Episode 3 Saints and Sinners: Britain's Millennium of Monasteries

When we think of monasteries in Britain,

we think of Henry VIII and the Dissolution.

But their story stretches back a thousand years before Henry was born

to the most remarkable of beginnings.

The monastic system that would be torn apart by Henry

began as a cult of extreme isolation

on rocky islands and in desert caves.

From these origins, the monasteries grew to dominate

every aspect of public life.

The story of Britain's millennium of monasteries

is one of devotion and faith,

but also of ambition, violence and greed.

As the monks grew in power, they transformed society,

but they also absorbed its corruption.

The difference between their original austere ideals

and this, the palatial opulence of a high medieval monastery,

is breathtaking.

It's a contradiction they would never fully escape

and one that would eventually lead to their destruction.

In this episode,

we discover how the immensely rich and powerful monasteries,

which had dominated British society for a thousand years,

were annihilated in less than five years.

Was it the violent action of an over-bearing and greedy tyrant

or the inevitable end of days for a rotten and outmoded institution?

CATHERDRAL BELLS CHIME

On the 20th of December, 1327, the disgraced and deposed king,

Edward II, was buried here in the magnificent church

of St Peter's Monastery, which is now called Gloucester Cathedral.

But as Edward was laid to rest in his ornate tomb,

rumours were already circulating that he'd been gruesomely murdered.

Because kings were thought to be divinely ordained by God,

many now saw Edward II as a holy martyr.

In the 14th century, people still fervently believed

in the supernatural power of martyrs and relics,

and soon pilgrims flocked to Edward's tomb.

They were encouraged by the monks of St Peter's Abbey,

who claimed that numerous miracles of healing had taken place here.

This was a fortunate turn of events because up until this point,

the abbey had lacked any really significant relics.

The bodies and possessions of saints and martyrs

had been venerated from the earliest days of Christianity.

Monasteries had secured a role as their primary custodians

and donations from those on pilgrimage to these holy relics

were one of their greatest sources of income.

The flood of pilgrim gold into St Peter's allowed the monks

to fund one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture

created in medieval Britain -

the Great Cloister.

It was the first ever large-scale work of fan vaulting,

a new technique invented in Gloucestershire.

Then, as now, it dazzled.

I think this is one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture

ever made.

As you walk through,

it's like you're enclosed by overhanging branches.

And yet, the stone seems almost weightless.

It's like the whole building is dancing around me.

But this wondrous space wouldn't have been seen

by the pilgrims that had paid for it.

This wasn't a public religious building

designed to proclaim the glories of God.

This extraordinarily expensive palace

was the private domain of just 50 or so monks.

Although the public weren't allowed into the cloister,

on rare occasions, selected noble and royal guests were.

But never women.

It proclaimed the monastery's magnificence

and enhanced the monks' prestige.

Because, like all the great monasteries,

St Peter's carefully cultivated its status

as an intimate friend of the Crown.

Richard II even held a parliament here in 1378.

And yet, behind all the confidence and splendour,

lay a fundamental contradiction.

Despite this sumptuous setting, monks weren't kings,

or noblemen, or even regular citizens.

They had taken vows to lead a life of simplicity and poverty,

rejecting the world and all its luxurious temptations.

These extravagant medieval monasteries

couldn't be further removed from the simple stone cells

of the fourth-century hermits,

whose lives the monks were supposed to be emulating.

The spiritual roots of monasticism

were in tension with their worldly powers.

But for now, like the stones of the cloister,

this delicate balance was holding firm.

In 1400, monasticism in Britain was still thriving.

There were more than 800 monasteries and nunneries,

with around 7,000 men and women living in religious communities.

But what was life actually like for the monks and nuns themselves?

Were their daily lives as grand as their buildings?

At the Museum of London's Archaeological Archive,

they've been conducting research into the skeletal remains of monks

to discover if their lives differed from an average medieval Londoner.

I met Dr Becky Redfern in the bone store,

where the museum keeps thousands of skeletons

discovered in archaeological excavations.

