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Dissolutions of Monasteries
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Dissolutions of Monasteries

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2024) | Viewed by 5074

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. James Clark

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, UK
Interests: monasticism; Benedictines; reformation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this Special Issue is to extend and enhance comparative perspectives on the experience of the suppression of monastic life and its impact in the society in which it occurs, most conspicuously on religious and cultural practice, but also on the economy, the environment and the governance of regions and the state itself. Moments of ‘dissolution’ and ‘de-monasticisation’ in time periods from antiquity to the modern era have been examined in many national historiographies, but typically the focus of enquiry has been on their part in the making of a polity and its dominant identity. By contrast, the objective here is to better understand the rejection of monasticism as a social, cultural, economic and environmental experience: both the forces that shaped it and the immediate and lasting impact of the loss of monasteries and their customary practice on the neighbourhoods and landscapes in which they were situated. The intention is also to establish a wide field-of-vision that extends from the European heartland of Latin monasticism to the eastern territory of Orthodox Christianity and to the regions of South Asia touched by Buddhism. Key themes for discussion are the impulses, political and popular, to challenge either the principle or the practice of monasticism; the means of suppression, judicial–legal, fiscal, martial; de-monasticisation as an agent of measurable and permanent change and its particular significance in shaping subsequent developments in culture, economy and industry, social relations and landscape.

This proposal responds to a rising critical interest in comparative approaches to religious change and confessional coercion and their capacity to catalyze societal transformation. Classic accounts fixed these experiences within a frame of national political history, but recently, researchers have reached out for transnational and intercontinental perspectives (e.g., Petts, 2011; Terpstra, 2019, 2021; Elawa, 2020). This Special Issue will meet a particular need to extend the knowledge and understanding on the significance of monastic communities and cultures in this common and recurrent experience of religious change. Since 2000, a number of new and revisionist studies of dissolution, in particular regarding eopolitical contexts and time-periods, have been published (e.g., Beales, 2003; Berntson, 2003; Bodinier, Congost, Luna, 2009; Derwich, 2014; Bisgaard, Seesko Kallestrupp, 2019; Clark, 2021). For the first time, this proposal opens a wider enquiry that extends beyond northern Europe and the era between the Protestant Reformation and Enlightenment to incorporate the case-studies of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, as well as the 19th and 20th centuries and the contemporary world.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected]) or to the Religions editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative completion schedule:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 1 February 2023
  • Notification of abstract acceptance: 1 March 2023
  • Full manuscript deadline: 30 September 2023

References

Beales, D. 2003. Prosperity and plunder. European Catholic monasteries in the age of revolution, 1650-1815. Cambridge University Press.

Berntson, M. 2003. Klostren och reformationen: upplösningen av koster och convent i Sverige, 1523-1596. The dissolution of monasteries in Sweden. Skellefteå.

Bisgaard, L. Seesko, P., Kallestrupp, L (ed.), 2019. The Dissolution of Monasteries: the Case of Denmark in a regional perspective. University of Southern Denmark Press.

Bodinier, B., Congost, R., Luna, P. F. (ed.) 2009. De la igelsia al estada. Les desamortizaciones des bienes ecclesiásticos en Francia, Espagña y América Latina. Zaragosa University Press.

Clark, J. G., 2021. The Dissolution of the Monasteries. A New History. Yale University Press.

Derwich, M. (ed.), 2014. Dissolutions of monasteries in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Silesia against the background of secularization processes in Europe. 4 volumes. Wrocławskie Towarzystwo Miłośników Historii.

Elawa, N. I., 2020. Understanding religious change in Africa and Europe. Springer.

Petts, D., 2011. Pagan and Christian. Religious change in early medieval Europe. Bloomsbury.

Terpstra, N. (ed.), 2019 Global reformations. Transforming early modern religions, societies, cultures. Routledge.

Terpstra, N. (ed.), 2021 Global reformations sourcebook. Convergence, conversion and conflict in early modern religious encounters. Taylor & Francis.

