The Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries
In one of the earlier chapters of a brilliantly written history[1]dealing with the sixteenth century the glory of English hospitality is enlarged upon. It was a time, we are told, “when every door was opened to a request for a meal or a night’s lodging,” and among other examples we are given the instance that “two hundred poor were fed daily at the house of Thomas Cromwell.” Moreover, we are assured that “there was little fear of an abuse of such license.” Yet presently we find the monasteries censured in the severest language for their demoralising charity, and picturesquely and forcibly condemned as “nurseries of dishonest mendicancy.” No explanation is vouchsafed as to why the alms of the monks were more demoralising than those of the nobles.
This is a good illustration of the way the whole subject of the Dissolution of the Monasteries has been often treated.
Sentiment and prejudice enter largely, and perhaps inevitably, into the whole subject. Even so prosaican aspect as the financial one has given occasion for the most contradictory opinions. The vast possessions of the monasteries, their enormous wealth, the large immunities from taxation which they enjoyed, their robbery of the parish churches, have all been dilated upon for three centuries and a half. The monastic income, where figures have been given, ranges from Speed’s £171,300 to Burnet’s £131,607. Abbot Gasquet says the monastic lands amounted to two million acres. A Jacobite pamphleteer of 1717 asserted that the monks possessed seven-tenths of the whole land: more sober writers have estimated less extravagantly. J. R. Green said it was a fifth, and Dr. Gairdner says a third. Writers have often told of “hordes of idle men and women” in the religious houses. Dr. Gasquet affirms that the number was 8,081, with “more than ten times that number of people who were their dependents or otherwise obtained a living in their service:” the total population of England being some four millions, this gives a proportion of one in forty-three.
It is obvious that there remains much to be desired in the way of definiteness and exactness on many points. The following pages are an attempt to do something in this direction by investigating facts and by going to the fountain head. All unsupported statements and mere opinions have been rigorously disregarded: they are generally, and sometimes obviously, guesswork only. The actual figures of authoritative documents alone have been dealt with. In this way it is hoped that some conclusions have been reached which rest upon solid foundations.
Only the county of Stafford has been considered. If it be objected that, the work being thus restricted in scope, the results must be of limited application, it may be pointed out that there are compensating advantages. The material is comparatively manageable. The details, bewildering and difficult of explanation though they often are, are comparatively amenable. Acquaintance with localities may sometimes render assistance. The results, therefore, may gain in precision what they lack in range, and though the writer does not suppose he has succeeded, or nearly succeeded, in solving all or many of the problems which arise, yet he hopes that he has been able to accomplish something. Possibly the national aspect of the whole subject must wait for final treatment until the work of local investigators has been completed.
Reliable information has been sought on such points as the following: the amount of the monastic wealth, its sources and burdens, the relative proportions from temporal and spiritual sources, the extent to which parish churches were “robbed,” the solvency or otherwise of the religious houses, the extent of their charity, the amount of educational work they carried on, their character as landlords, the part they took in the agricultural changes of the period, the material effects of their suppression, and other subjects of a kindred nature. It must be acknowledged at once that the results vary much in character. Thedataare often difficult to interpret and are sometimes too scanty to be of much use in drawing general conclusions of any value.
In particular it has proved to be quite impossible toattempt any estimate of the area of monastic lands. The situation and character of the various possessions can be found, and the income derived from each, but the acreage is seldom given, and no attempt has been made to reckon the extent from the value. Such an attempt has been sometimes made, usually by proposing a ratio between income and acreage. It is generally supposed that the occupied area of England was about thirty-two millions of acres. Thorold Rogers states that at the time of the Dissolution “the rent of agricultural land was from 6d. to 8d. an acre.” It is true that the greater part of the land held by the monasteries was probably agricultural, so that if we divide some estimates which have been given of the total monastic income by 7d. we obtain the following results:
£171,300 (Speed) ÷ 7d. = 5,873,143 acres or about two-elevenths of the whole.£131,607 (Burnet) ÷ 7d. = 4,512,240 acres, or more than one-seventh of the whole.
