Dissolution of the monasteries

Modern drawing of one of Oliver Cromwell's visitors leaving a monastery. People think this could be Colchester Abbey, after it was ruined.

The dissolution of the monasteries was an event that happened from 1536 to 1540, when English King Henry VIII took away the land and money that the nuns and monks of the Roman Catholic church owned. Henry VIII then gave this land and money to people that supported him.

This was also when Henry VIII made himself the new head of the Church of England (which is a type of Christianity). Parliament made the Act of Supremacy to give him the right to do both these things. It was part of the Protestant Reformation in England.

Dissolution Of The Monasteries Media

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  King Henry VIII c. 1537 by Hans Holbein the Younger. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.

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  Desiderius Erasmus by Holbein; Renaissance humanist and influential critic of religious orders. Louvre, Paris.

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  Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein: Chief Minister for Henry VIII and Vicegerent in Spirituals; created the administrative machinery for the Dissolution. Frick Collection, New York City

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  Stogursey Priory in Somerset. An alien priory dissolved in 1414 and granted to Eton College

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  St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge; dissolved in 1496 and converted into Jesus College, Cambridge

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  Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire; a smaller house with a net income below £200-year, dissolved in 1536 and purchased for a parish church

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  Bridlington Priory in Yorkshire; dissolved in 1537 due to the attainder of the prior for treason following the Pilgrimage of Grace

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  Furness Abbey in Cumbria; dissolved in 1537 and the first of the larger houses to be dissolved by voluntary surrender