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

Both arguments concerning the health of monasticism are compelling, but the evidence
presented sometimes contradicts itself. On the one hand, as Heale points out there were signs
from visitation records and injunctions that the buildings were falling apart, but assessing the
scale and damage of these from complaints makes it difficult to judge the accuracy of this
statement. 12 Further, some houses were quite small and poor. On the other hand goes the
argument that some monks were moving away from monastic ideals to secular lifestyles by
becoming large landowners. As property owners, they lived amongst the secular world of affairs,
concerning themselves excessively with rents, leases, litigation, local government, and matters of
the state. 13 In these instances, monks were becoming rich and powerful, subsequently allowing
their rigid orders to fall into abeyance. 14 While monks were meant to possess land, it was in
order to enable them to better lead unworldly lives, devoted strictly to prayer and worship. 15
Here, then, is the problem of whether the monasteries were actually becoming poorer or richer.
The answer likely lies in the size of the religious houses. Another problem raised is whether
owning an increased amount of land led to a decline in the observance of the order.
There was also a movement towards investing patronage in parish churches, and away
from monasteries. Monasteries were thrust into a competitive open market with other churches
for patronage because churches became the main centre of local ecclesiastical activity in late
medieval England. 16 Chantry priests had been fulfilling similar functions since the fourteenth
century, and it was not easy to argue that the prayers of a convent had greater efficacy than those
of a single priest, or so argues Woodward. 17 However, ―being a sound perpetual institution
whose prayers would continue indefinitely into the future was one of the main advantages which
12
Martin Heale, ―The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2004), 90.
13
Woodward, 16.
14
F.H. Crossley, The English Abbey: It’s Life and Work in the Middle Ages (London: B.T. Batsford, 1935), 9-10.
15
Woodward, 16.
16
Thompson, ―Monasteries, Societies, and Reform,‖ 178, 180.
17 Woodward, 41.
34