Destruction of Monasteries and, therefore, Libraries between 1536-1541

King Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales, and Ireland through a set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541. Thomas Cromwell first began thinking of dissolving monasteries around1534 and, therefore, began a publicity campaign to make monasteries appear to be corrupt. Then, in 1534, the First Act of Supremacy declared that Henry was the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. Parliament then in 1536 passed an act dissolving al monasteries with an income of less than 200 pounds per year.

Effect in the North-

Effect in the South and West-

In 1539, another Act was passed dissolving the larger monasteries (dissolved 552 Catholic monasteries and house, the last being Waltham Abbey in 1540).

Waltham Abbey-

Some consequences of the dissolution included: transfer of vast tracts of valuable land to the Crown, Henry's vast acquisition of gold and silver plate (worth as much as 1 million pounds), the fact that all 25 abbots lost their places in the House of Lords (which left the secular lords in a majority), and the physical destruction--buildings decayed because lead was taken from the roofs and libraries were broken up for their precious bindings or sold off by the cartload.

Examples of effect on libraries-
Worcester Priory had 600 books at the time of dissolution and only six of them are known to have survived intact to present day. Similarly at the abbey of the Augustinian Friars at York, a library of 646 volumes were destroyed, leaving only 3 known survivors. John Leland, however, was commissioned by the King to recuse items of interest (especially manuscript sources of Old English history), and Matthew Parker was a notable individual who made a private collection of manuscripts.