[5] A. Savine, English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, ed. P. Vinogradoff, vol. i, 1909, p. 100), estimates the net temporal income of English monasteries in 1535 at £109,736, and the net income from all sources at £136,361. These figures require to be multiplied by at least 12 to convert them into terms of modern money. An estimate of the capital value which they represent can only be a guess, but it can hardly have been less (in terms of modern money) than £20,000,000.
[6] For the status and payments of grantees, see the figures of Savine, printed in H. A. L. Fisher, The Political History of England, 1485-1547, Appx. ii: the low price paid by peers is particularly striking. The best study is that of S. B. Liljegren, The Fall of the Monasteries and the Social Changes in England leading up to the Great Revolution (1924), which shows in detail (pp. 118-25) the activities of speculators.
[7] Star Chamber Proc., Hen. VIII, vol. vi, no. 181, printed in Tawney and Power, Tudor Economic Documents, vol. i, pp. 19-29.
[8] Selden Society, Select Cases in the Court of Requests, pp. lviii-lxix, 198-200.
[9] Quoted by F. A. Gasquet, Henry the Eighth and the English Monasteries, 1920, pp. 227-8.
[10] See, e.g., The Obedience of a Christian Man (in Tyndale’s Doctrinal Treatises, Parker Society, 1848), p. 231, where the treatment of the poor by the early Church is cited as an example; and Policies to reduce this Realme of Englande unto a Prosperus Wealthe and Estate, 1549 (printed in Tawney and Power, Tudor Economic Documents, vol. iii, pp. 311-45): “Like as we suffered our selfes to be ignorant of the trewe worshipping of God, even so God kepte from us the right knowledge how to reforme those inconveniences which we did see before our eyes to tende unto the utter Desolation of the Realme. But now that the trew worshepping of Gode is ... so purely and sincerely sett forthe, it is likewise to be trusted that God ... will use the kinges maiestie and your grace to be also his ministres in plucking up by the roots all the cawses and occasions of this foresaid Decaye and Desolation.”
[11] Bucer, De Regno Christi.
[12] A. F. Leach, The Schools of Mediæval England, 1915, p. 331. He goes on: “The contrasts between one grammar school to every 5,625 people, and that presented by the Schools Inquiry Report in 1864 of one to every 23,750 people ... is not to the disadvantage of our pre-Reformation ancestors.” For details of the Edwardian spoliation, see the same author’s English Schools at the Reformation, 1546-8 (1896).
[13] See Acts of the Privy Council, vol. ii, pp. 193-5 (1548); in response to protests from the members for Lynn and Coventry, the gild lands of those cities are regranted to them.
[14] Crowley, The Way to Wealth, in Select Works of Robert Crowley, ed. J. M. Cowper (Early English Text Society, 1872, pp. 129-150).