So, Becky what have we got here, then?

Well we've got two very exciting individuals from the medieval period.

So, here we have a member from a monastic order

from Merton Priory in Surrey.

-Ah-ha, we have a monk.

-We have a monk.

And then we have our Mr Average medieval Londoner,

and we can tell that his life was subject to a lot more stress

and dietary insufficiencies compared to a monastic one.

What sort of things tells us that, then?

So, on his thigh bone there, his femur, you can see it's very bowed.

Oh, yes.

And that is from rickets, so he suffered from that as a child.

-And that's from a lack of vitamin D?

-Yes.

But the monastic populations have a lot less evidence

for this type of disease compared to the leg...

-So, no rickets on this skeleton, then?

-No, none in him.

And the monastic members tend to be slightly taller

than the average population,

which is again showing that they have a good diet.

And what sort of ages are these individuals, then?

Well, the monastic orders are a lot older,

so these are individuals who are at least 45 years old.

So, when we've looked at the indicators that we use on his pelvis,

that's showing us that he's at least 45 years,

-so he could be into his 60s or even older.

-Right.

-Whereas...

-That's very old for the time.

Very, very good going for medieval period, yeah.

It's because of their social and environmental buffering,

it enables them to live a lot longer.

But people amongst the general public,

-they are living a lot shorter lives.

-Yeah. A lot shorter lives.

This man is 25 to 30 years old.

So, from the cemetery where he was buried - St Mary Spital -

-most people are dying between 25 and 35 years old.

-Gosh.

So, this skeleton over here then, it shows evidence of malnutrition.

-Mm-hm.

-Do we see any evidence of that in monastic graveyards?

No, not at all, really. In fact, we see the opposite.

We know from analysing the carbon and nitrogen levels in their bones

that they eat a lot of protein, so a lot of meat and a lot of fish.

And this is also manifested in this disease.

-So, this candle wax kind of dripping effect here.

-Oh, gosh!

And in some cases, this disease, which is known as DISH -

which is diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis,

but DISH is much easier -

for some individuals, the ribs can fuse on,

the sacrum can fuse to the pelvis

and this is associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes.

So, we're looking at a fat monk?

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

But do they suffer from any other diseases?

So, in Hull, there are these monks,

and they've obviously been very naughty because they've got syphilis.

-Oh, no!

-Can you imagine?

During life, they may have denied colourful pasts and fast living,

-but actually...

-The bones can't lie.

-Yeah, indeed.

So, far from living lives of abstinence,

many monks were eating better and living longer

than people outside the cloister.

But what did their diet actually consist of?

The image of the fat monk

is a cherished cliche of the medieval world.

The classic depiction is Chaucer's character,

described in his General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,

written towards the end of the 14th century.

Chaucer introduces the monk, saying, "Fat was this lord.

"He stood in goodly case. His bulging eyes rolled about."

And we're told, "A fat swan he loved best of any roast."

Chaucer's monk was a comic figure, a waddling glutton.

The amount of food and drink consumed by some real medieval monks

is revealed by records that survive from Westminster Abbey's kitchens.

In the early 16th century,

when a skilled worker could earn around seven pounds a year,

the Abbey's annual income was £2,100.

While less than 10% this was given away as alms to the poor,

an incredible 37% was spent on food.

The monks were only supposed to eat only small amounts of meat,

but they soon began to find ingenious loopholes.

They narrowed the definition of meat,

which meant they could eat as much offal as they liked.

And because they weren't allowed to eat much meat

inside their refectories,

they simply created new dining halls.

Thank you.

By the 16th century, every day, Westminster monks

were consuming meat equivalent to a 12oz steak.

On top of that, each day, the monks could expect to consume five eggs,

two loaves of bread...

..and at least eight pints of ale.

Oh, yummy. Thank you so much.

Looks amazing.

They were also fond of delicacies,

often eating so much dairy they had to be treated with digestive syrups.

Fruit was brought from nearby farms.

