The Dissolution of the Monasteries

Question 1

What was the role of Monasteries?

Answer 1

• Influenced people’s daily lives through agricultural jobs
• Helped with the production of food
• Provided education for the sons of gentry and nobility
• Gave medicine to the sick and poor

Question 2

What were the political motives behind the Dissolution of Monasteries?

Answer 2

• The need to Break power from Rome
• Henry wanted to have an independent state
• Was motivated by the changes which led to the formal establishment of an English national state
• Henry was unable to afford an extensive system of patronage
• Maintaining the Tudor Dynasty

Question 3

Religious causes for the Dissolution of Monasteries?

Answer 3

• Henry found that monasteries were self-indulgent and greedy and monks were engaged in ranges of different sexual relationships
• Nuns and Monks were not fulfilling their vocations or their vows of chastity

Question 4

What did the Act of Lesser Monasteries entail (1536)

Answer 4

• 1536
• Dissolving 300 religious houses whose income was less than £200/year
• The Act gave the King power to exempt houses as he saw fit
• 67/300 houses were exempted because of their individual qualities
• Act forced all wealth out of monasteries - jewellery, bronze, silver and gold were all moved to the Tower of London

Question 5

What was the Act of Parliament to surrender?

Answer 5

• 1539
• Act to surrender all of the wealth and monastic land from monasteries to the King (VIII)

Question 6

Opposition to the Dissolution of Monasteries?

Answer 6

• Abbots and Monks opposed the dissolution of Monasteries to great extents
• E.g. Abbots of Colchester, Reading and Glastonbury (charged with treasonable behaviours and theft)
• However, many of those who opposed were persuaded by large pensions