109:, colleges, hospitals and other institutions under church auspices were commanded to give sworn testimony before their local commissioners as to their income, the lands their establishments owned and the revenues they received from all other sources. The commissioners were to examine documents and account books and from these and the testimony provide a full financial statement for every religious institution. The work of collecting the information was ordered to be completed by 30 May 1535 and the results sent in to the
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gave the government for the first time a solid understanding of the scale of the wealth of the church as a whole and particularly of the monasteries. It was not long before King Henry began planning ways of seizing much of these riches for himself, starting with the smaller religious houses. Figures
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with standing timber. One theory to account for this is the natural tendency of taxpayers to make conservative estimates combined with the rushed nature of the work, which encouraged the commissioners to give the benefit of the doubt. Standing timber moreover, by its nature, provides a resource of
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in the later 1530s, they are shown to be broadly accurate though on the low side, in some cases by as much as 15%. There is, particularly in the north, a tendency to underestimate the value of some important classes of asset, especially agricultural land held in
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The commissioners had no particular reason to be partial to the clergy and they applied themselves to the task with much diligence. Where the figures can be checked, for example against the financial records of the king's officials in charge of dissolving
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occasional exceptional income, rather than a steady annual income stream, and hence was commonly ignored in income assessments for 16th century inventories of landed assets.
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on the clergy. Taxes traditionally paid by clerics to the Pope were now to be given to him, and Henry also decided in late 1534 to create a new annual
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of 10% on the income from all church lands and offices. To properly assess the new tax a survey of all church property and revenues had to be made.
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In
January 1535, the government appointed commissions throughout the country to conduct the survey. All clergymen, parish priests, heads of
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In a few instances the discrepancy is of so large a scale as to suggest deliberate fraud in the returns in the
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of the property and wealth of the church. Most of their work survives, preserved in 22
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In 1534, King Henry parted with the Pope and the
Catholic religion and by the
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and
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in his lands. One of his first actions in his new role was to impose
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is a document of the first importance for historians of the later
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and seem to be a summary made for King Henry's personal use.
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The commissioners were unpaid and untrained, mostly local
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Collection of the
National Archives (United Kingdom)
289:from the National Archives showing King Henry VIII
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242:, and the Dissolution. It is also valuable to
262:The Abbeys and Priories of Medieval England
264:, Colin Platt, Secker & Warburg 1984
256:Abbeys and Priories in England and Wales
217:Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535
215:were a vital part of the process of the
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196:dissolution of lesser religious houses
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334:Economic history of England
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250:Bibliography and references
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77:Henry VIII
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232:mediæval
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176:woodland
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160:Accuracy
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130:bishops
69:England
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142:Latin
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65:Latin
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