A Short History of Monks and Monasteries written by Alfred Wesley Wishart

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_The Effect of the Suppression Upon the People_

For months the country had seen what was coming; letters from abbots and
priors poured in upon the king and parliament, begging them to spare the
ancient strongholds of religion. The churchmen argued: "If he plunders
the monasteries, will not his next step be to plunder the churches?"
They recalled what Sir Thomas More had said of their sovereign: "It is
true, his majesty is very gracious with me, but if only my head would
give him another castle in France, it would not be long before it
disappeared." Sympathy for the monks, an inborn conservatism, a natural
love for ancient institutions, a religious dread of trampling upon that
which was held sacred by the church, a secret antipathy to reform, all
these and other forces were against the suppression. But the report of
the visitors was appalling, and the fear of the king's displeasure was
widespread; so the bill was passed amid mingled feelings of joy,
sympathy, hatred, fear, anxiety and uncertainty. The bishops were
sullen; Latimer was disappointed, for he wanted the church to have
the proceeds.

Outside of Parliament there was much discontent among the nobles and
gentry of Roman tendencies. Even the indifferent felt bitter against the
king, because it seemed unjust that the monks, who had been sheltered,
honored and enriched by the people, should be so rudely and so suddenly
turned out of their possessions. A dangerously large portion of the
people felt themselves insulted and outraged. At first, however, there
were few who dared to voice their protests. "As the royal policy
disclosed itself," says Green, "as the monarchy trampled under foot the
tradition and reverence of ages gone by, as its figure rose, bare and
terrible, out of the wreck of old institutions, England simply held her
breath. It is only through the stray depositions of royal spies that we
catch a glimpse of the wrath and hate which lay seething under the
silence of the people." That silence was a silence of terror. To use the
figure by which Erasmus describes the time, men felt "as if a scorpion
lay sleeping under every stone." They stopped writing, gossiping, going
to confession, and sending presents for the most thoughtless word or
deed might be tortured into treason against the king by the command
of Cromwell.

The rebellion which followed the first attack upon the monasteries was
not caused wholly by religious sentiments. The nobles regarded Cromwell
as a base-born usurper and yearned for his fall, while the clergy felt
outraged by his monstrous claims of authority in ecclesiastical affairs.
In a sense the conflict that ensued was but a continuation of the
long-standing struggle between the king, the barons, and the clergy for
the supreme power. From the reign of Edward I., the people had commenced
to assert their rights and the struggle had become a four-sided one.

These four factions were constantly shifting their allegiance, according
to the varying conditions, and guided by their changing interests. At
this time, the clergy, the nobles and the people in northern England,
particularly, combined against the king, although the alliance was not
formidable enough to overcome the forces supporting the king.

The secular clergy felt that they were disgraced and coerced into
submission. They felt their revenues, their honors, their powers, their
glory, slipping away from them; they joined their mutterings and
discontent with that of the monks, and then the fires of the rebellion
blazed forth in the north, where the monasteries were more popular than
in any other part of England.

The first outbreak occurred in Lincolnshire, in the autumn of 1536. It
was easily and quickly suppressed. But another uprising in Yorkshire, in
northern England, followed immediately, and for a time threatened
serious consequences. Some of the best families in that part of the
country joined the revolt, although it is noteworthy that these same
families were afterwards Protestant and Puritan; the rebel army numbered
about forty thousand men, well equipped for service. Many prominent
abbots and sixteen hundred monks were in the ranks. The masses were
bound by oath "to stand together for the love which they bore to
Almighty God, His faith, the Holy Church, and the maintenance thereof;
to the preservation of the king's person and his issue; to the purifying
of the nobility, and to expel all villein blood and evil counsellors
from the king's presence; not from any private profit, nor to do his
pleasure to any private person, nor to slay or murder through envy, but
for the restitution of the Church, and the suppression of heretics and
their opinions." It is clear, from the language of the oath, that the
rebels aimed their blows at Cromwell. The secular clergy hated him
because he had shorn them of their power; the monks hated him because he
had turned them out of their cloisters, and clergy and people loathed
him as a maintainer of heresy, a low-born foe of the Church. The
insurgents carried banners on which was printed a crucifix, a chalice
and host, and the five wounds, hence they called themselves "Pilgrims of
Grace." The revolt was headed by Robert Aske, a barrister.

