In the ruins of God's Own Country

The still sad music of humanity.....

God's Own Country - the North York Moors

Cast your minds back, if you can, to the summer of 1533.  In Yorkshire (as we know it now) there were a number of fine Abbeys, Priories, Canonries and Friaries and sundry smaller religious convents.  These were, of course, all Catholic.  You can see monks at work in their libraries, illustrating manuscripts while lay brothers toil in the fields and in the workshops associated with the monasteries.  You can see the aged and infirm in the shady places by streams that run by the great stone buildings. You can hear a bell calling the community to one of the regulated services.  You can hear a reading from the bible over the general scraping and slurping of mealtimes.  

Whitby Abbey

 

Meanwhile in the Tower of London, awaiting the coronation of the already pregnant new Queen Consort, Anne Boleyn, on Sunday 1 June 1533, there was a bulky and peevish monarch who had not yet sired a son and who was troubled by debt and the expenses of warfare. 

Whitby - a Benedictine abbey

And at around the same time Martin Luther, himself once an Augustinian Friar, was, on the back of the thoughts of Erasmus of Rotterdam, promoting scepticism of the values of monasticism, and the Protestant Reformation brought about significant changes in the religious landscape of Europe, especially in Scandinavia, and this all had a profound impact on monastic life.

Rievaulx - in the valley of the Rye

 

In 1533, in England, which had a population of around three million (so around 500,000 adult males), roughly one man in fifty was in one or other of the religious orders, living and working in one of the 900 or so religious houses (260 for monks, 300 for canons, 183 for friars, as well as 142 for nuns).

Rievaulx - a Cistercian Abbey

 

These religious orders were (to attempt a simplification) in order of power and wealth, Benedictines and Cistercians [who worked and prayed and had communities of lay brothers], Carthusians [who lived in almost solitary confinement within grand surroundings], Franciscans [who tended to care for the poor and lived very simply], Premonstratensians [of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré - who were white canons, often priests attached to a church], or Augustinians [black friars, semi-monastic priests devoted to pastoral care]. 

 

Guisborough Priory - an Augustinian priory

There were many variants, such as the Trappists [Cistercians of the Strict Order] and Dominicans [the Order of Preachers, or Friars Preachers, as opposed to the Franciscans who were Friars Minor] but let’s move on......

Egglestone Abbey - a Praemonstratensian abbey

 

So, such confusion apart, the unhappy truth in that cool summer of 1533 was that H8 was short of cash, so instead of jousting and hunting, plucking the lute or tripping the light fantastic, he put his mind to fund-raising (not unlike a modern-day chancellor of the exchequer) and in 1534 he pushed the Act of Supremacy through parliament.  This defined the right of his magnificence to be supreme head on earth of the Church of England, thereby severing ecclesiastical links with Rome. 

Egglestone Abbey

Henry then followed this with the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535.  This Act applied only to lesser houses which have not in lands, tenements, rents, tithes, portions, and other hereditaments, above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds.  And then, in short, he followed this with the Second Suppression Act of 1539, which allowed the dissolution of the larger monasteries and religious houses. Monastic land and buildings were confiscated and sold off to families who sympathised with Henry's break from Rome. By 1540 monasteries were being dismantled at a rate of fifty a month.....

Byland Abbey

 

This whole project was orchestrated by Thomas Audley, the Lord Chancellor, with the assistance of Richard Rich, head of the Court of Augmentations, though it fell to Thomas Cromwell, Vicar-General and Viceregent of England to oversee the action.  

 

Byland Abbey - a Cistercian abbey

In many cases the suppression went ahead with little opposition, the erstwhile incumbents receiving pensions and the local people profiting from building materials and sundry perks.  In some cases, such as Westminster, Canterbury, Rochester, Norwich and Ely, the churches were retained as Cathedrals (Henry realised the value of maintaining control of the people through religion) and some abbots became bishops, but where there was resistance, as in Yorkshire with the Pilgrimage of Grace, retribution was violent and merciless.

