The Dissolution of the Monasteries
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The dissolution of the monasteries was one of the key features of the reign of Henry VIII; as the 
government saw it, the monasteries were a cornerstone of Papal authority in England and Wales, so in 
order to change this, during the early 1530’s, the government introduced several pieces of legislation, 
after which the Pope’s authority in England was ended.

The monasteries then became the focal point of the king’s attack, as it was assumed, so the government 
reported, that they would remain loyal to the Pope; however, whether the main reason for the attack 
on the monasteries was for spiritual or financial reasons is still disputed; though money was probably 
the true reason.

Religious Houses
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When Henry had become king in 1509 there were more than 850 religious houses in England and Wales and 
while what happened to them is termed the ‘Dissolution of the Monasteries’, this is in fact misleading, 
as few of the establishments were actually known as monasteries.

The larger rural religious houses, such as at Tintern in Gloucester, were referred to as Abbeys; medium 
sized religious houses were usually called Priories, or Nunneries, and a Friary was usually used to 
describe the smallest of religious houses; the most usual division between the two was that some were 
open while some were closed; closed religious houses were essentially closed to all those outside of 
those who lived in that religious house; open houses meant that the occupants worked with the local 
sick and provided, for example, teachers for boys in the local community.

It was common for open religious houses to be poor as what money they raised was spent on the local 
community; however, closed orders could be, and many were, very wealthy; though they kept themselves 
away from the common man, many of these religious houses relied on the local population to work for 
them for free; in this way, some religious orders grew spectacularly rich; it was these institutions 
that are frequently referred to as monasteries and they owned, it is thought about one third of all 
the land in England and Wales.

The thirty richest monasteries were as rich or richer than the wealthiest nobles in the land; this 
wealth had been acquired over the centuries, many people who had hoped to buy their way into Heaven 
had bequeathed much of their land and wealth to the monasteries, which the monasteries now owned; for 
many the work of monks and nuns was an accepted and normal part of life, few people knew any different.

Henry VIII Needs Money
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Henry VIII had inherited a considerable amount of money from his father Henry VII, but by the mid 
1530’s he had spent a great deal of this inheritance; he knew however, that the monasteries were the
wealthiest institutions in England and Wales and advisors like Thomas Cromwell, made up stories to 
feed to the people, that a great deal of the monasteries annual wealth went to the Vatican; this was 
done in order to drum up support amongst the people for the king’s campaign against the Pope; however, 
as stated earlier; it was known by the government that little of the monasteries wealth ever left 
England and Wales and that the monasteries were, in fact, very wealthy.

The closing down of monasteries was not new; Cardinal Wolsey had shut down a number of religious houses 
years before the attack by Cromwell and Henry; he had done this with the full blessing of the Pope as 
some of the religious houses in England had ‘decayed’, the lack of people in them had stopped them 
being effective; when he closed them, Wolsey used the money raised from them for charitable purposes, 
including the building of a new grammar school in Ipswich; the man who did the legal work for this was 
Thomas Cromwell and the records indicate that what was done did not concern anyone of importance at 
the time.

The whole approach to religious houses changed in 1535; Cromwell, now Henry’s vicegerent responsible 
for the day-to-day running of the Church, ordered that all religious houses should be visited by one 
of his representatives; this was traditionally done by either a local bishop or a senior member of 
the relevant order; their task being to check on standards, etc, but in this case Cromwell ordered 
his own men to do the visits.

In the same year, the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’, popularly known as the ‘King's Books, was introduced; 
this was a full scale undertaking to examine just how much property was owned by the Church in England 
and Wales; the findings proved to be of great importance to Cromwell even though questions have to 
be asked as to the accuracy of the reports that were fed back to Cromwell because those who did the 
investigating were unpaid local gentry and may have only provided a cursory report.

The ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ combined with the visits ordered by Cromwell proved to be a difficult 
problem for the religious houses; the visits were mainly carried out by Thomas Legh and Richard Layton, 
both trusted employees of Cromwell; both men were ambitious and would have known about Cromwell's 
desires; it is assumed that they may have suitably adjusted their reports to fit in with Cromwell’s 
plan; even though there is no proof for this, it is generally thought they provided Cromwell with a 
list of each house’s shortcomings as opposed to any strong points that a house might have had.

