5. Valuations and Envy

'Laws annexing ecclesiastical first fruits and tenths to the king necessitated "Commissioners of the Tenth" being appointed throughout the country to establish all church wealth in England and Wales. This survey, undertaken in the spring and summer of 1535, resulted in the Valor Ecclesiasticus records, used as a basis for clerical taxation'.

A central debate in the mind of Henry VIII was about the revenue of Church and the contributions it should make to the State. In a highly charged Reformation setting, the King could hardly demand the Annates, Peter's Pence, and Indulgence Sales, that had previously gone to the Pope in Rome. The language had to be changed at least. 

Henry did not want to halt the river of money. He wanted to divert the income stream to his own treasury. But for that he needed new names and Protestant methods. 

The mechanism devised by his Secretary, Thomas Cromwell, was contained in 26 Henry VIII, c. 3 (1534). This was "An Act concerninge the paiment of First Fruites of all dignities, benefices, and promocyons spiritual, and also concerninge one annuell pencyone of the tenthe parte of all the possessions of the Churche, spirituall and temporall, graunted to the Kinge's Highnes and his heires".

In the Act, First Fruits were defined as the clear revenue or net profits from church property (temporalities) and religious activities (spiritualities) for one entire year. This tax was to be paid "on the consecration of each new prelate". Filling a bishop's vacancy incurred the cost of one year's surplus from his diocese, an abbot's promotion the amount generated from his abbey. This was a direct steal from the old system, foreshadowed in "An Acte concerning restraynt of payment of Annates to the See of Rome" (1533).

In addition, as a continuing 'income tax', the new Act levied the Tenth, an annual charge of one tenth of the net revenue from all parts of the Church of England ― "Archbishopricks, Bishopricks, Abbeys, Monasteries, Priories, Colleges, Hospitals, Archdeaconries, Deaneries, Provostships, Prebends, Parsonages, Vicarages, Chantries, Free Chapels, and every other dignity, benefice, office, or promotion spiritual within the realm".

In both cases, First Fruits and the Tenth, the government required an up-to-date measure of the the Church's financial position. To this end, the King ordered "Several Commyssions in the Kynge's Name, under his greate seale" to be sent "ynto everie Dyocese yn thys Realme". 

They, "III [3] of them at leaste", were to "examyne, serche, and enquyre" into "the true and juste, hole and entyre yerely values of all the manors, londes [lands], tenements, hereditaments, rents, tythes, offerings, emoluments, and all the other proffites ... apperteynynge or belonginge to an Archbusshopricke, &c., within the lymyttes of their Commyssion".

In principle, a systematic approach to ecclesiastical taxation had a lot of merit. It eliminated a whole tangle of obligation and corruption within the Catholic hierarchy. In practice, the valuations of monastic property had a limited effect. 

In the short term, the assessments in Valor Ecclesiasticus may have determined the order in which religious houses were shut down. Those with clear values less than £200 a year fell victim to the Act for Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries, with 213 of them being "suppressed" during 1535 and 1536. However the violent reaction to these closures, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, hardened the King's attitude against reforming the rest. By 1540 the monastic Orders and their impressive buildings and landholdings were no more.

 

Most volumes of the King's great tax assessment have survived. Unfortunately many of those from the north of England, including much of Yorkshire and all of Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria, are lost. An exception is the Cistercian Abbey of Whalley in Lancashire.

The Valor, and the Whalley Bursar's Compoti (internal accounting) are in general agreement that the Abbey's golden era of generous land grants from benefactors was over. So was the saintly austerity of the founding "white monks" and their lay-brothers (conversi) who had initially worked these lands by themselves. However, revenue from gifted manors and parish churches still poured in through rents and fees.

In 1535 the Abbey was like "a financial magnet that drew in varying sums in annual tributes from the country roundabout". Churches at Whalley, Blackburn, Rochdale and Eccles, provided receipts of £272 7s. 8d. Grange leases at Acton, Stanney, Croenton, Ashton, Clitheroe and Whitworth reaped another £279.

The combined gross income from Spiritualities and Temporalities therefore amounted to £551 4s. 6d. for the year. After allowable deductions, including some alms giving and poor relief, Whalley's assessment for the Tenth, its "clear annual value", was £321 9s. 1½d.

As a moderately prosperous abbey, Whalley operated as a virtual state within the State. Abbot John Paslew was aware of his political role. His Abbey was a large business and this had important regional consequences. He, like his predecessors, interpreted his Order's vow of hospitality as a means to extend and maintain the institution's worldly influence.

Expenditure on food and wine was on an enormous scale, much more than was required to sustain his 20 or so monks. The Whalley Bursars' Compotus for 1535 recorded £22 spent on beef, pork, lamb and poultry, £53 on fish, £38 on "household provisions", and £21 on wine. 

Parlew's policy to consolidate and extend the abbey's reputation for generosity was probably successful. "Their liberality in money was great. The nobility and the gentry...the poor friars...and even the servants of ordinary visitors partook liberally of their bounty". 

But Henry was not just envious of monastic wealth. As King, he was deeply resentful of alternative seats of power and influence. After the Pilgrimage of Grace, Whalley Abbey and its assets were forfeited to the Crown and Abbot Paslew was executed for treason.

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REFERENCES:

J Hunter, 1834, An Introduction to the Valor Ecclesiasticus of King Henry VIII, Commissioners of the Public Records of the Kingdom, London, <babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951002164127a&view>

'The Abbey of Whalley', Victoria County History: Lancashire, vol 2, pp 131-139

M Mullett, 2013, 'The Reformation in the parish of Whalley', in The Lancashire Witches, Manchester Univ Press, 88-104

D Cook, 1980, 'A study in depth: The Dissolution of the Monasteries 1536-40', in Sixteenth-Century England 1450-1600, Macmillan, London, 42-56

N Peyton, 2020, 'The Dissolution of the English Monasteries: A Quantitative Investigation', Economic History Working Papers

No 316, London School of Economics and Poltical Science, 1-27