Like many monasteries, Westminster Abbey was also known as a convent,

and today that farmland is still called Covent Garden.

The Westminster monks were, on average, consuming

6,200 calories per day,

three times the recommended intake for a man.

This is extraordinary for a monastery

founded on the Rules of Benedict,

which states a pound of bread should be sufficient food for a day.

So, Chaucer's monk wasn't just a caricature.

His mockery shows that monks' lavish diets

had become a public joke.

There were still those

who believed in the original ideals of monasticism -

ideals of self-deprivation and seclusion.

In the early years of the 15th century,

a young woman here in York made a radical decision.

Her name was Emma Raughton

and she had chosen to be sealed in a cell for the rest of her life.

Like hundreds of other women in the medieval period,

Emma Raughton was becoming an anchoress.

The word comes from the Greek anachoretes,

which means "one who lives alone".

Accounts survive describing the extraordinary ceremony

that was performed on the day women like Emma were sealed up.

Once the girl or woman was inside the church,

she was led to the west end

where she would lie down on the ground prostrate.

She was then sprinkled with water and given two candles -

one representing love of God

and one representing love of your neighbour.

After this, she was led towards her cell.

Psalms from the Office of the Dead were sung

and then she was sprinkled with dust before being led to her cell.

And then the door was permanently blocked behind her.

It was a funeral ceremony.

The anchoress was, in effect, leaving the world of the living

and entering the world of the dead.

This is an incredibly cramped place.

Emma's cell may well have had a second storey, but still,

it's such a constricted, confined place to spend an entire lifetime.

So, what was she supposed to do with herself, day after day,

year after year, trapped in here?

Well, like monasteries and nunneries,

anchoresses had a rule to live by.

The Ancrene Wisse, or Anchoress's Guide,

was written by a West Midlands friar in the early 13th century.

The Ancrene Wisse gives very precise details

on how the anchoress should live her life,

from how she should pray - kneeling down on the bed -

to the thickness of the curtains that would have covered the windows.

It also gives extraordinary instructions

on how she should respond to the Mass

which was being said in the church down below

and which she could glimpse

by peeping through this hole in the wall.

It says here, "When the priest has consecrated the Host,

"forget all the world, be completely outside of your body,

"embrace the sparkling love of your lover,

"who has descended into your bower from heaven

"and hold him firmly until he has granted you all that you ever ask."

The one being embraced is Jesus himself.

The solitary suffering of the anchoress

was mirroring that of Christ.

On the threshold between life and death,

she was forming an intensely personal - even mystical -

union with God.

This gave her great power

as a heavenly representative for her community.

The public flocked to these holy women.

The earliest monks took their inspiration from the Desert Fathers

who had achieved spiritual perfection alone in their caves.

By the 15th century, monks had drifted away

from the path of austere perfection,

swapping their caves for palaces.

Now it was the anchoresses, sealed up in their cave-like cells,

who seemed to be the true inheritors of the monastic tradition.

The monks' pursuit of luxury threw their legitimacy into question.

For centuries, monasteries were at the heart of public life.

They were the sole suppliers of a range of services

that were essential to the ruling elite.

But these, too, were slipping from their grasp.

Most critically,

they now faced competition in their fundamental dominion -

education.

Since the fall of the Roman Empire,

monasteries monopolised literature and learning.

They were guardians of classical knowledge,

connected to a Europe-wide educational system.

But by the 12th century, a new institution had evolved

at Bologna, Paris, Cambridge and here at Oxford.

These universities didn't require students to be monks.

They studied a broader range of subjects,

including law and medicine.

Learning was no longer a monastic preserve.

Soon, even some monks were being sent away to the universities.

And as education became increasingly secularised and professionalised,

so too was the production of the materials education required.

The scribing of books had been monopolised by the monasteries.

Monks had expertise and time to spare.

But in 13th and 14th centuries,

entrepreneurs realised there was money to be made in manuscripts

and professional scribes set up in many major towns.

But most devastating of all

was the invention of the printing press in 1450.

