Note (back) — Chapter XIII

On the other hand, the lax state of monastic morality does not depend only upon the visitors' reports; apart from satires like those of Skelton, from ballads and from other mirrors of popular opinion or prejudice, the correspondence of Henry VIII.'s reign is, from its commencement, full of references, by bishops and other unimpeachable witnesses, to the necessity of drastic reform. In 1516, for instance, Bishop West of Ely visited that house, and found such disorder that he declared its continuance would have been impossible but for his visitation.[949] In 1518 the Italian Bishop of Worcester writes from Rome that he had often been struck by the necessity of reforming the monasteries.[950] In 1521 Henry VIII., then at the height of his zeal for the Church, thanks the Bishop of Salisbury for dissolving the nunnery of Bromehall because of the "enormities" practised there.[951] Wolsey felt that the time for reform had passed, and began the process of suppression, with a view to increasing the number of cathedrals and devoting other proceeds to educational endowments. Friar Peto, afterwards a cardinal, who had fled abroad to escape Henry's anger for his bold denunciation of the divorce, and who had no possible motive for cloaking his conscientious opinion, admitted that there were grave abuses, and approved of the dissolution of monasteries, if their endowments were used for proper ends.[952] There is no need to multiply instances, because a commission of cardinals, appointed by Paul III. himself, reported in 1537 that scandals were frequent in religious houses.[953] The reports of the visitors, too, can hardly be entirely false, though they may not be entirely true. The charges they make are not vague, but very precise. They specify names of the offenders, and the nature of their offences; and an air of verisimilitude, if nothing more, is imparted to the condemnations they pronounce against the many, by the commendations they bestow on the few.[954]