Editing Dissolution of the monasteries (section)

==Precedents for confiscations==
{{History of the Church of England}}
{{main|Alien priory}}
By the time Henry VIII turned to monastery reform, royal action to suppress religious houses had a history of more than 200 years; his innovation was in scale. The first case was that of the so-called '[[Alien priory|alien priories]]'. As a result of the [[Norman Conquest]] of 1066, some French religious orders held substantial property through their daughter monasteries in England.

Some of these were [[Monastic grange|granges]], agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise; others were rich foundations in their own right (e.g., [[Lewes Priory]] was a daughter of [[Cluny Abbey|Cluny]] and answered to the abbot of the French house).

[[File:StogurseyPriory.JPG|thumb|upright=1.4|left|[[Stogursey Priory]] in Somerset. An alien priory dissolved in 1414 and granted to [[Eton College]]]]

The royal transfer of alien monastic estates to educational foundations inspired bishops and, as the 15th century waned, this practice was common. The subjects of these dissolutions were usually small, poor, and indebted [[Benedictine]] or [[Augustinians|Augustinian]] communities (especially those of women) with few powerful friends; the great abbeys and orders exempt from diocesan supervision such as the [[Cistercians]] were unaffected.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

[[File:Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge - geograph.org.uk - 168873.jpg|thumb|upright=1.55|[[St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge]]; dissolved in 1496 and converted into [[Jesus College, Cambridge]]]]
The resources were transferred often to [[Oxford University]] and [[Cambridge University]] colleges: instances of this include [[John Alcock (bishop)|John Alcock]], [[Bishop of Ely]] dissolving the Benedictine [[St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge]] to found [[Jesus College, Cambridge]] (1496), and [[William Waynflete]], [[Bishop of Winchester]] acquiring [[Selborne Priory]] in Hampshire in 1484 for [[Magdalen College, Oxford]].

Dissolutions often faced strong resistance in practice. Members of religious houses proposed for dissolution might resist relocation; the houses invited to receive them might refuse to co-operate; and local notables might resist the disruption in their networks of influence. Reforming bishops found they faced opposition when urging the heads of religious houses to enforce their monastic rules, especially those requiring monks and nuns to remain within their cloisters. Religious superiors met their bishops' pressure with the response that the cloistered ideal was only acceptable to a tiny minority of regular clergy, and that any attempt to enforce their order's stricter rules could be overturned in counter-actions in the secular courts, if aggrieved monks and nuns obtained a writ of [[praemunire]].{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

In the following century, [[Lady Margaret Beaufort]] obtained the property of [[Creake Abbey]] (whose religious had all died of [[sweating sickness]] in 1506) to fund her works at Oxford and Cambridge. She was advised in this action by the staunch traditionalist [[John Fisher]], [[Bishop of Rochester]].{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

In 1522, Fisher himself dissolved the women's monasteries of [[Bromhall Priory|Bromhall]] and [[Higham, Kent|Higham]] to aid [[St John's College, Cambridge]]. That same year, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved [[St Frideswide's Priory]] (now [[Oxford Cathedral]]) to form the basis of his [[Christ Church, Oxford]]; in 1524, he secured a [[papal bull]] to dissolve 20 other monasteries to provide an endowment for his new college. The remaining friars, monks and nuns were absorbed into other houses of their respective orders. Juries found the property of the houses to have reverted to the Crown as founder.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The King actively supported Wolsey, Fisher and [[Richard Foxe]] in their programmes of monastic reform; but even so, progress was painfully slow, especially where religious orders had been exempted from episcopal oversight by papal authority. It was also never certain that juries would find in favour of the Crown in disposing of the property of dissolved houses; any action that impinged on monasteries with substantial assets might be expected to be contested by a range of influential claimants. In 1532, the priory of [[Christchurch Aldgate]], facing financial and legal difficulties, petitioned the King as founder for assistance, only to find themselves dissolved arbitrarily. Rather than risk empanelling a jury, and with papal participation no longer being welcome, the [[Lord Chancellor]], [[Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden|Thomas Audley]], recommended that dissolution should be legalised retrospectively through a special act of Parliament.
{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}