Monasteries, Dissolution of the

Monasteries, Dissolution of the (1536–40) The systematic abolition of English monasticism and transfer of monastic property to the Tudor monarchy, part of the English REFORMATION. Thomas CROMWELL, HENRY VIII's vicar-general, pointed the way ahead by commissioning the Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535), a great survey of church wealth, and by sending agents to investigate standards within the religious houses. An Act of Parliament (1536) dissolved monasteries with annual revenues of under £200. This provoked an uprising, the PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. In its aftermath, Cromwell forced certain abbots to surrender larger houses to the king. Another Act (1539) confirmed all surrenders that had been, and were to be, made, and monastic lands passed to the Court of Augmentations of the King's Revenue, a state department. Resistance was minimal. By 1540 all 800 or more English houses were closed. Eleven thousand monks, nuns, and their dependants were ejected from their communities, most with little or no compensation.

The Dissolution had a number of consequences apart from the immediate wholesale destruction of monastic buildings and the despoliation of their libraries and treasures. The nobility and gentry benefited financially from the distribution of former monastic lands, which were used to form the basis of new private estates, and the laity gained a monopoly of ecclesiastical patronage which survived for the next three centuries. The termination of monastic charity and the closure of monastery schools stimulated the introduction of the POOR LAW system and the foundation of grammar schools.