Cromwell acted most cautiously; he selected the strongest men to take
the field. Richard Cromwell said of one of them, Sir John Russell, "for
my lord admiral, he is so earnest in the matter that I dare say he could
eat the Pilgrims without salt." The Duke of Norfolk was entrusted with
the command of the king's forces.

Henry preferred negotiation to battle, in accepting which the rebels
were doomed. To wait was to fail. Their demands reduced to paper were:
1. The religious houses should be restored. 2. England should be
reunited with Rome. 3. The first fruits and tenths should not be paid to
the crown. 4. Heretics, meaning Cranmer, Latimer and others, should
cease to be bishops. 5. Catharine's daughter Mary should be restored as
heiress to the crown. These and other demands, the granting of which
would have meant the death of the Reformation, were firmly refused by
the king, who marveled that ignorant churls, "brutes and inexpert folk"
should talk of theological and political subjects to him and to
his council.

After several ineffectual attempts to meet the royal army in battle,
partly due to storms and lack of subsistence, the rebels were induced to
disperse and a general amnesty was declared. But new insurrections broke
out in various quarters, and the enraged king determined to stamp out
the smoldering fires of sedition. About seventy-five persons were
hanged, and many prominent men were imprisoned and afterwards executed.
This effectually suppressed the rebellion.

The revolt showed the strength of the opponents to the king's will, but
it also proved conclusively that the monarchy was the strongest power in
the realm; that the star of ecclesiastical domination had set forever in
England; that henceforth English kings and not Italian popes were to
govern the English people. True, the king was carrying things with a
high hand, but one reform at a time; the yoke of papal power must first
be lifted, even if at the same time the king becomes despotic in the
exercise of his increased power. Once free from Rome, constitutional
rights may be asserted and the power of an absolute monarchy judiciously
restricted.

Following the Pilgrimage of Grace came the complete overthrow of the
monastic system by the dissolution of the larger monasteries.

_Henry's Disposal of Monastic Revenues_

What use did Henry make of the revenues that fell into his hands? As
soon as the vast estates of the monks were under the king's control, he
was besieged by nobles, "praying for an estate." They kneeled before
him and specified what lands they wanted. They bribed Cromwell, who sold
many of the estates at the rate of a twenty years' purchase, and in some
instances presented valuable possessions to the king's followers. Many
families, powerful in England at the present time, date the beginning of
their wealth and position to the day when their ancestors received their
share of the king's plunder.

The following interesting passage from Sir Edward Coke's Institutes,
shows that Henry sought to quiet the fears of the people by making the
most captivating promises concerning the decrease of taxes, and other
magnificent schemes for the general welfare: "On the king's behalf, the
members of both houses were informed in Parliament that no king or
kingdom was safe but where the king had three abilities: 1. To live of
his own and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or
insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never
assist him. 3. To reward his well-deserving servants. Now the project
was, that if Parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories,
friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that forever in time then
to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to
private uses, but first, that his exchequer, for the purpose aforesaid,
should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom should be strengthened by a
continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers; thirdly,
for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards (as was
projected), in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies,
fifteenths, loans or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honor of the
realm should receive any diminution of honor by the dissolution of the
said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of Parliament of the
abbots and priors, ... that the king would create a number of nobles."

The king was granted the revenues of the monasteries. About half the
money was expended in coast defences and a new navy; and much of it was
lavished upon his courtiers. With the exception of small pensions to the
monks and the establishment of a few benefices, very little of the
splendid revenue was ever devoted to religious or educational purposes.
Small sums were set apart for Cambridge, Oxford and new grammar schools.
Not-withstanding the pensions, there was much suffering; it is said
many of the outcast monks and nuns starved and froze to death by the
roadside. Latimer and others wanted the king to employ the revenues for
religious purposes, but Henry evidently thought the church had enough
and refused. He did, however, intend to allot eighteen thousand pounds a
year for eighteen new bishoprics, but once the gold was in his
possession, his pious intentions suffered a decline, and he established
only six, with inferior endowments, five of which exist to-day.

