The Dissolution

[Steve Petersen]

I am not Catholic, but this was a travesty.

Catholic priests and monks converted and moderated the savage Danes and Saxons in England, and were frequently martyred. Christian culture in England was originally Catholic.

Dissolution of the Monasteries - Wikipedia

 

[Widlast]

Yes. Until Henry the 8th.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Well there were abuses of monasteries' priviledges especially if a period had lapsed from their founding. We see that in works like Piers Ploughman, Canterbury tales and lollard tracts how monks are shown as covetous and often far from holy. A strong anti-clericalism was present in lollardy which fed the dissolution.

Thomas Cromwell collected many accounts of vice and sin stemming from the religious houses. This was obviously propaganda and exaggerated, but from legal documents and the monasteries own records, we can see that they aren't out and out lies.
We also see that Religious foundations controlled two fifths of England's land and about half of clerical benifices and tithes. Due to the fact that clergy were often excused from tax and implemented their own rental schemes, this was a major impediment to the English economy and Exchequer.

Even Catholics attacked the wealth and abuses of Monasteries like Desiderius Erasmus and Cardinal Wolsey. The latter went so far to try and obtain papal support to do so. This clearly shows there was some merit to the complaints against them.

While Henry VIII did it to obtain money and Cromwell to further a Protestant agenda, English monasticism was a mixed-bag. It was an unproductive millstone around the neck of the English economy which rebounded and grew remarkably after its dissolution as rents and landed tenantry expanded onto previous monastic demesne. Its Scholarship was also not foremost in the realm, which had shifted to the Universities and Renaissance scholars, although the latter had ties to the Religious houses as well. We do see mediaeval libraries broken up and precious books sold off, so it definitely had an impact on education.

Henry VIII clearly acted quickly and often in exteme manner against the religious houses, but we see widespread public support for this in the southeast and areas of the midlands. The North objected though with the Pilgrimage of Grace.

In the long run it broke up mediaeval libraries and alms schemes and rent the fabric of daily life in many areas. It freed land for tenantry and opened up new methods of revenue for the government, strengthening the state and the economy in time.

So the Dissolution definitely had bad aspects, but also good ones. The days of Monks being the stalwart defenders of Western Civilisation were long gone. Henry VIII could arguably just have reformed them, like Wolsey or More argued, but generally most European nations went through a period of disestablishment of Mediaeval religious institutions, so it likely would have happened eventually anyway.

Like most things the facts are far more nuanced.

 

[tz620q]

Even Catholics attacked the wealth and abuses of Monasteries like Desiderius Erasmus and Cardinal Wolsey. The latter went so far to try and obtain papal support to do so. This clearly shows there was some merit to the complaints against them.


Like most things the facts are far more nuanced.

While I agree that nearly all history has to be studied understanding the nuances, I shuddered at you holding up Cardinal Wolsey as a example of the Catholic attitude of the time. Not that you are wrong necessarily, but because Wolsey probably wanted to diminish the power of the monasteries to increase his own power and wealth.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

While I agree that nearly all history has to be studied òunderstanding the nuances, I shuddered at you holding up Cardinal Wolsey as a example of the Catholic attitude of the time. Not that you are wrong necessarily, but because Wolsey probably wanted to diminish the power of the monasteries to increase his own power and wealth.

True, Wolsey was one of those very worldly churchmen that the Renaissance seemed to breed.

However we see Thomas More and Erasmus also supporting Monastic reform. Others like Bishop Oldham wrote against founding or endowing new monasteries as the monks were too lazy and there was increasing talk of dissolution of many smaller religious houses on account of this: "Shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a company of bussing monks, whose end and fall we may live to see? No, no; it is more meet a great deal that we should have to care and provide for such who by their learning shall do good in the Church and commonwealth."
Some of the major complaints seem to have been the practice of keeping vacant many priories for income purposes, the uneducated nature of nuns so that the wealthy had to hire governesses, monks keeping packs of hounds and hunting along with the general discounting of the repeated edicts to remain celibate (to be fair, Wolsey ignored that one as well).

 

[Paul Yohannan]

I am not Catholic, but this was a travesty.

Catholic priests and monks converted and moderated the savage Danes and Saxons in England, and were frequently martyred. Christian culture in England was originally Catholic.

Dissolution of the Monasteries - Wikipedia

Indeed so

 

[chevyontheriver]

I am not Catholic, but this was a travesty.

Catholic priests and monks converted and moderated the savage Danes and Saxons in England, and were frequently martyred. Christian culture in England was originally Catholic.

Dissolution of the Monasteries - Wikipedia

Would you go so far as to say that the British crown ought to return some monasteries and maybe some cathedrals as well to the Catholic Church?