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How Did Henry Viii Contribute To The Decline Of The Monasteries

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The dissolution of the monasteries took place during 1536-1539 and was carried out by Henry VIII along with Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. Henry married Catherine of Aragon and to do this, he needed special permission from the Pope. After a while he wanted to divorce Catherine, but to do this he would have to go against the Catholic Church and the Pope, so Henry set up the Church of England. He needed to close all the Catholic monasteries and make them into Church of England monasteries. One of the main reasons that he closed the monasteries down was because they were corrupt. Another main reason that Henry dissolved the monasteries is that he wanted to do it for the money.

There were a number of different reasons in which the monasteries were corrupt. Source F lists a large amount of factors that contribute to this argument such as (from Crossed Friars Monastery in London) ‘Found the prior at that time in bed with a woman’. Monks are not allowed to have a girlfriend or a woman in their lives. An extract from a report received by Cromwell says (from Langdon in Kent) ‘About the house I go and I find a woman’ again showing that monks were found with woman. A report from a monastery in St Edmunds says ‘delighted much in playing at dice and in that spent much money’. This displays that the monks were drinking, gambling and many other forbidden actions. The author of source G argues …show more content…

Reports from monasteries imply that some are not breaking any rules. The author of the report from Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire says ‘The abbot is well loved having eight religious persons’ and ‘living religiously, having such qualities of virtues’. This suggests that some monasteries are good and have no reasons to be shut down. From this report from Woolsthorpe we have gathered that not all monasteries need to be shut down because of corruption. So why shut them

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