£171,300 (Speed) ÷ 7d. = 5,873,143 acres or about two-elevenths of the whole.
£131,607 (Burnet) ÷ 7d. = 4,512,240 acres, or more than one-seventh of the whole.
A similar calculation for Staffordshire (748,433 acres), taking the figures to be given in Chapter IV, would give the following results:
Gross total monastic income, £1,874 0s. 1½d. ÷ 7d. = 64,251 acres, or more than one-eleventh of the whole county;Net monastic income, £1,608 5s. 2¾d. ÷ 7d. = 55,140 acres, or more than one-thirteenth of the whole county.
Gross total monastic income, £1,874 0s. 1½d. ÷ 7d. = 64,251 acres, or more than one-eleventh of the whole county;
Net monastic income, £1,608 5s. 2¾d. ÷ 7d. = 55,140 acres, or more than one-thirteenth of the whole county.
But all such calculations are really worthless. It is quite impossible to arrive at any figure which representsthe average income per acre. No doubt Thorold Rogers is correct enough when he gives therent. But all sorts of deductions and allowances have to be made from the rent before the net income is obtained. Moreover, the monastic income was not wholly derived from land, and the land was held by a great variety of tenures, etc. The only possible way of arriving at anything like a correct estimate of the total area of monastic land, failing a complete rent roll and survey for each house, would be to work carefully through the surveys which were made when the property came into the hands of the Crown, the “particulars for grants” which were drawn up on behalf of applicants for grants and leases, and the grants and leases themselves. Even so the task would be one of extraordinary difficulty and complexity. More often than not the monastic lands were not granted in their entirety. They remained in the hands of the Crown till a good purchaser could be found for all or part, and a good bargain struck. There was sub-letting to a bewildering extent. The process went on for years, and all sorts of people obtained grants and leases of the monastic property, often in quite small portions. In 1540 John Smythe, a Yeoman of the Guard, obtained a grant for life of most of the possessions of the Dominican Friars at Newcastle, while in the following year Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury, is found negotiating for a single messuage and lands in Rocester which had belonged to the Abbey there, and at the opposite end of the social scale we find a butcher of Stone, named William Plante, obtaining lands in Walton which had belonged to Stone Priory. Againand again lands are no sooner obtained than they are re-sold. For instance, Trentham was only surrendered in 1536, yet in 1538 the Duke of Suffolk procured a license to alienate; James Leveson secured Rushton Grange from the spoils of Hulton Abbey in 1539, and immediately sold it to Biddulph of Biddulph; in 1541 Sir John Gifford obtained license to alienate the rectory and advowson of Milwich, which had belonged to Stone Priory. In March, 1541, Sir John Dudley obtained a grant in fee of most of the possessions of Dudley Priory: in a couple of months he received a license to alienate part. Such examples, a few out of many, illustrate the appalling complexity of the task to which we have alluded, and show also that any inquiry into the original grants of the lands of the religious houses would throw little light upon the permanent results of the transfer of the monastic property. It would indicate at best who were the shrewdest bargainers and the readiest speculators.
The merely financial aspects of the problem can be investigated with better prospect of success. Bishop Stubbs, with characteristic caution, said that “the income from the monasteries cannot be stated in reasonable figures”[2]and this is no doubt true if we desire to estimate the whole extent of the wealth which passed from the Church at the time of the Dissolution. Full details, especially of the valuables in the churches and other movables, can never be obtained. But there is a good deal of material for arriving, approximately at any rate, at such things as annual income and expenditure, and if we can discover those we shall obtainfigures and facts which will be of great service in many ways.
