SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
373
t>f which twenty-eight had abbots who enjoyed seats in parliament. Ninety college were aeoaio- lished in sereral counties ; two thousand three hundred and serenty-four chantries and free duLpels, and one hundred and ten hospitals. The revenue of these establishments amounted to £161,000, which was about a twentieth part of the national income.
A few instances will serve to show the wealth of the greater monasteries. Fountains abbey, in Yorkshire, at the time of the dissolution, w as one of the most opulent, for its revenues were esti- mated at £998 6i. Sid. per annum, according to Dagdale: to £1073 Ot. 7id. according to Speed : to £1125 18t. \id. according to Burton. In plate, to the value of £708 5t. 9id- and ot catUe, 2356 oxen, cows, and calves ; 1326 sheep ; 86 horses ; and 79 swine ; and the domains of the house annually produced 117 quarters of wheat; 12 quarters of rye ; 134 quarters of oats ; and 392 loads of hay.*
St. Mary's abbey, at Reading, in Berkshire, was endowed for two hundred Benedictine monks. At the dissolution of the religious houses, the revenues of this monastery were found to be no less than £1,938 I4«. 3d. according to Dugdale ; but £2,1 I6 2:6d. according to Spelman. The poor and travellers of all sorts were so well enter- tained from the funds of this abbey, that, according to William of Malmsbury, more money was spent in hospitality than expended on the monks. Hugh Farringcton, the abbot at this period, refusing to deliver up his abbey to the visitors, was attainted of high treason, on some charge trumped up against him ; and, in the ntonth of November, 1539, with two of his monks, named Rngg and Onion, was hanged, drawn, and qnaxtered, at Reading. This was on the same day on which the abbot of Glastonbury suffered the like sentence, for a similar provocation.
The annual revenues of St. Osyth, in Essex, at the time of the surrender, was £758 6t. 8id. according to Speed ; or £677 7>. 2d. according to Dugdale. The abbot, and eighteen canons subscribed to the king's supremacy, by which may be conjectured the extent of this pnory.
- The chaimcter of the last abbot of thli celebrated
monastery may be judged of by the following: letter of one of the vidtora sent by Henry VIII., addressed to lord Cromwell.
Please yonr worship to nnderstand that the abbot of Fontayofl hath so greatly dilapidate bis house, wasted ye woods, notoriously keeping six women, and six days before our coming he committed theft and saciilege, con- fessing the same ; for at midnight he caused his chapleyn to stele the keys of the sexton and took out a Jewel, a cross of gold with stones, one Warren a goldsmyth of the Chepe was with him in his chamber at the hour, and there they stole out a great emerode with a mbye, the sayd Warren made the abbot believe the rubye was a garnet, and so that he paid nothing, for the emerode but twenty pounds. He sold him also plate without weight or oancea. Sabscribed your poor priest and faitiiful servant K. Layton. From Richmont (in con Ebor) the 30th Jan.
The abbot at this period, according to Willis, was William Thnnt, Burton calls him Thinke, admitted B.D. at Oxford oniu) 1923, created abbot li2S, and hanged at Tyburn Jan. 1537. As he sundered in company wiUi per- sons concerned in the insurrection in Yorkshire, cstlled the pilgrimage of grace, wherein, among other things, a restocation of monasteries was Insisted on, it is likely he was eoneerned in that afTkir.
Martin Luther speaking of the monasteries, says, " the reformation will cause the downf^tll of all Oionastic institutions; and similar abomina- tions, which, under the mask of godliness, have been only intent on accumulating wealUi ; it must be considered that these lands are the re- sult of universal robbery. It could be wished that monasteries had never existed; but since they do exist, it is best to let them decay, or accelerate their fall. In order to place the true christian doctrine on a permanent and profitable foundation, so that the inward, no less than the outward man, may feel the beneficial effects of liberty of conscience, it would be necessary to establish schools upon a rational plan."
A modern writer, in defending the monastic institutions, thus oWrves : " The evil that men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones." How truly have the long ages of opprobium been heaped on the heads of the " idle and volumptuous clergy" proved the truth of the poet's adage ! It is clear that in the then state of the world, their institutions were well adapted, and powerful instruments of good. Let the works of their own hands speak for them. The temples reared to God were the means of improving the capabilities and enlarging the minds of men. Those splendid structures which show the purity of design, the grandeur of con- ception, and the amazing skill with which every detail was executed, are monuments of men filled with high imaginings, endowed with refined tastes, and really devoted to the adorning of their country, and improving the condition of their countermen. The monks always had the good taste to build their monasteries in a neighbour- hood remarkable for beauty, and buried in the thickest foliage from the stranger's eye, but opening on wide lawn ground, and commanding long vistas in the immediate distance ; — the church tower looking over tree-tops to rock or motmtain, which might warn of coming danger; even the domestic buildings were seated with a sunward aspect ; the grounds were laid out in gardens, and the forest cleared so as to make the tQtemate copse and pasture, is always an object of the deepest interest to those who have the qualities of contemplation, who love retirement, and who " look through nature up to nature's God."
Where is the record of one man who sought instruction of these monks and it was denied him ? Whose soldiers were earlier in the field in defence of their country ? What sages sat more worthily in council for the honour and prosperity of England than the soldiers and the sages of the church ? Where were lands tilled as theirs were ? Where were the arts of peace encouraged, and the labouring hind and herd protected as they were on the lands of the church ? Where are the hospitium for the tra- .veller, the maisou-dieu for the afflicted, the spital for the lame and the criple, and the lazar for the sick or plague-stricken ? Is the daily dole delivered at the gates of the abbey to the neighbouring poorP Is there a place of prayer at all times open for the devout
2 M
LjOOQ IC