_Was the Suppression Justifiable?_

It is quite common to restrict this inquiry to a consideration of the
report made by the commissioners against the monks, and to the methods
employed by them in their investigations. The implication is that if the
accusations against the monasteries can be discredited, or if it can be
shown that the motives of the destroyers were selfish and their methods
cruel, then it follows that the overthrow of the monasteries was a most
iniquitous and unwarrantable proceeding. Reflection will show that the
question cannot be so restricted. It may be found that the monastic
institution should have been destroyed, even though the charges against
the monks were grossly exaggerated, the motives of the king unworthy,
and the means he employed despicable.

At the outset a few facts deserve mention. It is usual for Protestants
to recall with pride the glorious heroism of Protestant martyrs, but it
should be remembered that Roman Catholicism also has had its martyrs.
Protestant powers have not been free from tyranny and bloodshed. That
noble spirit of self-sacrifice which has glorified many a character in
history is not to be despised in one who dies for what we may pronounce
to be false.

It must also be granted that the action of the king was not dictated by
a pure passion for religious reform. Indeed it is a fair question
whether Henry may be claimed by the Protestants at all. Aside from his
rejection of the pope's authority, he was thoroughly Catholic in
conviction and in practice. His impatience with the pope's position
respecting his divorce, his need of money, his love of power, and many
other personal considerations determined his attitude toward
the papacy.

It should also be freely conceded that the royal commissioners were far
from exemplary characters, and that they were often insolent and cruel
in the prosecution of their work.

"Our posterity," says John Bale, "may well curse this wicked fact of our
age; this unreasonable spoil of England's most noble antiquities." "On
the whole," says Blunt, "it may be said that we must ever look back on
that destruction as a series of transactions in which the sorrow, the
waste, the impiety that were wrought, were enough to make the angels
weep. It may be true that the monastic system had worn itself out for
practical good; or at least, that it was unfitted for those coming ages
which were to be so different from the ages that were past. But
slaughter, desecration and wanton destruction, were no remedies for its
sins, or its failings; nor was covetous rapacity the spirit of
reformation."

Hume observes that "during times of faction, especially of a religious
kind, no equity is to be expected from adversaries; and as it was known
that the king's intention in this visitation was to find a pretext for
abolishing the monasteries, we may naturally conclude that the reports
of the commissioners are very little to be relied upon." Hallam declares
that "it is impossible to feel too much indignation at the spirit in
which the proceedings were conducted."

But these and other just and honorable concessions in the interests of
truth, which are to be found on the pages of eminent Protestant
historians, are made to prove too much. It must be said that writers
favorable to monasticism take an unfair advantage of these admissions,
which simply testify to a spirit of candor and a love of truth, but do
not contain the final conclusions of these historians. Employing these
witnesses to confirm their opinions, the defenders of monasticism
proceed with fervid, glowing rhetoric, breathing devotion and love on
every page, to paint the sorrows and ruin of the Carthusian Fathers, and
the abbots of Glastonbury and Reading. They ask, "Is this your boasted
freedom, to slay these men in cold blood, not for immorality, but
because they honestly did not acknowledge what no Protestant of to-day
admits, viz.: that King Henry was the Supreme Head of the Church?"
Having pointed out the exaggerations in the charges against the monks
and having made us weep for the aged fathers of the Charterhouse, they
skillfully lead the unwary to the conclusion that the suppression should
never have taken place. This conclusion is illogical. The case is
still open.

Furthermore, if one cared to indulge in historical reminiscences, he
might justly express astonishment that Rome should object to an
investigation conducted by men whose minds were already made up, or that
she should complain because force was employed to carry out a needed
reform. Did the commissioners take a few altar-cloths and decorate their
horses? Did Rome never adorn men in garments of shame and parade them
through streets to be mocked by the populace, and finally burned at the
stake? Were the altar-cloths dear to Catholic hearts? Were not the
Bibles burned in France, in Germany, in Spain, in Holland, in England,
dear to the hearts of the reformers? But however justifiable such a line
of argument may be, there is little to be gained by charging the sins of
the past against the men of to-day. Nevertheless, if these facts and
many like them were remembered, less would be said about the cruelties
that accompanied the suppression of the monasteries.