Many counties had far wealthier monasteries than Staffordshire. The richest counties in England in this respect were Yorkshire and Middlesex, but both of these are exceptional, the former by reason of its disproportionate area, and the latter because it contains the City of London and many of its suburbs. Somerset and Lincolnshire were placed next by their trading centres, and Kent by its position on the main road between the capital and the Continent. Of the remaining thirty-four English counties (excluding Monmouthshire), Staffordshire came twenty-fifth in monastic wealth, the following being poorer: Durham, Cumberland, Northumberland, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Derby, Hereford, Westmoreland and Rutland. The last-named possessed only a single house.
Staffordshire, with a total monastic wealth of some £1,600 annual net income,[3]comes in a group which includes the following counties: Shropshire (£1,966), Lancashire (£1,698), Durham (£1,515), Cumberland (£1,311) and Northumberland (£1,177).[4]It takes its comparatively low position not because it possessed any houses of exceptional smallness or poverty at the time the valuation from which the above figures were taken (1535), but because all the houses were of moderate size without there being any very wealthy abbeys to inflate exceptionally the total. The richest house in the county, Burton Abbey, was only rated at £412 5s.net income.[5]On the whole the Staffordshire houses represent the monasteries of average income, with no great and famous abbeys to monopolise the attention and interest and to introduce exceptional elements. The history of the suppression in Staffordshire will illustrate the suppression of the ordinary religious houses. That of the great and famous abbeys is well known, but it will be interesting to see how the ordinary average houses fell.
The Staffordshire monasteries were, however, sufficiently varied in situation and character to make their history worth studying. They were by no means all of one type, nor were they all, in the sixteenth century, similarly circumstanced. They represented the four great orders of monks: Benedictine, Austin, Cluniac, and Cistercian, and there were houses of Dominican and Franciscan Friars, as well as of the later Austin Friars. Burton Abbey was a house large enough to be involved in national politics; Calwich was so insignificant that the Government was able to suppress it illegally without protest or remark. Between these were some dozen houses, small enough to come within the scope of the Act for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, yet nearly all able to purchase exemption from its provisions. Some, like Stone, stood close to busy highways; some, like Croxden, in its secluded valley, lay remote from towns and even villages; others stood near the well-to-do market towns of Stafford, Leek, and Lichfield. They had originated in various ways. St. Modwen’s Abbey at Burton-on-Trent was the foundation of Wulfric Spot, patriotand soldier, in 1004; where the road crossed the Trent he founded and richly endowed the Benedictine abbey on a site which already had sacred associations. Beside it grew a flourishing town. In its Scriptorium was compiled one of the most valuable of the English monastic chronicles. Kings and prelates lodged within its walls. Burton Abbey played a part in national history more than once. Another Benedictine house arose before the Norman Conquest. Burchard, the third son of Algar, whose other sons were the traitors Edwin and Morcar, accompanied Archbishop Aldred to Rome when he went to fetch his pallium and to obtain papal authorization for the privileges of the Confessor’s new abbey at Westminster. Returning, Burchard fell ill at Rheims, and, dying, was buried within the precincts of the Abbey of St. Remigius there. In gratitude Algar gave to St. Remigius the “villa” of Lapley in Staffordshire, and a priory was built there as a cell dependent on the house at Rheims. In acknowledgment of the help which the Norman invaders had received from the prayers of the Norman monks, Henry de Ferrers established near his castle at Tutbury a priory dependent on the great Abbey of St. Peter-sur-Dive. More worldly motives caused the erection of other houses. Trentham was founded by Hugh, Earl of Chester, as a help towards re-establishing the authority and pre-eminence he had lost in Staffordshire when the Palatine Earldom of Chester was created. Robert de Stafford re-founded Stone as an Austin Priory in order to assist in the building up of a great estate in the district (c.1130). Trentham became an Austin Priory when Earl Ralf of Chester left, on hisdeath-bed, 100 solidates of Trentham Manor to restore it. The vicar of the parish, John, who was the Earl’s Chaplain, became Prior, and for thirty years the endowment continued to be paid to him alone. Not till 1195 was it transferred to “the Canons.”
