Talk:Dissolution of the monasteries

message: Does this entry really pass muster as neutral? or historical? --Wetman 07:59, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I cleaned up some of the pro-Rome POV in the article, in particular the argumentative style which looks more like an academiv POV thesis. I have noticed that many articles on the reformation are basically arguing 'the English yearned to rejoin Rome'. There is no balancing POV stating that Henry VIII got away with it because the church was a stinking cesspool of corruption loathed at practically every level of society by a large fraction of the population. The Borgias had only just been ejected, the indulgences racket was an abomination, the church was synonymous with greed.--Gorgonzilla 01:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That POV would be problematic not for a pro-Protestant stance but for historical inaccuracy.  The only Borgia pope died many decades before the English reformation and was a distant and irrelevant memory.  Indulgences were a problem in Germany but not an issue in England.  There were certainly greedy priests and prelates, but there were also greedy sheriffs and chancellors, and the church did not suddenly become less grasping for being Protestant instead of Catholic.
The tone looks rather Protestant to me.  But there is in general in this article a need for two-handedness (some historians say x, some y) which is lacking: there is no need for Wikipedia to take a view on how much abuse there was in the pre-reformation institutions. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 09:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: I have removed the following sentence; "The world-famous Book of Kells was only preserved by being smuggled out of the monastery at great risk by the last Abbot."  The Abbey of Kells was converted to a parish church in the 12th Century.  The last Abbot had been dead for about 400 years by the time of Thomas Cromwell.  The Book left Kells during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, a century later. Dsmdgold 22:24, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
:Ding dang! Good sleuthing! I was fooled by this, though I got the "fish-wrapping" bit out, as it smelled: 
:::"Other losses to posterity included the many valuable books held in the monastic libraries, virtually all of which were destroyed and their pages used for tasks such as stopping wine casks, polishing candlesticks, or wrapping fish. It is believed that many of the earliest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were lost at this time. The world-famous Book of Kells was only preserved by being smuggled out of the monastery at great risk by the last Abbot. Monastic schools and hospitals were also lost, with serious consequences locally." 
:Oi! Well, this text was added, 10 February 2004, by an anonymous editor, User:62.64.212.184, who made numerous edits, 9 and 10 Feb. 2004, but has not been seen since, or before.  Hmm, bears looking over...  --Wetman 00:25, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Book of Kells

message: Added the section header "Context and description" so that the Table of Contents wasn't pushed to the bottom. I know that's not the greatest title, but I couldn't think of anything else, nor could I find a way to split them into two separate sections, e.g. "Context" and "Description." =\ --User:Jenmoa 18:23, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sections 

message: Currently reading a book by Jane Greatorex (Greatorex, Jane [1999]. Coggeshall Abbey and Abbey Mill [Manors, Mills & Manuscripts]. Jane Greatorex, Castle Hedingham, Essex. ).  On page 11 she talks about how in 1295 all monastic houses within 13 miles of the coast and sending money back to their mother houses in France were re-sited to within not 20 miles of the coast.  And how in 1391 Richard II dissolved all 'alien' religious houses in the country, "the first dissolution of houses in this country".  Is this a well known fact and could it be regarded as an earlier dissolution?  Is it worth mentioning on this page or else where?  Thanks Pluke 16:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earlier Dissolution? 

message: I see there is a redlink at "the First Suppression Act (1536) and the Second Suppression Act (1539)." I feel this current article is incomplete without paragraphs discussing the contents of these two acts, and that separate articles might not really serve the Wikipedia reader at this stage. --Wetman 18:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, they should redirect here for now. Be bold. -- SECisek 18:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The suppression acts

message: I have tagged this article with , because it seems to say very little about the dissolution in Ireland, although there is quite a lot on the dissolution in England. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ireland 

message: the article did appear to be skewed by a POV that did not reflect current scholarship.  I have suggested a number of changes, but am sure that further improvement is needed. TomHennell (talk) 12:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: I have substantially revised the main section to clarify the distinction between the Vistitaiion of the Monasteries and the Valor Ecclesiasticus; and to bring the article into line with recent academic research, which tends to regard the initial stages of the process as arising from Henry's wish for monastic reform (albeit one that would close a high proportion of monastic houses), with the decision to seek total dissolution only following the Pilgrimage of Grace. TomHennell (talk) 16:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Timescale of the Dissolution 