Prof. Dr. James Clark
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • monasteries
  • secularisation
  • anticlericalism
  • comparative history

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 495 KiB  
Article
Buildings, Lands, and Rents: Understanding the Process and Impact of Monastic Suppression in Spain
by Rosa Congost
Religions 2024, 15(11), 1382; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15111382 - 14 Nov 2024
Viewed by 429
Abstract
In Ancien Régime Spain, ecclesiastical wealth consisted of not only land, but also the rental income raised from tenancies of which the Church was proprietor. Therefore, the suppression of monasteries and convents in Spain cannot be studied only in terms of the transfer [...] Read more.
In Ancien Régime Spain, ecclesiastical wealth consisted of not only land, but also the rental income raised from tenancies of which the Church was proprietor. Therefore, the suppression of monasteries and convents in Spain cannot be studied only in terms of the transfer of their principal estates. The incoming Liberal State appropriated the Church’s rents for its own use, although many had fallen into abeyance before the suppressions began. To assess the true impact of ecclesiastical confiscation, it is necessary to consider how far developments in religious sensibility, whether or not associated with new conceptions of property, before and after the liberal revolution, may have affected the treatment of these rents. In this article, I aim to examine the geographical distribution of the different property rights of the regular clergy in Spain under the Ancien Régime and to observe the role of the Liberal State in their evolution and in the fate of monastery and convent buildings. We will see, in all cases, the significant roles of the payers and receivers of different types of rents. Thus, territories with the same legal regime and similar institutions passed through the process in very different ways. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dissolutions of Monasteries)
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12 pages, 235 KiB  
Article
Monachophobia in Russia: Peter the Great and His Influence
by Gleb Zapalskii
Religions 2024, 15(10), 1200; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15101200 - 2 Oct 2024
Viewed by 749
Abstract
The reforms of Russian Tsar Peter I (1682–1725) touched all spheres of life, including the Church. The purpose of this paper is to bring into focus his approach to the reform of monasticism. It reflects on Peter’s personal remarks as reported both by [...] Read more.
The reforms of Russian Tsar Peter I (1682–1725) touched all spheres of life, including the Church. The purpose of this paper is to bring into focus his approach to the reform of monasticism. It reflects on Peter’s personal remarks as reported both by his Russian and his foreign interlocutors, his legislation, including law drafts, and practical measures such as the All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod. The principal conclusion is that it was this Russian ruler who was the first to call into question the very existence of monasticism and who came close to the ultimate dissolution of monasteries. He did not abolish monasticism not because it was a too radical step but because he devised measures of reform to raise its standards and improve its public utility. His treatment of the monastic tradition should be interpretated not as secularization but rather as modernization. Peter’s personal “monachophobia” is best understood as a modernizing impulse. His objective was the creation of a “modern” state whose Church and clergy represented contemporary values. Traditional, unreformed monasticism presented an obstacle in his progress towards this goal. The legacy of Peter’s policy was an increasing monachophobia in Russia apparent from the 18th century onwards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dissolutions of Monasteries)
20 pages, 373 KiB  
Article
Religious Communities and Their Closures in Ireland during the Sixteenth Century
by Brendan Scott
Religions 2024, 15(9), 1055; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091055 - 29 Aug 2024
Viewed by 947
Abstract
The closure of religious communities throughout England, commonly known as the ‘dissolution of the monasteries’, was commenced in 1536 and completed to all intents and purposes by 1540, resulting in what one commentator has recently described as ‘the greatest dislocation of people, property [...] Read more.
The closure of religious communities throughout England, commonly known as the ‘dissolution of the monasteries’, was commenced in 1536 and completed to all intents and purposes by 1540, resulting in what one commentator has recently described as ‘the greatest dislocation of people, property and daily life since the Norman Conquest’. This was an important part of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and served as a means not only of further establishing his new authority as supreme head of the Church of England but also as a fundraising mechanism. Ireland’s religious communities, as part of the Tudor kingdoms, now also fell (in theory, at least) under the control of the Crown and were therefore due for closure from the mid-1530s onwards. But in reality, due to the limited power held by the Crown throughout much of Ireland, the only religious houses to be dissolved were those in the Pale, the most English part of Ireland (inter Anglicos, encompassing mainly Counties Dublin, Meath, Tipperary and Kildare, as