Such an arrangement illustrates the distinctive feature of the Austin Canons. They lived in modified seclusion. They were parish priests living in community. The rule of St. Augustine represented an attempt at monastic reform by the method of compromise. Other Austin Priories were: Rocester, founded in 1146 by Richard Bacon, nephew of the Earl of Chester; Calwich, given to Kenilworth by Nicholas de Gresley Fitz Nigel; St. John’s, Lichfield, built by Bishop Roger de Clinton when he raised strong walls round the Cathedral close in the reign of Stephen; Ronton, founded by Robert Fitz Noel, who had obtained an estate in Staffordshire through his marriage to the daughter of Bishop Robert de Limesey (1086–1117), as a cell to Haughmond; and St. Thomas’s, Stafford. The origin of the last was particularly interesting. Richard de Peche, Bishop of the Diocese, was one of the friends of Becket. He took part in his consecration, and soon after the murder he dedicated a priory at Stafford to the memory of St. Thomas the Martyr, on land given by a wealthy burgess. When he felt his own end approaching, soon after, he resigned the bishopric and retired to the priory, where shortly after he died and was buried (1182).
The relations between the Austin Canons and the parishes were close, as we have seen. Portions of their houses were often used as parish churches. Justas the Vicar at Trentham became the head of the priory also, so at Stone the priory absorbed the church. At Rocester there was such doubt in the fourteenth century as to the proper place at which the parishioners ought to make their Easter Communions that the matter had to be referred to Bishop Norbury, and he left the matter undecided. At the dissolution of the Priory the parishioners were able to secure three bells for their own use on the plea that these had wont to be rung for parochial services as well as for those of the Canons. When the bishop cited to his visitations the churchwardens and synodsmen (“sidesmen”) of the churches served by Austin priories, he wrote to the Convents. It was often the practice, for instance at Rocester, for the senior canon, next after the Prior, to hold the vicarage.
The Cluniac Order was a revision of the Benedictine rule. Its object was to bring reform; but the abolition of the obligation to perform manual labour, which formed so excellent a feature of the original Benedictine system, merely increased opportunities for idleness. The earliest Cluniac house in Staffordshire arose at Canwell, in the reign of Stephen. It was the foundation, in 1142, of the widow of Justice Geoffrey Ridel, who had perished twenty years before in the disaster to theWhite Ship. Another Cluniac house was built at Dudley, as a cell to Wenlock. It was founded by Gervase Paganel, Baron of Dudley (1161), in fulfilment of his father’s intentions.
The Cistercian Order was another revision of the Benedictine rule. Instead of relaxing the strictness of the original rule, the Cistercians aimed at increasedausterity and simplicity. In the reign of Stephen a small company of recluses fled from the anarchy and lawlessness around them to Radmore, in the recesses of Cannock Chase. For some years they lived, men and women, independently of any of the recognised Orders, but the place was too remote and the state of the country too disorderly for such a defenceless position. They soon had to join one of the great Orders. By the advice of the Empress Matilda they chose the Cistercian and dismissed the women. But food was difficult to obtain, the foresters made frequent depredations, life became impossible even for Cistercians, and they had to remove to Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire.
The Cistercians, whose rule orderedin civitatibus, castellis, villis, nulla nostra construenda sunt cenobia, sed in locis a conversatione hominum semotis, had to wait another generation before they could obtain a footing in the county. They must follow, not precede, order and police. The establishment of a Cistercian house, therefore, is an evident token that law reigned in the district where it arose. The Cistercians aimed at being, not scholars and statesmen such as the Benedictines had become, but farmers, and this feature commended them to all who desired the cultivation and civilisation of the waste tracts into which the Benedictines had never penetrated. The latter had become great landowners, with numerous flourishing towns belonging to them, and wide estates well cultivated. The land unoccupied by the Benedictines was wild and rough, but offering opportunities for pasturage. To pasturage, therefore, the Cistercians devoted themselves; and the growth of the wool trade,which arose almost at the same time as they came into favour, made them masters of the most profitable branch of English industry.
