1. Suppressing the Lesser Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII occurred in two stages. The first move took place during 1535 and 1536 with the "suppression" of 213 "lesser" monasteries. The second phase, from 1537 until 1540, saw the "surrender" of the remaining religious houses through a process of "negotiating".

Marking the dividing point of the alternate systems of "closure" was a series of rebellions in the north of England, collectively called the Pilgrimage of Grace. It was the quashing of these revolts, and severe punishment of the ringleaders, that enabled the King's officers to proceed from "suppression of the lesser monasteries" to the peaceful "surrender" of the rest.

In the aftermath of the Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Cumberland uprisings, some 216 rebels were executed for treason, including at least six abbots, 38 monks, and 16 priests. Many of them suffered the ultimate sentence: 

     "And on 25 day of May 1537, being Friday in Whitsun week, Doctor Cockerall, priest, Abbot quondom of Fountains, and Doctor Pickering, friar, were drawn from the Tower of London to Tyburn, and there hanged, bowelled and quartered, and their heads set on London Bridge and divers gates in London." (Wriothesleys Chronicles).

Prominent among the "traitors" were five Cistercian abbots ― Adam Sedbar of Jervaulx Abbey, William Trafford of Sawley Abbey, William Thirsk of Fountains Abbey, John Pasley of Whalley Abbey, and Richard Harrison of Kirkstead Abbey. Roger Peele of Furness Abbey narrowly averted the same fate by being the first from the "greater monasteries" to accept "voluntary forfeiture" in 1537.

There was "defiant commitment to the monastic life and traditional Catholic belief" among the mighty (and mitred) Cistercian institutions in the north. An example of the strength of this feeling is found in Abbot John Hubrey's Breviary at Fountains. The abbot died in 1526, but an annotation (or "anathema") was added at a later date, presumably by his successor, the deposed (1535) and then executed (1537) Abbot Thirsk.

After King Henry's break with Rome, a royal proclamation was issued to enforce the abolition of papal authority in England. It instructed clergy to remove all written references to the Pope.

     "All manner of prayers, orisons, rubrics, canons in mass-books and all other books used in churches, wherein the said bishop of Rome is named or his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred, [is] utterly to be abolished, eradicated and erased out."

The Breviary is partially compliant. All mentions of pape are lightly scored through rather than completely blocked out. But on the final leaf of the volume a neat metrical inscription declares:

     "Let not for Lordshyp plesor nor might to corer ye wharn and mayntyng ye ryt".

This is a bold statement that further amendments ("corer") to the Breviary's liturgical calendar will be resisted, irrespective of the "plesor" or "myght" of the "Lordshyp" who demanded them.

A significant step towards the destruction of monasticism was Valor Ecclesiasticus, or the valuation of church property, undertaken by the king's commissioners. The valuation process was conducted speedily during 1535 and revealed a wide variation of wealth amongst the Cistercian Order in the north.

The richest abbey was Fountains with a clear income of £1,115 a year, followed by Furness with a net annual worth of £805. In the next range were HolmCultram (£471), Kirkstall (£329), and Whalley (£321). A broad middle category of abbeys with figures between £300 and £200 included Bylands, Jervaulx, Meaux, Rievaulx and Kirkstead. At the lowest level were monasteries like Sawley (£147), Louth Park (£147), Newminster (£100), and Rufford (£100). The poorest of all were 11 small Cistercian nunneries, Swine Priory being the best off at only £83, while Wykeham and Ellerton came in at £25 and £15 respectively.

These valuations were critical in determining which abbeys were destined to fall first. The Suppression of Religious Houses Act of 1536 (27 Henricus 8 c 28) granted the property of all "Lesser Monasteries" directly to the King. The Parliamentary Bill's Long Title read:

      "An Act whereby all Relygeous Houses on Monkes, Chanons and Nonnes whiche may not dyspend Manors Landes Tenementes & Heredycaments above the clere value of ij C Li [i.e. £200] are geven to the Kinges Highnes his Heires and Successours forever."