Were the charges against the monks true? It seems impossible to doubt
that in the main they were, although it should be admitted that many
monasteries were beyond reproach. Eliminating gross exaggerations, lies
and calumnies, there still remains a body of evidence that compels the
verdict of guilt. The legislation of the church councils, the decrees of
popes, the records of the courts, the reports of investigating
committees appointed by various popes, the testimony of the orders
against each other, the chronicles, letters and other extant literature,
abound in such detailed, specific charges of monastic corruption that it
is simply preposterous to reject the testimony. All the efforts at
reformation, and they were many, had failed. Many bishops confessed
their inability to cope with the growing disorders. It is beyond
question that lay robbers were encouraged to perpetrate acts of
sacrilege because the monks were frequently guilty of forgery and
violence. Commenting upon the impression which monkish lawlessness must
have made upon the minds of such men as Wyclif, Pike says: "They saw
with their own eyes those wild and lawless scenes, the faint reflection
of which in contemporaneous documents may excite the wonder of modern
lawyers and modern moralists." The legislation of church and state for a
century before Henry VIII. shows that the monks were guilty of brawling,
frequenting taverns, indulging in licentious pleasures and upholding
unlawful games.

Bonaventura, the General of the Franciscan Order in its earliest days,
and its palmiest, for the first years of a monastic order were always
its best years--this mendicant, their pride and their glory, tells us
that within fifty years of the death of its founder there were many
mendicants roaming around in disorderly fashion, brazen and shameless
beggars of scandalous fame. This unenviable record was kept up down to
the days of Wyclif, who charged the begging friars with representing
themselves as holy and needy, while they were robust of body, rich in
possessions, and dwelt in splendid houses, where they gave sumptuous
banquets. What shall one say of the hysterical ravings against Henry of
the "Holy Maid of Kent," whose fits and predictions were palmed off by
five ecclesiastics, high in authority, as supernatural manifestations?
What must have been the state of monasteries in which such meretricious
schemes were hatched, to deceive silly people, thwart the king and stop
the movements for reform?

Moreover, the various attempts to reform or to suppress the monasteries
prior to Henry's time show he was simply carrying out what, in a small
way, had been attempted before. King John, Edward I. and Edward III.,
had confiscated "alien priories." Richard II. and Henry IV. had made
similar raids. In 1410, the House of Commons proposed the confiscation
of all the temporalities held by bishops, abbots and priors, that the
money might be used for a standing army, and to increase the income of
the nobles and secular clergy. It was not done, but the attempt shows
the trend of public opinion on the question of abolishing the
monasteries. In 1416, Parliament dissolved the alien priories and vested
their estates in the crown. There is extant a letter of Cardinal Morton,
Legate of the Apostolic See, and Archbishop of Canterbury, to the abbot
of St. Albans, one of the mightiest abbeys in all England. It was
written as the result of an investigation started by Innocent VIII., in
1489. In this communication the abbot and his monks were charged with
the grossest licentiousness, waste and thieving. Lina Eckenstein, in her
interesting work on "Woman Under Monasticism," says: "It were idle to
deny that the state of discipline in many houses was bad, but the
circumstances under which Morton's letter was penned argue that the
charges made in it should be accepted with some reservation." In 1523,
Cardinal Wolsey obtained bulls from the pope authorizing the suppression
of forty small monasteries, and the application of their revenues to
educational institutions, on the ground that the houses were homes
neither of religion nor of learning.

What Henry did, every country in Europe has felt called upon to do in
one way or another. Germany, Italy, Spain, France have all suppressed
monasteries, and despite the suffering which attended the dissolution in
England, the step was taken with less loss of life and less injury to
the industrial welfare of the people than anywhere else in Europe[J].

[Footnote J: Appendix, Note J.]

