The 1536 Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries: Same Suppression ...

Visitation records reveal that there were ―many recorded instances of moral failings on the part
of individual monks and nuns,‖ as well as financial mismanagement in both great and small
houses. 4 A considerable number of houses were physically in bad shape by the 1530s and had
likely been in a poor state for quite some time. A decrease in the number of recruits, a lack of
discipline, and moral and spiritual weaknesses decreased the strength of these houses. 5 Indeed,
only eight new houses had been founded since the onset of the fifteenth century. 6
On the other hand, there are historians, such as David Knowles, who argue that
monasticism was not in decline and the closures were thus not inevitable. McKisack states ―it
would be a grave error to postulate an obviously impending collapse of monasticism in this
century, or even a state of general decline.‖ 7 Although there was a reduction in numbers, the
greater houses retained a respectable complement of monks. 8 There was, for example, a renewal
of several larger Benedictine houses by the sixteenth century. 9 Furthermore, between 1485 and
1535 men and women were still joining the religious orders, albeit in fewer numbers: ―if even a
noticeable number of young men and women were choosing to enter religious life at this time,
when new possibilities were opening up to appeal to those who were considered secular careers,
then, the attraction and the call were still recognizable forces in the sixteenth-century society.‖ 10
In other words, while monasticism may have slowed down as far as numbers were concerned, it
was still flourishing. Thus, in their view Henry VIII was merely being a despot, wielding his
power to crush the monasteries, and using reform as an excuse to dissolve them. 11
4
Cunich, 150.
5
Youings, 29.
6
Mackie, Earlier Tudors, 373.
7
McKisack, 308.
8
Ibid.
9
Cunich, 150.
10
Joan Greatrex, ―After Knowles: Recent Perspectives in Monastic History,‖ in The Religious Orders in Pre-
Reformation England, ed. James G. Clark (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2002), 36.
11
Taunton, Chapter VIII.
33