The impact on monasteries was huge.

For centuries, the patient production of books by hand

was a primary activity of the monasteries.

Now the demand was fading, and nothing ever fully took its place.

The importance of monasteries to their powerful patrons

was in decline.

Despite the gradual undermining of their role,

at the dawn of the 16th century,

monasteries were still incredibly influential.

Between them, the monasteries owned

a staggering one third of the nation's land.

And politically, they still sat at the heart of the nation,

seen clearly at Westminster.

The great abbey sat alongside the palace,

home to royalty and parliament, in a great and intricate knot of power.

And yet, for the spectators watching the opening of parliament

in November 1529,

something happened which might have called all that into question.

As usual, crowds had gathered to watch the pomp and ceremony.

But something happened which wasn't traditional.

Copies of a pamphlet were hurled into the crowd

and fell into curious hands.

It was called A Supplication For The Beggars

and its intention was to destroy the monastic system.

The anonymous pamphlet was, in fact,

written by a lawyer called Simon Fish,

who provocatively addressed it to the King - Henry VIII.

It claimed to be written on behalf of the beggars of the kingdom,

who were being starved to death by a far worse group of beggars -

the church.

The pamphlet instructs the King,

"In the times past, there craftily crept into this your realm

"holy and idle beggars -

"the abbots, priors, deacons, monks and friars -

"who, setting all labour aside,

"have begged so importunately that they have gotten into their hands

"more than a third of your realm."

The holy beggars are also accused of making,

"a 100,000 whores in your land."

"Surely," he argues, "we'd be better off without these sinful parasites."

It wasn't the first time the Church had been criticised,

but this was something new and different...

..something dangerous.

Fish argued that the Church had leached away Henry VIII's power

and that the vast wealth of the monasteries

should be given to the Crown.

Most provocatively, he yoked the greed of the national church

to the overall corruption of the Roman Catholic faith.

And all this was done in the language not of the scholar,

but of the streets.

Opposition to the monasteries now had a new voice.

But in 1529, the monasteries still had sufficient support

from the ruling class.

Fish was charged with heresy,

but died of plague before he could be brought to trial.

However, his ideas would live on, and they gained greater purchase

when Henry VIII made a momentous decision.

Forbidden by the Pope from annulling his first marriage

and marrying Anne Boleyn,

in 1533, Henry split the English Church from Rome.

While the Pope had been the ultimate religious authority,

the monasteries now had a new and unpredictable leader.

And with opposition abroad and expensive tastes at home,

that leader badly needed money.

For King Henry, the ideas that had fluttered down on the London breeze

four years earlier now seemed like an attractive policy.

Making matters worse for the monasteries

was a religious reform movement burgeoning on the Continent.

Martin Luther, a German friar,

set about the Catholic Church with great zeal,

targeting perceived Church corruption and superstition.

With their relics, idols and opulent lifestyles,

monks were believed to be some of the worst offenders.

With these new ideas from abroad,

the monasteries were losing their grip.

A perfect storm was brewing.

But it might not have struck with such force

had it not been for one man.

THUNDER ROLLS

Thomas Cromwell was King Henry's fixer.

He lived to solve problems.

And the monasteries, with their spiritual independence,

were a major problem for Henry.

Cromwell oversaw the break with Rome

and then became Vicar General of the English Church.

Eager to provide his king with desperately needed funds,

he saw in the monasteries a golden opportunity.

Commissioners were dispatched across the country

to prepare a dossier on the state of the monasteries.

As Cromwell's agents,

they had unlimited power to search monasteries,

audit their treasures and interrogate the monks and nuns.

Known as visitors, they arrived here,

at the gate of Bury St Edmunds Abbey, in November 1535.

This is what the visitors wrote about Bury -

"The abbot delights in the company of women, in sumptuous banquets,

"in cards and dice, and does not preach."

"The prior and eight others are defamed for incontinence with women.

"One confesses to adultery, and two admit to voluntar polluc."

That is, self violation. It's hot stuff.

The findings at Bury were echoed across the country.

