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Paul Bentley - Dissolution of the Monasteries
Henry VIII may also have delayed the advent of the Industrial Revolution in England. In the late 1990s Gerry McDonnell of the University of Bradford found evidence that the monks of Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire were on the point of building furnaces for the large-scale production of cast iron. But the Dissolution stopped that. It wouldn't have been the first time that monks advanced technology in all sorts of fields - agriculture, viticulture, irrigation and waterpower, clocks, mining and metallurgy. The West's debt to the monasteries is enormous; and technology was of course only a part of it.
Steve Cushion - Dissolution of the Monastries
I felt the piece on the dissolution of the monasteries, while strong on detail, rather lacked periodisation. The dissolution occurred on the cusp of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and surely needs to be seen in that context. The monasteries were an important reactionary force opposing the political power of the newly rising capitalist farming and banking interests. I would argue that it was for this reason that they were dissolved. The dissolution can be seen as the first act in the English Revolution and, as was pointed out, the leaders of that Revolution in the next century were directly descended from those who profited most from the dissolution, while John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More represented the declining feudal interests.
Chris Veasey Dissolution of the Monasteries
In response to Francis Carr 'Spanish Armada carrying Inquisitors and instruments of torture' - surely the classic case of 'coals to Newcastle' - all the Tudor regimes had plenty of their own inquisitors and torture apparatus, and never shrank from using them against anybody who crossed them. In fact it was that bunch as much as any of our rulers who established the tradition of a highly effective police state here.
Robert Carnegie, Monasteries
It depends where you went to school and when. We (at a private school in Scotland around 1980) were told that Henry straightforwardly grabbed the monasteries to get their land and other wealth, and I don't think you have to get fancier than that. But that's a modern outlook without accounting for God - were Reformation princes really devout believers or did they just do what was politically necessary? You told us they were devout. The Protestant view certainly is that industrial prayer is unnecessary, and a life spent doing nothing else is wasted.I would have liked to hear more about the religious establishment in Europe. Were French and German monasteries similarly dominant in their environment? Evidently something similar was done to the German ones?
Francis Carr. Dissolution of the Monastries
Thank God for Henry VIII and Elizabeth!You did not mention that the land and money received by the aristocracy made them strong enough to limit the power of the monarch and government,with lasting beneficial effect. Did you know that the ships of the Spanish Armada contained 110 Inquisitors and instruments of torture?
Bob Harvey - On the Dissolution of the Monasteries
A typical, high quality, programme. But the ground was not unfamiliar. I would like to see a follow-up looking at a comparison of what happened in Scotland, The Netherlands, the Germanic states, Denmark etc. The Monastic movement failed all over protestant Europe - Not just because one King in England swallowed them up.A comparison too with where they remained - Ireland, France, Italy - and how they became the closed, insular orders they were in the 19th century rather than the grand landowners of the 15th.That would be new and interesting ground.
Ray Marsh - Dissolution
A very interesting new insight to the background, with effective speakers - no ums and ers.Could we have a bibliography of the latest thinking as the programme was.?
Anthony Holden: Dissolution of the Monasteries
As so much land was owned by the monasteries many ordinary people must have been reliant on them for a living. How did they view the dissolution, how did they continue to earn a living and was their 'lot' better or worse following the redistribution of the land.History so often concentrates on the few with power wereas quite often the most impact must have been on the many who only just managed to survive, and for whome the impact must have been life threatening.
dissolution of the Monastries
One of the most interesting. Thought I knew a lot about this period but now realise I don't!Thank you
Reuben Anderson - Dissolution of the Monasteries
Thoroughly enjoyed this week's show, as every week. I've been trying to imagine the visceral shock on waking up one day to find the monastery's bells weren't ringing. It must have felt initially like the dawn of the apocalypse, as if the King was roaring a defiant challenge at God himself. But then as days and nights followed without the sky falling, the creeping realisation that maybe God was dead, anger at being so horribly deceived and guilt at even thinking these things. A plea: could we have an In Our Time: "Director's Cut" podcast edition ... where you just let the recording run, unchaired, after the show has finished and your participants are (unavoidably I assume) carrying on the debate?
Chris Veasey Dissolution of the Monasteries
Interesting prog, but a couple of points:-(1) Roche (abbey) is pronounced 'Roach' not 'Rosh'.(2) The Pilgrimage of Grace was about a lot more than the dismantling of Catholic infrastructure and systems - it was about the wider issue North of England being marginalised by the arrogant and corrupt London establishment - among the Pligrims' demands was for parliament to have sittings in places like Nottingham and York, and for Northerners not to have to traipse for London for access to legal services. The Pilgrimage was a progressive revolt against regressive and repressive Tudor policy, not a conservative one - see (among other assessments) Frank Musgrove's in the (so far) only published comprehensive history of the North of England.(3) No mention of the precursor Lincolnshire Rising, which had also drew an indignant and abusive reaction from Henry 8 'How presumptious then are ye, the rude commons of ons shire, and that one of the most brute and beastlie in the whole realm....' etc etc. (Lincs had in fact been one of the most populous, prosperous and progressive parts of England, though suffering from the Tudors' corrupt and incompetent mismanagement of the economy).
Ken McKay: Dissolution of the Monasetries
As ever, a great perspective on a very interesting subject. Thank you. Near the end of your discussion, one of your guests mentioned that Henry actually enhanced some cathedrals and monasteries. Peterborough (formerly an abbey) was upgraded to cathedral and Henry promoted the last Abbot (John Chambers) to Bishop in October 1541. The late Martin Howe, who was a brilliant curator of Peterborough Museum, told me (30 years ago) the legend that Chambers was thus favoured because he (and his predecessor, Robert Kirton) had laid on fine hunting and excellent entertainments for the young Prince Hal when he visited the region. I've never seen this in histories, but the tale still has currency in Peterborough. The cathedral is very fine, especially the 'New Building' (mid to late 15thC) which has wonderful fan tracery vauilting believed to have been a prototype for King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
Paul J. Weighell
Dissolution of the Monasteries.Thank you for a very interesting programme albeit short on time of course.A major point was touched on which I believe could have been amplified. The removal of the monasteries without any reaction from ‘god’ was mentioned and this realisation of the ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ status of religion may have been the catalyst for the steady acceptance of rational science with its requirement for objective proof over belief that had more difficulty taking root on the main continent of Europe.It can be no coincidence that over the next 150 years we headed the scientific and engineering progress towards the UK based industrial revolution while the main continent lagged behind as the Catholic Church dragged its heels at every turn.Ironically perhaps we still see echoes of the dissolution in the very current debate about stem cell research and the variance of the post-dissolution attitude in the UK compared with the more religiously deferent attitude mainland Europe.Those who see the dissolution as negative often cite the place that religious communities had in teaching, especially for women, but that was self-servingly designed to keep knowledge of the Latin only bible in the hands of the priesthood as the last thing they wanted was a secular school system that Henry later helped to fund with grants that persist to this day for some schools e.g. Warwick.
Not a view - but are you going to include the stor
Jack Horner's famous plum was in fact the title deeds to an estate called Mells. The deeds had been hidden in a pie by the Abbot of Glastonbury as a property deal that Jack was to deliver to the court in order to save the Abbey from disolution.
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