Testimony from a Louth Park Abbey monk, William Moreland, gives some insight into the lot of clericals from those institutions suppressed under the Act. On dismissal, the last abbot George Walker received a pension of £26.13s.4d. His 10 monks had £4.6s.8d. divided amongst them as "wages due", 20s. apiece to buy themselves "secular apparel", and "capacities" or "licences" to serve elsewhere as parish priests (if they could find a vacant altar). 

In reality, the monks of Louth were left with very little to make their way in the world outside of the abbey cloisters. Moreland, aka Brother Borrowby, told how he and his brethren lived for a while as near as they could to their old monastery, only going out to hear mass at the parish church or to meet and speak with with one another. He had occasional employment delivering licenses to the brothers and was breakfasting with former monk Robert Hert in Louth when he heard the alarm bell rung for the first time.

Moreland claimed that he did his best to minimise mob violence during the Lincolnshire Rising, saving the life of Doctror Rayne's proctor under the Louth market cross and pushing through an angry crowd to "shrive" (give Last Rites) the servant of Lord Bruge. However he also admitted he had "worn sword and buckler" and "breast-plate and sleeves of mail with a gorget" during the fortnight of unrest (1 October to 14 October 1536).

He and two main ringleaders, Thomas Kendal vicar of Louth and Nicholas Merton shoemaker (aka Captain Cobbler), were arrested and taken to the Tower of London to be "examined". On 26 March 1537, they were dragged to Tyburn where they were hung drawn and quartered for their part in the rebellion.

The crisis of dispersal was even more acute for Cistercian nuns. Swine Priory was exempted from suppression in 1535 and 1537, due to the lack of alternative places for nuns who wished to continue their life under "Holy Orders". Prioress Dorothy Knight and her nuns finally surrendered in 1539, when they were allocated pensions. A 1552 inquiry into "complaint of non-payment" to ex-religious of these amounts shows, or at least implies, the fate of lone women in late-mediaeval society:

      Dorothy Knight "of thage of 50 yeres and pencion £12.5s.7d. and paid";

      "Elizabeth Grymston of thage of 35 yeres and pencon by yere 61s.7d. and is maried to oon Pykkerd of Welwek and paid";

     "Elisabeth Tyas morant apud Tykhill, and now maried to oon John Swyne gentilman, and pencon by yere 60s, and paid";

      Elizabeth Clifton "of thage of 60 years and pencon by yere 65s.7d. and hathe sold her pencon to [...]";

      Elizabeth Elsley "pencion by yere 60s. and remaynyth w' master Barton at Northallerton as it is seid".

With their limited prospects, it is not surprising that many of the rebels were "religious". From a total of 34 condemned at Lincoln, there were 6 priests, 13 monks, and one abbot. Typical of the participants were a contingent from Kirkstead Abbey. Monk Henry Jenkinson (condemned 6 March 1537) testified that "the abbot, cellarer, bursar, himself, and all of the monks able to go, seventeen in all", took part ― the cellarer and the bursar were "horsed with battle axes" and equipped by the abbey with "20s. for the rebels and a horse laden with victuals".

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REFERENCES:

GWO Woodward, 1975, The Dissolution of the Monasteries, Pitkin Pictorials Ltd, London

M Carter, 2015, '"It would have pitied any heart to see": Destruction and Survival at Cistercian Monasteries in Northern England at the Dissolution', Journal of British Archaeological Association, 168, 77-110

GWS Barrow, 1971, Feudal Britain, The Completion of the Medieval Kingdoms 1066-1314, Edward Arnold, Kent

K Altazin, 2011, 'The Northern Clergy and the Pilgrimage of Grace', LSU Digital Commons, Louisiana State University Doctoral Dissertations, 1-334

C Cross, 2009, 'Participants in the Pilgrimage of Grace (act. 1536-1537)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

'Houses of Cistercian Monks: The Abbey of Louth Park' 

'Houses of Cistercian Nuns: The Priory of Swine'

British History Online