Henry VIII and the English Monasteries/Chapter 1

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

HENRY VIII.

and

THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES

CHAPTER I

The Dawn of Difficulties

No just appreciation of the great social and religious revolution of the sixteenth century is possible without some knowledge of the causes which produced it. "The history of the Reformation in England," writes Lord Macaulay, "is full of strange problems."^[1] That the nation, at the bidding of the sovereign and in furtherance of his whims, should acquiesce in the rejection of papal supremacy over the Church, should substitute the doctrine of the spiritual headship of the king, and should tolerate the national upheaval and disregard of the rights of property implied in the dissolution of monasteries and confiscation of their lands and goods, are "problems" to be solved only by an acquaintance with the events preceding and accompanying them.

Circumstances combined to collect in the political and social atmosphere of England in the time of Henry VIII elements fraught with dangerous and destructive power against the Church. In the first place, it would seem to be certain that the country had not fully recovered from that terrible visitation, known as the "Black Death," which devastated Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century. Although a hundred and fifty years had elapsed before Henry VIII mounted the throne, so great had been the ravages of the scourge, and so unsettled had been the interval, that the nation was still suffering from the effects of the great sickness.

To the Church the scourge of 1349 must have been especially disastrous. Apart from the poverty and distress occasioned by the unoccupied lands and the consequent diminution of tithes, the sudden removal of the great majority of the clergy must have broken the continuity of the best traditions of ecclesiastical usage and teaching. The monastic houses also suffered, not only in the destruction of their chief source of income by the depreciated value of their lands and the want of cultivation consequent upon the impossibility of finding labourers in place of the tenants swept off by the pestilence, but more than all by reason of the great diminution of their numbers, which rendered the proper performance of their religious duties, and the diligent discharge of their obligations as regards monastic discipline, difficult, and often almost impossible.

The long and bitter feud between the Houses of York and Lancaster must likewise be regarded as an important element in the chain of events which rendered possible the political and social changes of Henry's reign. The insecurity and instability of well-nigh half a century, as well as the ferocity of that contest, must have stamped a peculiar character upon the men of the early Tudor period.^[2] When Henry VIII succeeded his father, every man of thirty must have had within his own personal recollection some knowledge of the terrible war, whilst his parents must have lived through the whole of it.

The obvious result of a knowledge of the danger and troubles of this long civil war, whether derived from personal experience or the relation of parents, was a willingness to hazard everything rather than recur to such a period of distress and bloodshed. Periods of revolution inspire peculiar prudence, and protracted war a determination at all costs to cling "to peace and pursue it." Hence the population generally throughout England in the days of Henry had been rendered by circumstances long-suffering, and ready to endure the dictates of his whims and desires rather than to imperil their peace by resistance.

Another indirect and still more important effect of the conflict of the "Roses" upon the times of the Tudors was the destruction of the power of the nobility. The civil war completed the work begun by the pestilences of the fourteenth century, and finally broke the power of the great nobles. The "Black Death," by altering the conditions of land tenure, and thus depriving the territorial lords of their hold upon the service and lives of their retainers, gradually sapped the strength of the ancient nobility, whilst the war swept away all the pride and flower of the great noble families. It was the deliberate policy of Warwick, the "King-maker," to cut off the chiefs of the opposite party, and thus to the aristocracy especially the war was fatal. "The indirect and silent operation of these conflicts," writes Mr. Brewer, "was much more remarkable. It reft into fragments the confederated ranks of a powerful territorial aristocracy, which had hitherto bid defiance to the king, however popular, however energetic."^[3]

When Henry VIII. succeeded, although every sign of growing power was eagerly watched and speedily and effectually checked, there was little that the crown had to fear from the hitherto powerful nobility. Thus the position and authority of the Tudor monarchs was altogether different from that of their predecessors, and the Royal Supremacy passed from a theory into a fact.^[4]

As a consequence, the stability which the traditions and prudent counsels of the ancient nobility gave to the ship of state was gone, when it was most needed to weather the rising storm of revolutionary ideas. The new peers, who were created in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to take the place of the old aristocracy, had no sympathy either by birth or inclination with the best traditions of the past. Nor was the age favourable to the production of high-minded and fearless counsellors so much as to the growth of men of quick and active talents. The Tudor policy of government created also the "official," who was by nature restless and discontented. Working for the most inadequate of salaries, such a man was ever on the look-out for some lucky chance of supplementing his pay. Success and worldly prosperity depended on his being able to attract to himself the notice of his royal master. "It was his interest to compete for extraordinary grants in return for his work." ^[5] One with the other they strove who should best work their way into his favour by anticipating his wishes, satisfying his whims, and pandering to his desires, "their promotion being wholly dependent on his good-will."