Bertram de Verdun, lord of Alton, occupied a middle position between the old feudal aristocracy and the new men who were becoming their rivals. He married Earl Ferrers’ niece, and by his father’s marriage was connected with Geoffrey de Clinton, Henry I’s Chamberlain. He himself was one of Henry II’s most trusted and trustworthy officials. On a visit to his relative, the Constable of Normandy, he was taken to see the Cistercian house which the Constable’s step-father had founded. De Verdun was so impressed that he determined to found a similar house in Staffordshire, where the growth of law and order gave opportunity for developing his lands. He requested the Abbot of Aunay to send some of his monks to the site he offered near Alton. Two years later (1180) they removed to a more suitable spot a few miles distant, where the beautiful ruins of Croxden Abbey still stand. They well illustrate the simplicity which characterised Cistercian architecture, though the church was almost unique among houses of the order in England in having a semi-circular apse with five radiating chapels, instead of the usual plain square end.[6]This was copied from the parent house at Aunay, and it emphasises the peculiarity that Croxden, unlike most of the Cistercian abbeys in England, was the offshoot of a foreign house.
Farther northwards the Cistercians could not yet penetrate. But the Earls of Chester were meanwhileengaged in developing the estates they held there, and early in the thirteenth century Ralf Blundeville, who played an independent and honourable part in the difficult and dishonourable times of King John’s reign, was strong enough to take definite steps. He established a market at Leek in 1208. In 1214, the very year when the Papal Legate received at Burton Abbey Archbishop Langton’s spirited protest against his intrusion into the affairs of the State and Church of England, Ralf Blundeville founded the abbey at Dieulacres. The site was a little north of Leek. He gave it to the Cistercians, the skilful farmers and agriculturists, bestowing upon them wide lands and extensive privileges. They were to be his agents for the civilisation of the Moorlands, and well they performed their work. Soon afterwards a third Cistercian house was founded at Hulton by Henry de Audley, constable of the neighbouring castle of Newcastle-under-Lyme, who had for some time been engaged in building up an estate there. Hulton Abbey had, later, a pottery where tiles and other articles were made. There were nunneries at Brewood, on the western border of the county, and at Fairwell, near the road between Lichfield and Rugeley. Both were Benedictine. The friars reached Staffordshire in the reign of Henry III. There were Grey Friars at Lichfield and Stafford and Black Friars at Newcastle-under-Lyme. At Radford, near Stafford, a house of Lepers, with a master and friars of the Holy Sepulchre, stood for some time. The house of the Austin Friars, at Stafford, was founded by Ralf, Baron of Stafford, in the reign of Edward III. At Lees the Priory ofRocester maintained a chantry, or cell. The Knights Templars had a Preceptory at Keele.