well as some other areas). In the Gaelic part of Ireland (inter Hibernicos), the king’s writ, which in theory was law, did not actually run, so much so that in one case, the commissioners appointed to inspect a religious house in Granard, County Longford, merely noted that they did not do so, ‘for fear of the wild Irish’. The dissolution process in Ireland was drawn out and took place in two stages, with a second wave of monastic dissolutions in the 1570s and 1580s, long into Elizabeth’s reign. This was just one arm of the queen’s expansionist movement into parts of the island hitherto out of the reach of Tudor administration. Although the Reformation process in Ireland as a whole can ultimately be said to have been a failure, the dissolution process (in parts of the island, at least) was a success, one of the very few triumphs of Henry’s Irish Reformation programme. Vast tracts of property and land exchanged hands, a land grab that was facilitated by characters such as William Brabazon, the Irish vice-treasurer whose corruption was notorious. Despite this, a small number of communities managed to escape closure and continued on, protected by their local communities and gentry. Since the early 1970s, Brendan Bradshaw and others have written of the Henrician ‘first wave’ of dissolutions, but little consideration has been given to the later wave of closures that took place in parts of Gaelic Ireland that had previously been out of the Crown’s reach. This essay will survey the closures of the 1530s before discussing the dissolutions that took place in the later sixteenth century, and by doing so, it is hoped, will present a new consideration of these events that irrevocably altered Ireland’s landscape and society. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dissolutions of Monasteries)
18 pages, 325 KiB  
Article
The Dissolution of the Monasteries in Sweden during the Reformation
by Martin Berntson
Religions 2024, 15(7), 775; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070775 - 26 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1163
Abstract
This article discusses the dissolution of the monasteries in 16th century Sweden. The approximately fifty monasteries and friar’s convents that existed in Sweden in the early 16th century were all dissolved over a period of about eighty years. Decisive for this development were [...] Read more.
This article discusses the dissolution of the monasteries in 16th century Sweden. The approximately fifty monasteries and friar’s convents that existed in Sweden in the early 16th century were all dissolved over a period of about eighty years. Decisive for this development were decisions during the Diet in Västerås 1527, which decreed that monasteries that depended on tax from their estates should be subordinated under a nobleman, and that the mendicant friars should not be allowed to travel outside their convents more than ten weeks each year. Whilst most of the monasteries inhabited by monks or brothers had been dissolved before the 1560s, four female houses were still in existence at this time. These remaining nunneries were supported financially by the state, possibly to safeguard the nuns’ social welfare. However, the monastic institutions were to meet a short-lived revival through the reign of King Johan III (rule 1568–1592), who not only supported them economically but also renovated a few of them and allowed Catholic priests to encourage Catholicism in Vadstena Abbey. Through this process of re-catholicizing, any prospects of creating successful Evangelical communities in Sweden were lost. The last remaining nunnery, Vadstena Abbey, was a vibrant Catholic institution when it was forced to close in 1595. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dissolutions of Monasteries)
13 pages, 1428 KiB  
Article
The Dissolution of the Monastic Houses in Iceland
by Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir
Religions 2024, 15(7), 771; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070771 - 26 Jun 2024
Viewed by 975
Abstract
The founding of the fourteen monasteries that operated for varying lengths of time in Iceland are in most cases known, but their dissolution differs. It is, however, known that none of them were closed due to plagues, natural disasters, or economic crises but [...] Read more.
The founding of the fourteen monasteries that operated for varying lengths of time in Iceland are in most cases known, but their dissolution differs. It is, however, known that none of them were closed due to plagues, natural disasters, or economic crises but rather because of administrative reasons. Five of the monasteries perished within a few decades; however, most of them perished because of political disputes between secular and ecclesiastical powers in Iceland during the thirteenth century. On the other hand, nine of them became highly prosperous but were dissolved following the Lutheran Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century. The truth is that monasticism vanished in Iceland with the closure of the last one in 1551, and their previous occupation was thereby discontinued. Here, an attempt will be made to obtain an overview of their dissolution, but their growth and development were in all cases dependent on the country’s authorities at any given time, ecclesiastical and royal. Still, the circumstances of their dissolutions varied nonetheless between monasteries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dissolutions of Monasteries)
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