Certain monasteries already had a reputation for bad behaviour,

but the visitors reported institutional corruption and vice

on a phenomenal scale.

At Farley, the prior apparently had "eight whores".

At Garendon, there were "five sodomites", one abusing ten boys.

While at Langdon,

the visitors stationed guards at the escape routes,

or starting holes, of the abbot's house.

One them wrote how he fortunately found a small pole axe,

dashed the door to pieces and went about the house.

Finally, they found the abbot's whore, alias his gentlewoman,

when she, "Bestirred her stumps towards her starting holes,"

and then they, "Took the tender demoiselle."

ABBEY BELLS CHIME

As well as reporting on moral abuses,

the visitors gave detailed reports

on the relics held by each monastery.

Monks operated a vast relic industry,

which had been a source of much of their considerable income.

For centuries, it had been believed that relics were

"potent repositories of heavenly power".

But under the new religious ideas,

they were condemned as trinkets of superstition.

The visitors listed the spectacular array of relics

venerated here at Bury.

There was, "The shirt of St Edmund...

"..the blood of Christ, the stone with which St Stephen was stoned...

"..the coals with which St Lawrence was roasted...

"..the skull of St Petronilla, which simple folk put on their heads,

"hoping to be delivered from fever."

BELL TOLLS

During one inspection, it was discovered that

one of the country's most popular relics

had even received a helping hand.

At Boxley Abbey in Kent,

the visitors examined their famous, miraculous crucifix

and found old wires and rotten sticks at the back

which caused the eyes to move and

the head to stir like a living thing

and the lips, likewise, to move as though they should speak.

The abbot and monks claimed that they were ignorant of it.

The reports still make eye-popping reading

and some were clearly telling Cromwell what he wanted to hear.

But were the allegations true? Or had the dossier been sexed up?

The visitors were looking for dirt

and through bullying and interrogation,

they got what they wanted.

Clearly, some of the claims were exaggerated.

For example, they said that two nuns at Handale Priory

had recently given birth,

but they turned out be 49 and 70 years old.

Yet, it's impossible to believe that they made up everything.

Monks and nuns across the country

had plummeted from the earlier monastic ideals.

Whatever the truth, Cromwell now had the justification he needed.

In July 1535, when the visitation reports were read out to Parliament,

the House was stunned.

No-one had envisioned corruption on this scale.

The Dissolution swiftly became official policy.

The Suppression Of Religious Houses Act was passed,

forcing the closure of all smaller monasteries,

those with an income less than £200 a year.

This amounted to around 230 monasteries across England,

many with fewer than ten inhabitants.

They were an easy target.

Their members either joined larger houses

or were bought off with a small pension.

While the political elite were convinced they deserved to close,

the monasteries were still held sacred by many,

particularly in the north of England...

..and they were willing to fight to keep them.

In October 1536, a Yorkshire-born lawyer named Robert Aske

was travelling to Westminster.

He was 36 and a member of the minor gentry.

While passing through the Lincolnshire town of Louth,

his journey was suddenly interrupted.

The town was in revolt.

Incensed by economic grievances and the religious reforms,

the people rose up.

A man of deep conscience, Aske shared the anger of the people

with what was happening to the monasteries.

He turned his horse back from London and began to organise the movement.

The rebels had a new leader.

Under Aske, a far greater rebellion began to spread across the north.

At its heart was a desire to save the monasteries.

Thousands rose in armed revolt, primarily in the counties

of Yorkshire, Lancashire,

Cumberland and Westmorland.

Aske re-branded the uprising.

This was no longer just a rebellion -

this was the Pilgrimage of Grace.

10,000 people joined him and they took the city of York

without a fight, parading through its streets.

A celebratory Mass was held here at the minster.

Aske wrote a declaration and nailed it to the doors of the minster.

It called upon the dispossessed monks

to go back into their houses again.

Cromwell's Dissolution was being put into reverse.

By October, Aske's forces had swollen to 30,000 armed men

and threatened the entire Tudor state.