message: I have reverted the following addition: Last but not least, it was the invention of the printing press in the early 16th century that made the dissolution of the monestaries a feasible course of action for the king. Its invention made redundant the most critical service the monasteries rendered - the painstaking copying of texts by hand.  The printing press was invented in the 15th century. By the 15th century, monasteries had ceased to copy manuscripts, which was done by secular professional copyists.  In this period, the decline in numbers meant that for the overwhelming majority of monasteries, it was as much as could be done to maintain the regular monastic office (and even then the night offices were commonly re-arranged into daylight hours).  TomHennell (talk) 23:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  printing and manuscript copying 

message: BBC Radio 4's In Our Time is a 45 minute discussion programme about the history of ideas, with three eminent academics in their field, hosted by Melvyn Bragg. Each edition deals with one subject from one of the following fields: philosophy, science, religion, culture and historical events. It is akin to a seminar. The entire archive going back to 1998 is now available online in perpetuity.
An edition about the dissolution of the monasteries was broadcast with Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University; Diane Purkiss, Fellow and Tutor at Keble College, Oxford; George Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton.
You can listen to the programme on this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009jtq1. Would you be able to include this as an external link?--Herk1955 (talk) 10:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request: BBC's In Our Time broadcast 

message: This article has been transmogrified into an impressive essay. I almost felt like congratulating the fellow contributors; however it is an ill-conceived effort as this is an encyclopaedia. It needs to be rectified to meet relevant criteria for Wikipedia. For more details please see here: Encyclopedic style. Mootros (talk) 19:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  good points, though it would be helpful if you could point to particular passages that you feel particularly lack encyclopedic style.  Their are indeed quite a range of value comments (it that is what you are referring to).  A high proportion of these can - I think - be cited to authoritative source; most notably David Knowles.  If a value statement can be cited to an acknowledged authority, is it proper to include it in the encyclopedia. with appropriate refererences? TomHennell (talk) 01:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: * The article is well written and is so long that we require actionable specifics rather than an indiscriminate banner tag which does not help us forward. I have therefore removed it. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

text: That's an exaggeration, yes, but the article could be broken down into a few more sub-sections. A few things such as 'Chaucer's Pardoner and other Chaucerian anticlerical satire are too familiar to need instancing' do need to be modified to fit NPOV guidelines, and there's some formatting cleanup to do. I'll see what I can do to pitch in. John Slocum (talk) 10:32, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  An impressive essay... 

message: This is poor. Perhaps someone would like to remove or improve.
Henry didn't agree with the monks the nuns so he shut down all the monasteries (Where they lived) he then sold the land the monasteries had been on and earn money from it. Lots of the people didn't agree with it but they had to or would suffer.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.172.180.242 (talk) 07:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syntax 

