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. XXIX - The cankered hearts
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 great enterprise of the suppression of the monasteries, which intimately affected the lives of thousands of the educated men and women of the land, which transferred a large fraction of the wealth of the country from the possession of religious corporations to that of the king, which brought about the rifling and demolition of so many churches, and which eliminated from England a traditional way of Christian life, went forward during four years with a minimum of personal violence. Few revolutions of comparable importance, whether in the sixteenth or in later centuries, have been accomplished with so little bloodshed or judicial barbarity. Indeed, throughout the process little or no animus was displayed against the religious as such. It was their wealth that Henry and Cromwell wanted, not primarily or professedly the extinction of their order, though this was soon seen to be an inevitable consequence. The apologists of die monks, therefore, who have written of the reign of terror, or of the cruel tyranny of Cromwell, have misread the situation, or transferred to the sixteenth century in England the mentality of reformers and revolutionaries of other lands and times. It would be almost permissible to say that the king and his minister had no more ill-will towards the monks than the gay highwayman of legend had towards his victims.
Yet it is equally unhistorical to treat the Dissolution as no more than the first scheme of nationalization in English history.
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- The Religious Orders in England , pp. 367 - 382Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1979