But the king's officers shrewdly delayed the rebels with promises

and they became divided.

Its momentum lost, the Pilgrimage was crushed.

200 of the rebels were executed.

Their number included some monks

and the Abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx.

The Pilgrimage of Grace was never just about the monasteries.

The people were angry at the whole aggressive Tudor state.

Robert Aske was executed as a traitor.

He was brought here to Clifford's Tower, hanged from a chain

and then disembowelled.

The revolt squandered any sympathy

that Henry VIII may have had left for the monks.

The Pilgrimage, which had aimed to save the monasteries,

instead sealed their fate.

For Henry, the Pilgrimage was the breaking point.

Cromwell was now empowered to target the huge, rich monasteries

that hadn't been closed under the Act of Suppression.

But this time, he didn't even get an Act of Parliament.

Cromwell and his visitors simply strong-armed the abbots and abbesses

into signing over their monasteries over to the crown.

If they agreed, they were rewarded with healthy pensions.

If they did not, they faced poverty and punishment.

Westminster.

Peterborough.

Winchester.

Gloucester.

Durham.

One by one, the great monasteries of England were surrendered.

But what was the Crown to do with this sudden and unprecedented haul?

On the 23rd of June, 1538, the abbot and monks of Roche Abbey,

a Cistercian monastery in Yorkshire, met in their chapter house.

Their predecessors had gathered here every day for 391 years.

But this was to be their final meeting.

The abbot signed the deed of surrender

and handed the abbey keys to the royal commissioners.

What happened next was typical of all the monasteries.

When it was built in the 1170s,

this church was one of the most advanced buildings in the country.

You can see over there Gothic pointed arches,

a style that was to become one of the great glories

of the medieval period.

This building was one of the first in England to use them.

It had stood here for three and a half centuries.

But it was brought down in just a few days.

The devastation was total.

Cromwell's agents were systematic and efficient.

Precious lead from the roof was carted off

and anything else of value was auctioned,

from tables and chairs to door locks.

An account survives of what happened here at Roche.

It was written by a local priest,

whose uncle attended the auction,

and it reveals how far and how quickly

the monks plummeted from their position of power and wealth.

The account states that the monks were allowed to auction off anything

from their own cells.

It says, "One monk urged my uncle to buy something from him,

"but my uncle replied that he could see nothing

"that would be of any use to him.

"The monk asked him for two pennies for his cell door,

"which was worth over five shillings,

"but my uncle refused."

The account tells how local people descended on the abbey

to scavenge anything that remained.

They stole pewter pots and ripped hooks from the walls.

Some even used service books to patch up holes in their carts.

When the priest asked his uncle why he took part in the pillaging,

he replied, "What else should I have done?

"Might not I, as well as the others,

"have had some share in the profits of the abbey?"

This destruction was an act of greed, not of religious ideology.

While the ruined monasteries still punctuate the landscape of Britain,

some of the best evidence for how the Dissolution was carried out

is hidden from view.

In this innocuous warehouse in Yorkshire,

English Heritage stores architectural artefacts

found at monasteries ransacked by Cromwell's agents.

This is it.

There's so much!

Oh, my goodness, it's amazing.

We're used to hearing about the savagery of the Dissolution,

but the truth these artefacts reveal is far more surprising.

The English Heritage Curator for the North is Kevin Booth.

Kevin, what have we got here?

Well, pretty much, the remnants of England's monastic traditions,

or at least within the north of England.

We've got about 20 sites here.

Some of the classics. I mean, there's Rievaulx, there's Whitby,

there's Byland across there and there's Kirkham.

Gosh. It's a real treasure trove of finds

-from these monastic sites, then.

-It absolutely is.

It's really the bulk of everything that's left from those sites.

Fantastic. So, these are the artefacts, the images,

the sculptures that adorned these ruinous monastic rites.

They are, but more importantly, I suppose,

it's what adorned those sites at the Dissolution.

So, we're seeing a snapshot of material that was there

either on the buildings or the detritus left behind

in the process of taking those buildings apart.

