The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Shortly before Easter, 1540 saw the end of almost a millennium of monastic life in England. Until then religious houses had acted as a focus for education, literary, and artistic expression and even the creation of regional and national identity. Their closure, carried out in just four years between 1536 and 1540, caused a dislocation of people and a disruption of life not seen in England since the Norman Conquest.
Drawing on the records of national and regional archives as well as archaeological remains, James Clark explores the little-known lives of the last men and women who lived in England’s monasteries before the Reformation. Clark challenges received wisdom, showing that buildings were not immediately demolished and Henry VIII’s subjects were so attached to the religious houses that they kept fixtures and fittings as souvenirs. This rich, vivid history brings back into focus the prominent place of abbeys, priories, and friaries in the lives of the English people.
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- Shows a disruption of life not seen in England since the Norman Conquest.
- Explores the little-known lives of the last men and women who lived in England’s monasteries before the Reformation
- Brings back into focus the prominent place of abbeys, priories, and friaries in the lives of the English people.
- Introduction
- I The Legend of the Cloister
- II The Religious Profession
- III A Regular World
- IV The Tudor Reformation
- V The King’s Commissions
- VI The Challenge of Conformity
- VII Punysshid, Subprest and Put Downe
- VIII Nothing Endid
- IX Changes of Habit
- X The Old World and the New
- Epilogue
This is a book about people, though, not ideas, and as a detailed account of an extraordinary human drama with a cast of thousands, it is an exceptional piece of historical writing.
—Lucy Wooding, Times Literary Supplement
The most important book on the subject for two generations. . . . Clark’s achievement is unmistakable. . . . Carefully researched, beautifully structured, and courageously argued, The Dissolution of the Monasteries is precise, polemical, and sweeping. It should be instantly recognized as a classic.
—Crawford Gribben, Wall Street Journal
Deeply researched . . . steeped in primary sources, scrupulously polite and anti-sensational. . . . The result may well be the most important book on the English Reformation since Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars.
—Dan Jones, Sunday Times
- Title: The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History
- Author: James Clark
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Pages: 720
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- ISBNs: 9780300269956, 0300269951
- Resource ID: LLS:DSSLTNMNSTRSHST
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-09-09T15:51:28Z