As a result of the inadequate salaries, the administration of the law appears, with honourable exceptions, to have been partial and corrupt. Complaints were frequent against the lawyers of the period. Suits were kept on from year to year unless money was forthcoming to induce the authorities to make an end of the litigation. It even passed into a proverb that "the law was ended as a man was friended," and contemporary writers declaim against the mischief which men suffered "from the facility with which an accusation could be lodged against an innocent person." ^[6]

The same contemporary authority speaks of the miserable state of those who were unfortunate enough to be thrown into prison. There, he says, they "are lodged like hogs and fed like dogs." Moreover they were allowed to lie in these wretched prison-houses for years without any trial, and if they had no money were left to starve. If they, or their friends, could afford to pay for their food, they were allowed in some prisons to "pay for themselves four times as much as at any best inn." By all means, says Brinklow, "if a man offend the law let him have the law," but "to imprison a man and starve him is murder."^[7]

In the midst of the throes of a great social crisis much depended upon the Church. There can be little doubt that the clergy of the time were ill-fitted to cope with the forces of revolution, to calm the restless spirit of the age, or resist the rising tide of novelties. Their very character was in itself out of joint with the times. In the days when might was right, and force of arms the ruling power of the world, the occupation of peace, to which the clergy were bound by their sacred calling, naturally roused hostile and violent opposition from the party rising into power. The bishops were, with some honourable exceptions, mere court officials pensioned out of ecclesiastical revenues. Holding their high offices by royal favour rather than on account of special aptitude to look after the spiritual welfare of their dioceses, they appear, perhaps not unnaturally, to have had little heart in their work.

Too often, also, the bishop of an important see would be occupied in the management of the secular affairs of state. Perhaps, even, he was paid for these services by the emoluments of his ecclesiastical office. To the king all looked for hope of reward, and to royalty all clung as long as there remained any prospect of success. The Church had few favours to give except at the wish and by the hands of the king. "Even cardinal's hats were bestowed only on royal recommendation." ^[8]The episcopal see was, moreover, not infrequently looked upon as a property conferred for political services and out of which the most, in a temporal point of view, was to be made.

The practice followed in more than one instance of rewarding foreigners by nominating them to vacant sees and benefices in return for services rendered, or as an inducement to help on some royal scheme, was also most obviously detrimental to the well-being of the Church. At one time the three bishoprics of Salisbury, Worcester, and Llandaff were all held in this way, by those whose only interest in the dioceses appears to have been the fees they obtained out of them. The bishop of Worcester lived and died in Rome, and his predecessor and successor in the see were also foreigners.

No less detrimental to the well-being of the Church in England at this time was the crying abuse and scandal of pluralities. Some priests were proved to have as many as ten or twelve benefices, and very possibly resident on none, while there were "plenty of learned men in the universities "^[9] for whom no preferment could be found. Cardinal Wolsey himself set the example. He held not only a plurality of livings, but was bishop of more than one see, whilst he farmed others. He also obtained the abbey of St. Albans in commendam. Although the Parliament of 1529 especially legislated against this abuse, the exceptions were so numerous as to make the Act ridiculous and nugatory. At this time also benefices were bestowed upon youths of good family, who had sufficient influence to secure these preferments. Thus, for example, Reginald Pole, the future cardinal, when only seventeen was nominated to the prebendal stall of Roscombe, and two years later to Gatcombe Secunda, both in the Salisbury diocese. At eighteen he received the deanery of Wimborne Minster.^[10]

The non-residence of bishops in their dioceses was a fruitful source of evil. The episcopal functions were very generally relegated to suffragans, who, instead of being assistants, became practically substitutes for their principals in all the spiritual work of a diocese. Not unfrequently these suffragans were bishops of Irish sees, who resided in England to the neglect of their own cure, and undertook the supervision of more than one diocese. Upon such auxiliaries rectories or other ecclesiastical preferments were bestowed in lieu of payment for their services, and these in turn were left to the care of ill-paid curates.

The occupation of the bishops in affairs of state, besides its disastrous effect on the clergy, had another result. By it a jealous opposition to ecclesiastics was created in the minds of the new nobility. The lay lords and hungry officials not unnaturally looked with dislike upon this employment of ecclesiastics in secular concerns. The occupation of clerics in all the intrigues of party politics, and in the wiles of foreign and domestic diplomacy, conduced to keep them out of coveted preferment. Hence when occasion offered they did not need much inducement to turn against the clergy and enable Henry to carry out his coercive legislation against the Church.

