. 10/20
The dissolution of the monasteries was essentially the beginning of the long reformation of the English Church. Monasteries had be dissolved before, most notably the "alien priories" funnelling money back to French houses during the Hundred Years War. 11/20
Another instance was in the 1520s when Thomas Wolsey - as archbishop of York, Lord Chancellor and Papal legate dissolved thirty decayed and struggling houses to finance new collegiate foundations at Oxford (Christ Church) and Ipswich. 12/20
This set a precedent for the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535, where every house assessed as under £200 net income was to be dissolved and all their property to come under the Crown, which now controlled the entire English Church. 13/20
It's worth remembering at this point the Crown had complete control over the Church in England and could have put a bill through to demolish every parish church and cathedral if it wanted to. In some ways getting rid of the "lesser monasteries" was a Good Thing. 14/20
However it really blew up., As this is history, so it's much debated what actually happened, what with keen reformers like Thomas Cromwell pulling strings, but a big turning point is when mighty Furness Abbey, gross income just under £1k, surrendered 9 April 1536. 15/20
As heads of houses started worrying about the gathering storm, in order to collect their pensions, many more voluntary surrendered to the Crown. At this time, brothers and sisters from dissolved houses could either return to the world or be transferred to another house 16/20
Endgame comes the parliament beginning 28 April 1539 when the Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries is passed. Every single house in the country is now the property of the Crown, and if they don't like it, they can, well, die 17/20
And the heads of the abbeys of Glastonbury, Colchester and Reading indeed took it on the chin and the state went full Tudor on their asses (they were tortured and killed) 18/20
The Crown took on the estates boosting its capital so they could fanny about in France with a vast military presence as part of Italian Wars in the 1540s. Money well spent? It also set huge precedent for the reformation of the wider English Church under Henry's son Edward. 19/20
For 20/20: monasteries got turned into mansions, sold to towns or most often stripped on behalf of the Crown for raw materials. In stone-rich areas like Yorkshire their unprofitable skeletons were left to the elements.
History corrections welcome. Dammit Jim, I'm an art historian
History corrections welcome. Dammit Jim, I'm an art historian
Love how i messed up the 2nd tweet. should be "another house" second time. oh well
if i was smart I would have quoted the thread in question in the first tweet. oh well
