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

cluny is the main abbey and all other houses were
priories under Cluny‘s governance).
Monastic Rules Guides for monastic living. The
most important, often known as simply The Rule was
written by St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-c.550).
Because monks and nuns follow such guidelines, they
are known as regular clergy.
Monastic Schools Early monasteries often
included schools, but monastic schools became
especially important after Charlemagne‘s capitulary
of 789 ordered every monastery to provide some
educational training. Many monastic schools trained
external students as well as monks and nuns.
Monastic schools were slowly superseded, for men,
by cathedral schools and universities, but they
remained important in female education throughout
the Middle Ages.
P
Papacy The office of the pope.
Papal Bull In a general sense, a ―bull‖ is a
document ratified by a seal (that is, a wax
impression). A papal bull is an authoritative
document bearing a papal seal.
Pope The bishop of Rome, considered by Catholic
Christians to be the successor to St. Peter and the true
head of all Christians. The fifteenth century saw
General Councils (backed by the universities) laying
contradictory claims. In the sixteenth century the
Papacy achieved the upper hand once again, was
particularly sensitive to suggestions of the revival of
conciliarism and to claims by secular threats to its
authority. The Henrician Reformation can be placed
fruitfully within this general context. Papal
infallibility was a nineteenth-century invention.
Priory A monastic community, governed by a
prior or prioress. Sometimes priories were under the
authority of a superior abbey, but often they were just
relatively small communities.
R
Religious (regular clergy) A term used to mean
those clergy who lived under a rule (for example, that
of St. Augustine or St Benedict) in a religious house
(monastery, convent etc.)
S
Secular Having to do with the world, as opposed
to spiritual and religious matters. Served pastoral
needs of the laity.
Secular Clergy All clergy who did not belong to
the rule of a religious order.
50
Shrines Originally a chest in which a relic was
kept (reliquary). It was commonly used to mean a
sacred image, especially one to which pilgrimages
were made. The most important English shrines were
those of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury; Our Lady
at Walsingham; St. Edward the Confessor at
Westminster Abbey and St. Cuthbert at Durham. The
Reformation rejected pilgrimages and shrines as
meaningless in terms of salvation.
T
Tithe A tenth part of the produce of land; of the
fruits of labour and those arising partly out of the
ground and partly from work offered to the clerical
incumbent of a parish benefice.
V
Valor Ecclesiasticus Official and comprehensive
valuation of ecclesiastical and monastic revenues
made in 1535. Popularly known as the King‘s Books.
This valuation followed on the 1534 Act of Annates
(26 Henry VIII, c.3) whereby the Crown appropriated
the first fruits of every benefice (living) and a tenth of
the annual income of every benefice.
Vicegerent (in spirituals) Office of deputy in
religious matters created by Henry VIII and bestowed
upon Thomas Cromwell in 1535. Involved a
delegation of the King‘s prerogative as head of the
church and Cromwell may have held courts similar to
those held by Wolsey as Papal Legate (q.v). The
vicegerency disappeared after Cromwell‘s fall and
temporary ecclesiastical commissions exercised
delegated powers.
Visitation From the late fifteenth century the
college of heralds undertook visitations throughout
the realm checking the claims to arms of county
families and establishing the descent of these claims.
*These terms are taken from Rosemary O‘Day, The Longman Companion to the Tudor Age (London and NewYork: Longman,
1995); and Judith M. Bennett and C. Warren Hollister, Medieval Europe: A Short History (New York: McGraw Hill, 2006).