This state of affairs was doubtlessly reflected in the monastic orders of England. The events of the previous century and a half must necessarily have done much to lower the tone of the religious houses and rob them of their primitive fervour. Before they could recover from the effects of the great plagues of the fourteenth century the civil disturbances of the fifteenth century intensified the evils from which they were suffering, and became to them "specially disastrous."^[11]

The financial state of the monasteries at the commencement of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly deplorable. Although many of them were possessed of considerable estates, which in itself was regarded as a matter of reproach, they were yet suffering from acute poverty. Denuded of their tenants, the monastic lands became neglected and unproductive. "Debt with no chance of redemption weighed heavily upon all."^[12] Claims, however, upon their charity, and the exactions of royal and other founders, increased rather than diminished, till the burden was more than the crippled resources of the religious could bear. The State papers of Henry VIII's reign contain abundant proof of the increasing demands made by king and courtier upon monastery and convent. Farm after farm, manor after manor, benefice after benefice, office after office were yielded up, in compliance with requests that were in reality commands. Pensions in ever-increasing numbers were charged on monastic lands at the asking of those it was impossible to refuse. "In some cases," writes Mr. Brewer, "the abbots were bound to give endowments to scholars of the king's nomination^[13] or provide them with competent benefices; pensions and corrodies were granted under the privy seal to yeomen ushers of the wardrobe and the chamber, to clerks of the kitchen sewers, secretaries and gentlemen of the chapel royal;^[14] and these were strictly enforced, whatever might be the other encumbrances of the house."^[15]

The royal munificence was liberally exercised in grants of pensions and perquisites when others had to satisfy the recipients of the royal generosity. By established custom every bishop, every superior of a religious house, on entering upon the emoluments of his see was bound, "ratione novæ creationis" to allow a fitting pension to any clerk recommended by the crown until such time as he had provided a suitable benefice for him. So, in the same way, founders and their descendants claimed and exercised the right of billeting poor relations or needy dependents for maintenance, and often for lodging, on the religious houses of which they were patrons.

In their endeavour to meet the demands upon their revenue, the abbots and superiors of the religious houses endeavoured to accommodate their farming arrangements to the requirements of the time. Like the nobles and other landowners, they tried to turn their estates to the most profitable account by forming large enclosures, and devoting land hitherto cultivated to the pasture of sheep. This was regarded with great disfavour by the people, who were no longer required in the same numbers as before to make the monastic estates profitable to their owners. In the parliament of 1529 this, and the fact that the religious kept "tan houses and sold wool and cloth," &c., were causes of complaint against them by the Commons.

It is difficult for the popular mind to resist the influence of attractive pictures presented to it. The advantages to be derived from a redistribution of the worldly wealth of the Church, and in particular of the religious bodies in England, were constantly insisted upon. And the poison instilled into the people by scurrilous tales and descriptions of clerical and monastic life, circulated by their authors for the purpose of bringing discredit upon the Church, was no doubt insidious. These generally were not indigenous, but imported, venerable stories, Eastern in their origin and adapted from Mahometan life to suit the Christian character; but even they could not deprive the religious bodies of popular respect.

The most celebrated and perhaps most dangerous attack against the religious orders made in the early sixteenth century was in the "Supplication of Beggars," written by one Simon Fish. It was answered by Sir Thomas More, step by step, in his "Supplication of Poor Souls;" but, like all such stories, the answer probably reached only a few of those who had accepted the wild statements of Fish's fables. Although aimed chiefly against the mendicant friars, the "Supplication of Beggars" involved in one sweeping condemnation the whole of the spirituality, described as "bishops, abbots, priors, deacons, archdeacons, suffragans, priests, monks, canons, friars, pardoners, and summoners."

Still, even these and similar falsehoods, although appealing to the cupidity of the people, do not seem to have alienated from the monks the affections of the general population. The insurrections in their favour furnish some indication of the opinion of the people, in spite of all that had been said and written. Henry Brinklow, a mendicant friar who had thrown off his frock, and was therefore on two accounts little likely to favour the monasteries, bears testimony to the way in which they discharged their duties to the people. "And when they," he writes, "had gifts of any (churches) not impropriated, they gave them unto their friends, of which always some were learned; for the monks found of their friends children at school. And though they were not learned, yet they kept hospitality, and helped their poor friends. And if the parsonages were impropriated, the monks were bound to deal alms to the poor, and to keep hospitality, as the writings of the gifts of such parsonages and lands do plainly declare, in these words: ' in puram eleemosinam ' And as touching the alms that they dealt, and the hospitality that they kept, every man knoweth that many thousands were well relieved of them, and might have been better if they had not had so many great men's horses to feed, and had not been overcharged with 'such idle gentlemen ^[16] as were never out of the abbeys. And if they had any vicarage in their hands, they set in sometimes some sufficient vicar (though it were but seldom) to preach and to teach." ^[17] He goes on to say that the land was given to the monastic houses for education, hospitality, and to give alms to the poor, and that they were pulled down on the "pretence" of amending what was amiss. "But see," he continues, "how much that was amiss is amended, for all the godly pretence. It is amended, even as the devil amended his dame's leg (as it is in the proverb): when he should have set it right he broke it quite in pieces. The monks gave too little alms, but now, where 20l. was given yearly to the poor in more than a hundred places in England, is not one meal's meat given. This is fair amendment."

