Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries

1536

Thomas Cromwell's agents descended on English monasteries with inventories and battering rams, dissolving the smaller houses and funneling their lands and silver to the Crown. Monks were pensioned off or executed. Across the countryside, roofless abbey walls began their picturesque centuries of decay. The redistribution of Church land created Protestant gentry whose economic interest in maintaining the Reformation ensured no Catholic restoration.