The monasteries and nunneries were usually well endowed, and most of them became possessed of considerable worldly possessions. The records of the Dissolution disclose lists of manors, granges, tenements, water-mills, fulling mills, and salt pans, which produced large revenues. From appropriated livings, tithes and oblations were drawn away from the places where they were paid, for the benefit of the distant monastery. Fees were sometimes paid on admission to the Community. Did a son obtain ordination through the help of the monks, how could the father better show his gratitude than by making them a gift? Lights and masses were endowed. The monks had command of ready money and were able to lend to those who required cash, it might be to those overtaken by sudden necessity or to some desirous of making a pilgrimage. When a verderer of Cannock, in the thirteenth century, rendered himself liable to the severe penalties of the Forest Laws, he fled for his life beyond the seas and sold his manor to St. Thomas’s Priory at Stafford.[7]Corrodies originally were a form of life assurance.[8]For a lump sum Dieulacres sold a corrody to a Jew, consisting of food and clothing for life.[9]It was an attractive though shortsighted method of obtaining money or lands, for the corrodies sometimes entailed a severe strain, and there are complaints ofthe non-fulfilment of the obligations. In 1294 the Prior of Stone was fined for having wrongfully deprived a man of his corrody, which consisted of a daily loaf of bread and a gallon of ale, with a canon’s habit worth a mark yearly, provender for horse and keep for groom, four cartloads of wood annually, and two candles a night from Hallowmas to Candlemas.[10]Corrodies led to further difficulties. Founders and kings claimed the right of nomination. So early as Edward I’s reign Dieulacres had a contention with the King on the subject. Such demands often became a grave abuse, and there are numberless instances, especially in such reigns as those of Edward II and Richard II, of the quartering on the monasteries of discharged soldiers and worn-out officials. The Bishop of Lichfield once demanded from Tutbury a corrody for his cook, but Archbishop Peckham forbade it to be granted. The practice continued to the very end. Even so late as 1532 we find the servants of the Duke of Richmond, Henry VIII’s natural son, billeted in the English monasteries during their master’s absence on the Continent.[11]
Monastic hospitality was often grievously abused. No doubt when kings and other great men lodged in the monasteries they usually made some acknowledgment. But the Priory of Stone complained to Bishop Norbury (1322–59) that it was impoverished by the many claims which were made on its hospitality by travellers of every degree in consequence of its beingjuxta viam regiam, and in 1382 Burton made a similar complaint to the Pope. In the early years of HenryVI’s reign Burton was absolutely insolvent and was put into commission for seven years.[12]
Many houses had the privilege of holding fairs and markets. Croxden, Dieulacres, Rocester and Burton did a brisk trade with foreign wool merchants in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and their wool was almost unexcelled in England. Edward III once exacted 600 sacks of wool from Staffordshire at a low rate, and the Croxden annalist says he failed to pay even that. Sometimes the business transactions of the monks were questionable: In 1457 the Prior of St. Thomas’s, Stafford, was sued for £10 damages for having sold a horsesciens equum illum in varias infirmitates collapsum et ad laborandum impotentem.[13]Sometimes, especially in the case of the friars in the towns, strong opposition was raised. In 1282 the King had to intervene to protect the friars minors at Stafford, as it appeared that certain regrators put hindrances in the way of their purchasing even daily victuals, and at times even snatched out of their hands what they had bought.[14]
But the religious rendered real services to the towns. Burton grew up beside the Abbey walls, built very largely under the direction of the abbots through many generations. Abbot Nicholas built the first street in the twelfth century, and the fifteenth abbot, Thomas de Felde, built the great hall in the market place. Later still Abbot Beyne founded the Grammar School.
Of these houses the following remained till the sixteenth century: Brewood Nunnery, Burton Abbey,Calwich Priory, Canwell Priory, Croxden Abbey, Dieulacres Abbey, Dudley Priory, Fairwell Nunnery, Hulton Abbey, Rocester Abbey, Ronton Priory, Sandwell Priory, St. Thomas’s Priory at Stafford, St. John’s Priory at Lichfield, Stone Priory, Trentham Priory, and Tutbury Priory; and the friaries at Lichfield, Stafford and Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is with the dissolution of these that we shall be concerned. They were not pre-eminent for size, wealth, vice or virtue; they did not give to the history of the Reformation any famous names or contribute any striking episodes. They represent, rather, the ordinary “rank and file” of the religious houses. For that reason they are, perhaps, the better worth investigation, because they are typical of the average.
It is the exceptional which attracts attention, but it is the ordinary which better represents the truth. If, therefore, we can obtain a correct estimate of the conditions of the Staffordshire houses at the time of their surrender we may fairly safely accept it as a tolerably accurate picture of the condition of English monasticism as a whole. The accounts which the records give of the manner and details of the suppression in Staffordshire represent in all probability the ordinary course of that great undertaking everywhere. The results which followed, the settlements which were made, and the new arrangements which became necessary in Staffordshire, are probably typical of those which followed in the great majority of places. By restricting our scrutiny we may obtain a better view.