It will be necessary to examine more particularly the general state of moral discipline to be found within the monasteries of England at the beginning of the sixteenth century in considering the charges brought against them by those who thus sought to justify their dissolution. It may be here stated, however, that the most authentic evidence upon the subject is to be found in the episcopal registers of the various dioceses. These contain records, more or less minute, of the visitations made by the bishops to the monasteries within the limits of their special jurisdiction. Their injunctions and other acts prove the care with which the duty of supervision was exercised. Many monasteries, and even orders, were, of course, altogether exempted from episcopal control; but such exemptions were by no means as common as is generally stated. There is no reason whatever to suppose that the condition of the exempt religious was in any way worse than the rest. On the contrary, they were, as a rule, the larger monastic houses^[18] which enjoyed the privilege, and in these, as the preamble of the Act of Parliament which suppressed the lesser houses expressly declares, "thanks be to God religion is right well kept." It is not too much, therefore, to regard the evidence furnished in the pages of these episcopal registers as giving a faithful picture of the state of the religious houses.

It would be affectation to suggest that the vast regular body in England was altogether free from grosser faults and immoralities. But it is unjust to regard them as existing to any but a very limited extent. Human nature in all ages of the world is the same. The religious habit, though a safeguard, gives no absolute immunity from the taint of fallen nature. The religious of the sixteenth century had passed through many difficulties dangerous to their spiritual no less than to their temporal welfare. Yet, while their moral tone had probably been lowered by the influence of the spirit of the times, the graver falls were certainly confined to individual cases. Anything like general immorality was altogether unknown among the religious of England. This much is clearly proved by the testimony of the acts of episcopal visitations, as well as by the absence of any such sweeping charge till it became necessary for Henry and his agents to blast the fair name of the monastic houses in order the more easily to gain possession of their property.

The reports of Crumwell's visitors no doubt represented the religious houses as being in the worst possible state of moral degradation. Subsequent authors have improved upon the picture, and have drawn to a great extent upon their imagination. It is to be hoped that a better knowledge of the methods employed by Henry's agents to blacken the character of those they were about to despoil may lead to a truer appreciation of the value to be attached to their testimony.

1. Essay on Lord Burleigh.
2. Those who may wish to understand this more fully would do well to read an Essay by H. W. Wilberforce on "Events Preparatory to the English Reformation" in Essays on Religion and Literature, Second series. Longmans, 1867.
3. Calendar, i. preface lxxv. References will be made to the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII., by Brewer and Gairdner, by this word only.
4. Calendar, i. preface lxxv.
5. P. Friedmann, Anne Boleyn, i. p. 27.
6. Complaint of Roderyck Mors, E. Eng. Text Soc. ed., Introduction, p. 25. In Starkey's Dialogue between Card. Pole and Lupset the same charges are made, and the same proverb is made use of by Starkey in the "Dialogue," which was afterwards quoted by Henry Brinklow in the "Complaint." Both these authors were contemporaries of the events about which they write.
7. Ibid., p. 27.
8. Friedmann, i. p. 137.
9. Complaints against Clergy in Parl, 1529, No. 6.
10. Calendar, ii. No. 3943.—Starkey's Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, E. Eng. Text Soc, Preface cxiii.—21 Hen. VIII., c. 13.
11. Brewer, Henry VIII, i. p. 50.
12. Ibid., p. 50.
13. Calendar, i. 1235, 1360. Mr. Brewer adds: "One of the most interesting of these cases is that of a pension paid by the Prior of St. Frideswide's, Oxford, to Reginald Pole, then a student at the University of Oxford, afterwards cardinal." Note, p. 50.
14. Calendar, i. 49, 60, 106, 615, 920, &c.
15. Brewer, Henry VIII., i. p. 50.
16. A curious illustration of this may be seen in a letter from the son of the Duke of Buckingham to Henry VIII. It is evidence of the services rendered by the monasteries to honourable families in reduced circumstances. "And because," the writer says, "he hath no dwelling-place meet for him to inhabit, (he was) fain to live poorly at board in an Abbey this four years day, with his wife and seven children."
17. Complaint of Roderyck Mors, E. Eng. Text. Soc. ed., p. 33.
18. This will hold good of Cistercians and Cluniacs, with some others. But in regard to the Benedictines, who held nearly all the monasteries of the first rank, absolute exemption in practice must not be too easily assumed. To say nothing of the wealthy cathedral priories, such monasteries as Glastonbury, in the south, and St. Mary's, York, in the north, seem from the bishops' registers to have been subject to little less than ordinary episcopal visitation. These are cited as instances only'.