-And this is absolutely stunning. Look at that.

-Mm.

-So ornately carved.

-Yeah.

This is a boss.

It's one of those pieces that locked together the ceiling vaults.

And this one's likely from high up in the east end of the church.

-At Rievaulx?

-At Rievaulx, yeah.

-So, a monastic church.

-Yeah.

And it's a very important stone,

then, isn't it?

Without this, clearly, that whole

-structure comes tumbling down.

-Mm.

But the point that we found with this

is that it's simply not damaged,

-there is barely a scuff mark on it.

-Yes.

So, the question has to be,

how do you get this from the top of that building

if it's all being pulled down

-without that being seriously destroyed?

-Destroyed, yes.

Because presumably, it's 50, 60, 70 foot in the air?

Yeah. They must have had scaffolding.

They must be quite carefully and quite systematically

taking down material for future use, for resale, for whatever.

So, it destroys this idea

that it's all wanton ripping down of these buildings.

This barely scratched, isn't it?

The ends are lovely and smooth. It's barely damaged.

-It's still got all the chisel marks of the man who made it.

-Yes!

And the little setting-out mark here.

It's so highly worked.

It flies in the face of this early monastic tradition

where it's sort of a beehive cell on the side of a mountain.

This is the finest art of its time

-and it's just a fraction of that, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

And it does give us an insight into the quality of the art

within an institution like Rievaulx.

Yeah. And there's another good

example over here, isn't there,

-of how things have been destroyed?

-Absolutely.

So, here we have a figure of Christ seated in majesty,

probably from the west front, west portal of Gisborough Priory,

around 1300.

And traditionally, he'd be seated in majesty, maybe holding a book?

Yes. So, he lost his arms but we can be fairly certain

he's sat with his arms in this position holding something,

quite possibly a representation of a book made from bronze,

perhaps guild, perhaps even with precious stones inset into it.

Because manuscripts, they were covered

in these sorts of bejewelled surfaces weren't they?

Beautiful works of art in their own right.

This particular work of art, we've got a socket here,

so it suggests that that bronze book is wedged,

set presumably with lead setting into there, but that's gone.

-That's the missing piece.

-Well, it's easy to grab, isn't it?

It's easy to grab, but in this instance, perhaps harder to pry off.

So, you can see here these marks, coming at angle in as if a tool,

some kind of axe or pick, has been used to prize that book,

that precious item out of that socket.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's precious metal and jewels

-just ready for the taking.

-Ready for the taking.

What's remarkable to me about the process of the Dissolution

is not it's savagery, but quite how methodical it was.

On the whole, the Dissolution wasn't an orgy of destruction.

It wasn't a zealous and wanton obliteration

of a much-detested institution.

It was something far more systematic.

Like hundreds of other monasteries and nunneries across the country,

Roche was quickly and efficiently converted into money.

And what couldn't be plundered was simply abandoned to decay.

Cromwell's blend of bribery and intimidation

persuaded almost all the great monasteries

to capitulate without a fight.

Very few stood up to the Dissolution.

Those that did paid a terrible price.

Glastonbury Abbey had the biggest income in England,

but there was a problem.

On the first occasion, the visitors praised the order of the house,

which, they said, "Had long been honourable."

They even praised its worthy abbot.

This lack of scandal was not what Cromwell wanted.

Rebuked, the visitors returned again.

And this time, they found what they were looking for.

In the walls of the abbey, they discovered money and treasure

hidden from them by the monks.

In the abbot's house,

they found a book that opposed the king's divorce.

It wasn't much, but more than enough for Cromwell.

The abbot of Glastonbury was called Richard Whiting.

Nearly 70 years old,

he epitomised the great monastic leader of the early Tudor period,

entertaining in a lavish way and sending Christmas gifts to the king.

But that world was over. Now, Cromwell expected a quick surrender.

But Whiting did something that hundreds before him

had failed to do - he refused to give in.

The interrogators arrived, but Whiting didn't buckle.

