Dependant Priories and the Closure of Monasteries in the Late Medieval England, 1400-1535

Review of periodical literature published in 2004

“…Despite the economic difficulties of late‐medieval religious houses, very few suffered closure. As Heale argues, economic difficulties could lead smaller houses to become the cells of larger monasteries, but there was a general reluctance to allow the complete dissolution of even the poorest houses; only in the late fifteenth century did such attitudes begin to change.…”

“…This will interest Reformation scholars, but the reviewer found himself (or his attention‐span) more in sympathy with Richmond’s post‐modern meanderings around this subject in the Journal of Historical Sociology . Heale’s article on the closure of monasteries in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries emphasises contemporaries’ desire to perpetuate sacred sites even at the expense of propping up struggling institutions. Before Wolsey's proposed reforms of 1524, perhaps 95 per cent of houses existing around 1300 had survived, despite the long‐term decline in monastic vocations.…”