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. XVIII - Syon
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
The second of the religious bodies regarded by the black monks of Wolsey's day as examples of rigid observance was that of the Bridgettines, represented in England by a single house, Syon abbey on Thames-side, between the villages of Isleworth and Brentford. The community, as has been noted in an earlier volume, had been in existence for little more than a century when Cardinal Wolsey died. It was extremely wealthy, with a net income, far exceeding that of any other nunnery, of £1735, which gave it the tenth place in order of revenue among all the religious houses of the kingdom. The large numbers had been maintained, and the vocation continued to attract recruits from the first families of the land. The house was distinguished not only by its good observance, but by its informed devotional life, based largely upon the spiritual writers of the late medieval period, including the English mystical writers of the fourteenth century; it possessed a magnificent library, particularly rich in modern religious works, and the brethren were in close contact with the Carthusians across the river at Sheen, and with those of the House of the Salutation in London. The community was by statute made up of sixty nuns (including a small number of lay sisters) and twenty-five religious brethren (of whom seventeen were in holy orders), and in the early sixteenth century it fell little short of this total. In the lists which survive from 1518 and 1539 many well-known family names appear among the nuns.
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- The Religious Orders in England , pp. 212 - 221Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1979