Their list of ‘comperta’ was certainly much greater than any positives each house had; many houses 
subsequently complained about the bullying tactics of Legh and Layton but it seems that Cromwell 
ignored these complaints; such was their reputation that the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 specifically 
called on the “evil councillors” to receive “special punishment”.

In March 1536 Parliament passed an act that many in the monasteries had feared; the act stated that 
any monastery with an income of less than £200 a year, as assessed by the Valor Ecclesiasticus, was 
to be dissolved and their property passed to the Crown; the heads of the houses were to be offered a 
pension while those who lived in each religious house were given the choice of transferring to a 
larger one or going to live in society free of any vows of poverty and obedience, but still having 
to respect their vow of chastity.

Three hundred religious houses fell within this category of having an income of less than £200 a year; 
the majority were closed down but at least 67 were given royal permission to remain open as the act 
gave Henry the right to do this; however, those religious houses that were ‘saved’ had to pay for 
their survival; this was usually around a year’s income, which would have earned the king roundabout 
£13,500, though it is thought that another 10 religious houses fell into this category but their 
records have been lost; if so, the 77 houses involved would have meant that Henry received roundabout 
£15,500 from them.

It appears that to gain the king’s exemption, a house only had to have government connections in the 
right places, so someone was there who could put in a right word to Henry; those houses that did not 
have such contacts were effectively doomed; either way, Henry’s income increased quite markedly.

Once the act was passed, government commissioners moved with speed to shut down the religious houses; 
they feared that any delay in their actions would allow the movable treasure and wealth of these 
houses to ‘disappear’; these small monasteries were easy targets and could do little against the 
government; their valuable metal gold, silver, bronze and lead was taken by the government to be 
melted down and the land was swiftly rented out.

Other items not required by the government were auctioned off locally; what the government did not 
require was taken by the local population, such as well cut bricks and fences etc were all well 
received by the locals; this explains why so many monasteries became classic ruins so quickly, they 
were all but dismantled by either the government or by the locals, with the government’s support.

The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536
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The one area where this did not happen speedily was in the North, where the local population did not 
support what was going on and the attempted actions of the commissioners in the North were one of the 
causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace in October 1536 and some religious houses were charged with helping 
the rebels.

Once order was restored though, Henry showed no mercy; the head of each religious house thought to be 
involved was declared a traitor in an act of attainder and executed; in an act of dubious legality, 
it was declared that the houses of the executed religious leaders were their property; therefore, 
after their execution all this ‘private’ property transferred to the Crown, as was required by an 
act of attainder.

However, even after the Pilgrimage of Grace had ended, many powerful and rich monasteries remained, 
those that had an income of more than £200 and had not come under the 1536 Act and were south of the 
area affected by the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Action against these houses was piecemeal as no equivalent of the 1536 act was passed; Cromwell sent 
out commissioners to each of the houses; those that seemed prepared to fight were noted but Cromwell 
had told the commissioners to leave these houses once they had spread some degree of fear in them; 
the method used by the commissioners to persuade each head of a religious house was to make a threat 
couched in ‘if you love the king’; with the example of what had happened to abbots in the north for 
their ‘disloyal’ behaviour to the king during the Pilgrimage and many abbots succumbed to this royal 
pressure.

In 1539 an act was passed in Parliament that stated that any religious house that had surrendered its 
property voluntarily to the Crown was part of a legal act, as would be any future surrender of property; 
the act also included a rider that there could be no challenges to the validity of the king’s title 
of ownership once a monastery had voluntarily dissolved; if the king then transferred ownership of 
titles, these too could not be contested in a court.

The government’s commissioners went about their task with great energy; there is little doubt that 
the threat posed by the government led to many heads of religious houses handing over their land and 
wealth, just as Henry and Cromwell would have wished; however, there were some abbots and religious 
house leaders who would not be bullied; they had to face the full force of the law, as it was perceived 
then.

The Abbot of Glastonbury led what was a very wealthy monastery, one of the wealthiest in England; he 
was charged with secretly hoarding gold and “other parcels of plate, which the abbot had secretly hid 
from all commissioners”; he was executed and the buildings in the monastery were all but destroyed 
and the land passed to the king.

By 1540, over 800 monasteries had been dissolved; the process had taken just about four years.