Note 270 — SECTION II
Reading edition
This and the following document deal with the confiscation of that part of the property of gilds which was devoted to religious purposes. The Act printed above was a re-enactment with some important variations of an Act of 1545 (37 Hen. VIII, c. 4). For its object and effect see Ashley, Economic History, Vol. I, part II, pp. 142-145, and pp. 184-187, who gives reasons for disagreeing with the statement of Thorold Rogers (Six Centuries of Work and Wages, pp. 347-350, and The Economic Interpretation of English History, p. 15) that the Act "suppressed" the craft gilds; Pollard, The Political History of England 1547-1603, pp. 17-20 ("the greatest educational opportunity in English history was lost, and the interests of the nation were sacrificed to those of its aristocracy"); Leach, English Schools at the Reformation, p. 68; Toulmin Smith's English Gilds. Lever (Sermons 1550, Arber's Reprints, pp. 32, 73, and 81) complains bitterly of the use to which the confiscated property was put. "For in suppressing of abbeys, cloisters, colleges, and chantries, the intent of the King's Majesty that dead is, was, and of this our King now is, very godly.... Howbeit covetous officers have so used this matter that even those goods which did serve to the relief of the poor, the maintenance of learning, and to comfortable necessary hospitality in the Commonwealth, be now turned to maintain worldly, wicked, covetous ambition." ... "Your Majesty hath had given and received by Act of Parliament, colleges, chantries, and gilds for many good considerations, and especially, as appeareth in the same Act, for erecting of grammar schools to the education of youth in virtue and godliness, to the further augmenting of the Universities, and better provision for the poor and needy. But now many grammar schools, and much charitable provision for the poor be taken, sold, and made away, to the great slander of you and your laws, to the utter discomfort of the poor, to the grievous offence of the people, to the most miserable drowning of youth in ignorance, and for decay of the Universities."