English historians in the past, and indeed all writers who have touched upon the subject, have tended to treat the suppression of the English and Welsh monasteries as a purely domestic affair, conducted in an insulated area, and brought about solely by causes to be found in the remote or immediate past history of the country. This may be, on a wide view, a true judgment. It is, however, possible that recent writings and events in other countries of Europe had their effect upon English opinion and royal policy: books, travellers and diplomatic agents kept government in touch with the foreign scene. In any case, the suppression of the religious life in England loses all historical context unless it is seen as an act in a great drama that was being played all over Europe.

We have seen in the preceding chapter how pervasive were the raillery and criticism of Erasmus, at first in humanistic circles only, but later among all those of the New Learning, until finally the Erasmian strictures on the religious life became part of the stock-in-trade of all those hostile to the old religion. This attitude of sarcastic or caustic mockery had already become a characteristic of the mental climate in educated Europe when it was adopted and intensified by Luther, who made of the pleas and suggestions of the humanist an immediate and burning practical issue.