Hooper, who was made a bishop in the reign of Edward VI., expressed the
Protestant view of Henry's reforms in a letter written about the year
1546. "Our king," he says, "has destroyed the pope, but not popery....
The impious mass, the most shameful celibacy of the clergy, the
invocation of saints, auricular confession, superstitious abstinence
from meats, and purgatory, were never before held by the people in
greater esteem than at the present moment." In other words, the
independence of the Church of England was secured by those who, if they
were not Roman Catholics, were certainly closer in faith to Rome than
they were to Protestantism. The Protestant doctrines did not become the
doctrines of the Church of England until the reign of Edward VI., and it
was many years after that before the separation from Rome was complete
in doctrine as well as respects the authority of the pope.

These facts indicate that there must have been other causes for the
success of the English Reformation than the greed or ambition of the
monarch. Those causes are easily discovered. One of them was the
hostility of the people to the alien priories. The origin of the alien
priories dates back to the Norman conquest. The Normans shared the
spoils of their victory with their continental friends. English
monasteries and churches were given to foreigners, who collected the
rents and other kinds of income. These foreign prelates had no other
interest in England than to derive all the profit they could from their
possessions. They appointed whom they pleased to live in their houses,
and the monks, being far away from their superiors, became a source of
constant annoyance to the English people. The struggle against these
alien priories had been carried on for many years, and so many of them
had been abolished that the people became accustomed to the seizure of
monasteries.

Large sums of money were annually paid to the pope, and the English
people were loudly complaining of the constant drain on their resources.
It was a common saying in the reign of Henry III., that "England is the
pope's farm." The "Good Parliament," in 1376, affirmed "that the taxes
paid to the church of Rome amounted to five times as much as those
levied for the king; ... that the brokers of the sinful city of Rome
promoted for money unlearned and unworthy caitiffs to benefices of the
value of a thousand marks, while the poor and learned hardly obtain one
of twenty." Various laws, heartily supported by the clergy as well as by
the civil authorities, were enacted from time to time, aimed at the
abuses of papal power. So steadfast and strong was the opposition to the
interference of foreigners in English affairs, it would be possible to
show that there was an evolution in the struggle against Rome that was
certain to culminate in the separation, whether Henry had accomplished
it or not. What might have occurred if the monks had reformed and the
pope withdrawn his claims it is impossible to know. The fact is that the
monks grew worse instead of better, and the arrogance of foreigners
became more unendurable. "The corruption of the church establishment, in
fact," says Lea, "had reached a point which the dawning enlightenment of
the age could not much longer endure.... Intoxicated with centuries of
domination, the muttered thunders of growing popular discontent were
unheeded, and its claims to spiritual and temporal authority were
asserted with increasing vehemence, while its corruptions were daily
displayed before the people with more careless cynicism." In view of
this condition of affairs, the existence of which even the adherents of
modern Rome must acknowledge, one cannot but wonder that the ruin of the
monasteries should be attributed to Henry's desire "to overthrow the
rights of women, to degrade matrimony and to practice concubinage." Such
an explanation is too superficial; it ignores a multitude of
historical facts.

The monasteries had to fall if England was to be saved from the horrors
of civil war, if the hand of the pope was to remain uplifted from her,
if the insecure gains of the Reformation were to become established and
glorious achievements; if, in fact, all those benefits accompanying
human progress were to become the heritage of succeeding ages.

Whatever benefits the monks had conferred upon mankind, and these were
neither few nor slight, they had become fetters on the advancement of
freedom, education and true religion. They were the standing army of the
pope, occupying the last and strongest citadel. They were the unyielding
advocates of an ideal that was passing away. It was sad to see the
Carthusian house fall, but in spite of the high character of its
inmates, it was a part of an institution that stood for the right of
foreigners to rule England. It was unfortunate they had thrown
themselves down before the car of progress but there they were; they
would not get up; the car must roll on, for so God himself had decreed,
and hence they were crushed in its advance. Their martyrdom was truly a
poor return for their virtues, but there never has been a moral or
political revolution that has furthered the general well-being of
humanity, in which just and good men have not suffered. It would be
delightful if freedom and progress could be secured, and effete
institutions destroyed or reformed, without the accompaniment of
disaster and death, but it is not so.

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