message: I have removed a chunk of the first paragraph which was more or less saying that Henry was right to dissolve the monasteries because they were guzzling up all the dosh:
::"Although some monastic foundations dated back to Anglo-Saxon England, the overwhelming majority of the 825 religious communities dissolved by Henry VIII owed their existence to the wave of monastic enthusiasm that had swept England and Wales in the 11th and 12th centuries; in consequence of which religious houses in the 16th century controlled appointment to about a third of all parish benefices, and disposed of about half of all ecclesiastical income." Francis Hannaway (talk) Francis Hannaway 18:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolute nonsense. You are quoting a biased article to begin with. The opening paragraph need only state that Henry broke with the main part of the Catholic Church and refused recognition of the Pope in England, Your statement implies that he broke with Rome because of the money consumed by the monasteries - not true, it was a power thang. Therefore, your statement was POV. Francis Hannaway (talk) Francis Hannaway 21:43, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course these statements about monastic wealth and possessions could be put into one of the later paragraphs; but I think them more pertinent in the lead, as they follow on from the description of what the dissolution did: confiscate monastic assets and make provision for religious persons and monastic dependents. It is very pertinent to know at the outset what the scale of this action was. Indeed you may note that David Knowles advances the excessive scale of monastic wealth - relative to that of the English Church as whole - as first in his listing of contributory factors leading to the decline of late medieaval monasticism, and hence to the dissolution. Nor can I understand your categorisation of Dickens work as 'biased'; on the contrary, this remains one of the standard texts on the subject. Moreover, your alternative suggestions for the content of the lead would appear (to me) to be of questionable relevance, as they confuse the Dissolution with the Henrician Reformation. Henry would have dissolved monasteries whether or not he had broken with Rome (albiet that the Supremacy made dissolution much easier to do). Scarisbrick's point that 'a purge of the religious orders was probably regarded as the most obvious task of the new regime', would appear unarguable. Certainly, many of those who opposed the Royal Supremacy, such as Reginald Pole and Thomas More, were nervertheless strong proponents of major action so suppress failing religious houses. TomHennell (talk) 22:33, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The bias is in the idea that the Valor Ecclesiasticus was used as a tool to support the Dissolution. I accept that the Dissolution may, or would, have happened without a break with Rome, although not on such a scale (a purge is not a dissolution). I also think, though, that there was a strong link with his dislike of the religious orders and his feeling of being manipulated by Rome which itself was being manipulated by other powers - in short he needed to consolidate his own sovereign authority. Having said that I accept your offer to remove the information to a later paragraph. Thank you. Francis Hannaway (talk) Francis Hannaway 10:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't disagree with any of that Francis; and you are right to regard the Valor Ecclesiaticus as being part of the process of the Royal Supremacy (and hence a Royal grab for Papal taxation revenue streams), not that of Dissolution.  The point, however, is that the Valor (though now incomplete for some counties and subject to systematic under-assessement in some areas - has allowed scholars to make relatively objective assessments of the wealth of the Church in total, and of the religious houses in particular. So we can be very confident in estimating the proportion of parish benefices appropriated to religious houses as being 40% (compare to over 90% in Scotland). Henry's motives are not always clear (and changed anyway in the face of opposition), but his hostility towards monasticism does appear to have long pre-dated the break with Rome.  Barnard has put forward a detailed case for Henry being a consistent Erasmian in his religious policy (although I myself consider the argument for the later years over-stated); and if so, this would imply for the younger Henry - as for More, Fisher and Pole - a cultural acceptance of the proposition that there were then many too many monasteries for the public good, and that their relgious life was largely deficient of value for the general commonwealth. TomHennell (talk) 13:31, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV - again 

message: This article is too long; any reader desiring an overview of the subject matter will be sorely disappointed.
Also, whoever wrote the article has no idea, or chose simply to ignore, how semi-colons are actually used in standard English prose.  The unorthodox punctuation is extremely distracting.
:: Agree that the article is long. Whether it is too long is a different matter. Certain sections would benefit from being broken down into smaller, more digestible, pieces. The "process" section in particular is long. Work for the editors among us. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 15:08, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto.  I'm going to break up some sections. Bearian (talk) 19:54, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long, bad punctuation 

message: I know it is referenced (endnote 1), but the quote that one man in 50 was in a monastery is incorrect. The population was about 3 million, which means about 1.5 m men - and if 10,000 were "religious" (I mean in the technical sense) then that is one in 150 - even if we exclude childre that would still be one in a hundred, at most. I suggest a note to qualify the reference.Ncox (talk) 17:43, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Numbers of monks and nuns

message: In such a panoramic article as this, it would be interesting if on-record figures could be given for the numbers of monks etc who were executed or died otherwise in captivity, as well as those non-monastics executed for participation in the Pilgrimage of Grace and other anti dissolution protests (a check of the article on the latter shows out of 216 executions consequent there were 6 abbots and 38 monks put to death). It would be interesting certainly for context against the numbers of living monastics given earlier in the page and to answer the question as to how bloody this change was (I suspect dramas such as The Tudors exaggerate the loss of life).Cloptonson (talk) 05:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting indeed; but putting overall numbers on casualties would likely require a number of judgement calls.  Do you start the clock with the Dissolution legislation; or do you include the Observant Franciscans and Carthusians, who died for refusing the Royal Supremacy?  Do you only count the relgious, or those (as in the Pilgrimage of Grace) who resisted dissolution?  And do you stop with Henry and the monasteries, or include casualties from the supression of chantries, hospitals, and colleges?  There are certainly some specific numbers for the Pilgrimage of Grace; but maybe better in that article, rather than this. TomHennell (talk) 09:18, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Casualties

message: Substituted at 13:30, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 18:39, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Dissolution of the Monasteries →  – Not consistently capitalized in reliable sources as required by MOS:CAPS. (t · c) buidhe 05:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 14 June 2021 

message: What did the monks say to King Henry the 8th to try and convince him to keep the monasteries 2A00:23C6:1E31:8B01:448D:9AE3:F469:4ACC (talk) 18:15, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  henry viii and monks