The Dissolution Of The Monasteries

[poliphilo]

"Dissolution"- a curiously mild word- as if the monasteries had just melted away. The reality was theft, murder and the obliteration of a thousand year old culture. The English have always been a little cagey about talking about it.  Henry VIII?- oh, he was the man who had trouble with his wives. Where is the art that deals with this national crime? There isn't any. Shakespeare, who lived as close to the events as my generation does to WWII, slips in the odd reference- "bare ruined choirs where once the sweet birds sang"- but you sense him being careful. The new ruling class didn't want people talking about how they'd come by  their nice new houses and estates. 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

One of these days I must read up about the Dissolution. It's a subject about which I know far too little.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I think that's true for most people - but the little that I know comes more from family histories and correspondence, rather than from history books.
What's never been clear to me is how local people really thought about the monastic foundations - I suspect that it was pretty mixed, and that it wasn't only those who acquired formerly monastic buildings who benefited. It's not as if new owners moved straight in - there must have been quite a lot of local benefit to be had from livestock, fishponds, etc. - not to mention the amount of stone that got carted around

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That was me, of course. I hadn't realised I wasn't signed in.