The dissolution of the monasteries

by Francis Aidan Hibbert

To carry out so huge a task in so short a time was to ensure much superficial work. It is true that the business habits of Englishmen and the bureaucratic nature of the Tudor administration, and the large number of lay officials, bailiffs, stewards, collectors, etc., in the employ of the monasteries, made the investigation easier than might otherwise have been the case. But even so there must have been many difficulties. We find in the returns ample evidence that through haste but little was done in the way of checking entries and balancing accounts. In the returns from Rocester Abbey the expenditure is given in four groups, each with its correct total. But the addition of the four totals is £1 too little. In the case of Stone Priory the “spiritual” balance is given as £68, etc., whereas it should be £59, etc., a difference of £9. But the tithe paid is correct for £119 14s. 11¼d., which is exactly £9 more than the real sum of the temporal and spiritual balances as these are shown. The official probably intended to write the spiritual balance as £lviiii, but when he came to make his final addition he read it as £lxviii, a mistake not difficult to make. Other mistakes of a similar nature will be noticed. No doubt it was difficult to compare and check the returns from different dioceses, as they came in at different times; and the omissions, from the stated incomes of monasteries, of items which elsewhere are noted as being paid to them, are probably due rather to deliberate concealment on the part of the monks than to any grave slackness on the part of the Commissioners. For instance, £2 3s. is noted in the valuation of the churches of Berkswick, Bushbury and Weston, as being paid to Stone Priory, but no trace of it appears in the monastic return. But it is remarkable that in the valuation of Dudley Priory no mention is made of the 10s. from Dudley Vicarage, or in that of Trentham Priory of the 6s. 8d. from Hulton Abbey, a few miles away, and the valuation of which immediately precedes it. The £4 6s. 8d. given in the valuation of Rocester Abbey as being paid to a chantry at Lichfield does not appear in the Cathedral valuation. The remarkable omissions in the Burton investigation will be dealt with fully later on.

Again, many of the valuations could only be approximations: such were the returns made of offerings and payments in kind, and of the demesnes. It is, indeed, distinctly stated, as a rule, that the value of the demesne is given “according to the valuation of the Commissioners” or of one of them: Walter Wrottesley estimated the demesne at Dudley. Sometimes they called in assistance, possibly that of experts, or perhaps of local men, as happened at Rocester.

The Valor Ecclesiasticus, therefore, cannot be regarded as a complete statement of the monastic income. Its deficiencies as regards expenditure are still more grave. Only certain disbursements were allowed to be taken into account—regular pensions, rents, endowed doles, and fees to bailiffs, collectors of rents, etc., auditors, and stewards, episcopal visitation fees, synodals and proxies. The statute had allowed other fees also to be deducted, such as those to the Chancellor and Judges, but the instructions to the Commissioners omitted these, and they are usually disallowed. The object of the investigation being to show as large a net balance of income as possible, disbursements were reduced to a minimum. Only those which could not be avoided were shown, and because any particular item of expenditure is not shown in any particular return we cannot assert with confidence that it was actually not incurred. Only two corrodies are recorded in the whole of Staffordshire, and alms at Burton, Rocester and Tutbury only, yet we know that Dieulacres maintained eight poor bedeswomen.

The investigation was a contest between the two parties—the Commissioners, whose primary object was to make the income as large and the expenditure as small as possible, and the monks who naturally desired to reverse the proportion. The result was that there were serious omissions on both sides of the account, and the Valor Ecclesiasticus is, accordingly, a very incomplete statement of the accounts of the religious houses. The omissions as regards income are many, but the information as to expenditure can only be described as altogether inadequate and incomplete. The Commissioners were not allowed to show much expenditure, even if they wished to do so: it was easy for them to allow little if they so desired. Under the direction of Bishop Lee it may safely be assumed that in Staffordshire they allowed the barest minimum.

The fictitious character of the expenditure side of the account is well illustrated by the case of Burton-on-Trent. When, as will be described later,[64] the valuation sent in by the Commissioners was found to be hopelessly erroneous, and a revised statement was drawn up by the order of the Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, which increased the revenue from £356 16s. 3½d. to £501 7s. 0½d., the expenditure was, apparently, not re-investigated. In face of the enormous increase of income which had been shown the Chancellor could well afford to spare himself the trouble of enquiring whether the statement of expenses needed revising: he treated it with scornful indifference and passed it with the contemptuous remark at the foot of the more profitable survey: “Mem. to deducte owte of thys boke ye allowaunces accordinge to ye olde boke.”

Yet, in spite of these deficiencies, the Valor Ecclesiasticus may tell us much, if we bear in mind its limitations. The valuations made after the Dissolution were expressly ordered to be compared with the Valor Ecclesiasticus and, as has been mentioned, they afford useful data for comparison. It is not surprising that they are usually higher in amount. The Surveyors had gained experience, and they had the previous survey for a guide. No source of income previously recorded would be likely to be overlooked, while those which had been omitted would now be discovered. The Surveyors, of course, desired to make their valuation as high as possible in order to ingratiate themselves with the Government. But, while the income in Valor Ecclesiasticus may well be less than is correct, that of the Dissolution officials could not easily be excessive. If in any case it were so, the fact would soon be proved by the would-be purchasers.

The Staffordshire Returns in Valor Ecclesiasticus are arranged as follows:[65]

1. Rural Deanery of Lapley and Trysull. This includes Brewood Nunnery and Dudley Priory. The names of the Commissioners who did the work for the Rural Deanery are recorded, as we have mentioned, and Walter Wrottesley is expressly stated to have estimated the value of the demesne at Dudley. Disbursements are reduced to a vanishing point at Brewood and to little better at Dudley, only the fees of the steward, Edward Blount, gent., and the bailiff, John Coke, being allowed.

2. Rural Deanery of Newcastle and Stone. This includes Hulton Abbey, Trentham Priory, St. Thomas’s Priory at Stafford, Stone Priory and Ronton Priory. No records of alms or payments for education are shown, though a corrody is allowed at Trentham.

3. Stafford Archdeaconry.