The old man was despatched to the Tower of London

and two months later, put on trial.

He was found guilty - but not of treason, as Cromwell hoped,

but simply of "robbing Glastonbury Church".

On the 15th of November, 1539, Richard Whiting was tied to a hurdle

and dragged through Glastonbury.

He was described as, "A very weak man and sickly."

Next. he was brought here, to the top of Glastonbury Tor.

Though convicted only of robbery, the abbot had defied Cromwell.

An example would be made of him.

Here, Whiting received the traditional punishment for treason.

He was hanged...

..disembowelled...

..beheaded...

..and his body was chopped into four pieces.

His head was then carried down the hill

and stuck on the gates of the abbey.

The old man must have known what he was doing by disobeying Cromwell.

But handing over his abbey was something he simply could not do.

One eye witness said that, "He faced his death very patiently."

Abbot Whiting's horrific death shows how ruthlessly determined

Cromwell was to ensure the success of the Dissolution.

Yet, to me, what's most remarkable is how little resistance there was.

The reason that Richard Whiting stands out

is that he is almost alone.

The abbots of Reading and Colchester were also executed,

but the hundreds of other monastic leaders went with barely a fight.

Whilst nationally, from around 12,000 monks and nuns,

it's thought that fewer than 20 met a violent end.

The Dissolution is often seen as a savage convulsion,

but the truth is, it was an almost bloodless revolution.

While the individual deaths were terrible,

the mass violence was done to ideas, not to people.

By 1541, from the 800 monasteries and nunneries

in existence a decade earlier, not a single one remained.

Not all the monastery buildings were destroyed.

14 of the most magnificent were saved,

becoming the great cathedral complexes we know today.

Some became schools, parish churches or private homes.

For the vast majority of people in the 16th century,

the end of a millennium of monasteries had very little impact.

As great swathes of monastic lands were auctioned off,

peasants simply swapped landlords.

The fruit of their labour had once been lavished upon majestic abbeys,

but were now in the hands of an enriched gentry.

It's their spectacular homes that now start to rise up

on the landscape, with places like here at Wroxton

actually built upon the very foundations

and from the same stones as the monasteries they'd superseded.

While the monasteries no longer dominated

all the social spheres they once had,

their destruction did have repercussions

for some outside the cloister.

The amount of relief given to the poor fell immediately.

Monastic hospitals were shut down

and only gradually replaced by secular alternatives.

But the monks themselves were never abandoned.

Many found new roles within the Church

and the others were pensioned off,

receiving a small but survivable income.

Bureaucracy - not butchery - was the order of the day.

For a thousand years,

monasteries had been at the very heart of British society.

How could they have gone so quickly?

I believe the monks' time had passed.

Their brand of Christianity, resplendent with saints and relics,

had become outmoded in the eyes of a progressively rational elite.

Monasteries would be dissolved across Europe,

even in staunchly Catholic Italy, France and Spain.

But primarily, the British monasteries

had lost their unique place in the life of the nation.

A millennia earlier,

the monasteries had first appeared in the wilderness,

outposts where monks sought personal salvation

through Christ-like suffering.

Gradually, the monks had become intertwined with the ruling class

and began building their own palaces,

their founding principle and justification all but forgotten.

Yet they had kept the flame of civilisation burning

since the fall of the Roman Empire.

And the institutions that now took on their role

were profoundly influenced by the monasteries they replaced.

This isn't the cloister of a monastery,

but of New College in Oxford.

And it isn't just the architecture

that replicates the monastic style.

In their organisation and their dedication to learning,

the early universities and schools

were essentially secularised monasteries.

The monastic tradition influenced all future educational institutions.

But it wasn't just in the realm of education.

The pattern is seen again and again.

In art...

..science...

..music...

..medicine...

..and architecture.

None would be in the form we recognise today

without the tireless work of the monks.

A movement founded on the rejection of society ended up transforming it.

While the word monk means alone,

the lasting impact of Britain's monasteries

has been a shared cultural inheritance.