Easby Abbey

 

But was this a Taliban or Islamic State kind of purification, or narcissistic vandalism, such as some of the world’s contemporary leaders could be responsible for?  Henry’s motivations were no doubt complex, and probably confused.  He had advisors and like Putin he felt he had to finance both war and defence, whether either made a lot of sense in the long run.  The monasteries were rich and their lands until the dissolution covered almost a third of England (it was said that had the Abbot of Glastonbury married the Abbess of Shaftesbury their heir would have owned more land than the King) and their income was more than three times that of the King’s crown properties (how things change!)

Easby Abbey - a Premonstratensian abbey

 

It was, as they say, a no-brainer.  With the desire to prove he was Head of the Church (of England) and with financial constraints, the monasteries had to go.

Jervaulx Abbey - in the valley of the Ure (now Wensleydale)

 

So now what do we have?  Although there are, now, working monasteries in Britain, the majority of the great medieval houses are in ruins.  Some were adapted into private houses, such as Byron’s home at Newstead Abbey, others were incorporated into farms, such as Wingfield Manor in Derbyshire.  Some now are in private hands, like Jervaulx; others are managed by English Heritage and others by the National Trust.  Some attract the crowds, with extensive grounds and many facilities, like Fountains Abbey; others, such as Byland or Roche stand as ghostly remains of former greatness, with just the shades of their history to interest the occasional visitor.

Jervaulx Abbey - a Cistercian abbey

 

Over the years I have visited many of this country’s finest ruins, from Lindisfarne to Tintern, Kirkstall to Llanthony Priory, from Mount Grace to Glastonbury.  Just recently I returned to Yorkshire, “God’s Own Country,” as they call it, where amidst the space and grandeur of the valleys and moors, there is no shortage of roofless monuments to the wealth and power that Henry VIII harnessed to his own ends.

 

Roche Abbey

There is something metaphorical about the ruination of God’s Own Country – the Church of England, founded by Henry, is no longer the cornerstone of English life, though the rituals remain, and many, like me, love the solace of church interiors and many indeed still raise their voices in hymns of praise, or Christmas Carols at the least.....

Roche Abbey - Sancta Maria de Rupe (rocks or cliffs)

 

But there is more to it, I think.  These ruins are the story of man’s abilities to create and to destroy.  First, look at the soaring walls that supported the great roofs, the towers and crypts and arches that were built without cranes or JCBs.  Look at the remains of rose windows in the west fronts, or the reticulated and panel tracery in the clerestories; admire the quoins and the carved capitals, and in some cases see how river water was redirected through the buildings for culinary and sanitary needs.

Fountains Abbey

 

Then, think of the minds, the plans, the organisation and the orders involved in smashing these wonderful places to bits.  Yes, there were arrangements for the surrendering monks and friars, and properties and artefacts were sold off, but the effect of the dissolution, which was practically concluded in 1540, just barely four years since the idea was proposed, was for many people to be out of work, for poverty and illness to reap their rewards, for education to fall by the wayside and for farming and land management to be put back several centuries.

Fountains Abbey - a Cistercian abbey

 

Did Henry foresee the masses who troop to Fountains Abbey for family days out?  Did he anticipate the swooning romanticisms of Wordsworth and Turner?  Of course not.  His intentions were of his time.  What we now experience is partly ‘anemoia,’ a nostalgia for a time you have never known, but it is also, I suggest, an appreciation of the way human endeavour is capable of creating beauty that has practical value in harmony with nature.

Fountains Abbey - the Cellarium (a food store)

 

‘God’s own country is in ruins,’ is perhaps a harsh judgement, but maybe we can take two lessons from all this: firstly, the world needs to learn to avoid allowing any individual’s power to go unchallenged (that’s a clumsy phrase!) And secondly, we need to preserve a healthy working relationship with the natural world, for the good not just of us, the human being, but for the future of the planet.....

Fountains Abbey

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

William Wordsworth

God's Own Country