Throughout this series, you have pointed out that while monastic life may seem terribly confining and dreary to our modern sensibilities, we need to remember that for the nuns at Barking there were very few options in the secular world. As regimented (joyless?) as the life of a nun seems, it actually offered many opportunities that women simply did not get in the outside world. Viewed through this lens the closure of Barking would have been a tremendous personal tragedy for the nuns. Being forced back into the secular world meant their universe became smaller and more confined, not bigger or better.
I realize, I'm revealing nothing new; you've been pointing us in this direction the entire time. Perhaps what I am saying here is thank you. I did not appreciate any of this until you spent the time to explain it. It is through the work of generous people like you that my understanding of the world grows.
On another note, with confidence endowed by ignorance, I'd like to speculate that the final abbess of Barking knew what Cromwell's agent was doing when he inspected the house.
The abbess would likely have known some of the lesser houses that were dissolved in 1536 under Cromwell's accusations. It is unlikely many (if any) of these houses were truly "guilty." Knowing the truth about these houses and their inevitable fate, the last abbess probably knew what was coming. The fact that there was a flurry of lease agreements and financial deals between 1536 and 1537 suggests she was trying to entrench the Abbey's position, building resistance to dissolution. I suspect she was nobody's fool.
Thanks again for watching/listening all the way through and the thoughtful comments. When one puts such things out into the world, you never know by whom or how it will be received. It's sort of how I feel with my students. I've seen many hundreds of faces over the years, and for 90% of them I'll never know if they learned anything from me or I made a difference in any way. I keep trucking along purely for the passion for it. But then there are the 10% who, like you with your comments here, reach out to let me know and make it all worth it.
I think you are correct about Dorothy Barley, the last abbess, once the later rounds of visits started. I think she could have thought they might be safe when the smaller houses were suppressed, but by the late-1530s the writing had to have been on the wall. But even still, imagine being them and existing in an ecosystem and historical context where the Catholic faith had reigned supreme in your country for centuries. Why on earth would you suspect that it could or would all come crashing down so quickly? I'm sure they probably thought "no way," until it was pretty close to too late to do anything about it, not that they could have anyway. I'm just glad they secured the pensions that they did. It was literally the very least the Crown could have done for them for, as you note, what's a middle-aged former nun supposed to do in that society? Not a lot of options there.
And don't get me wrong about the "reform" aspect. While we know the charges on that front were largely trumped up, it certainly wasn't the first time in the history of the Catholic Church that those institutions had come under scrutiny for "lax living." In some cases I've no doubt that was probably true. But like I said in this episode, the only real reason for Henry and Cromwell to resort to extra-parliamentary means to achieve their goals was that the public in general supported the monasteries and what they provided. If they were all just corrupted and rotten places full of sin and vice, and everybody knew it, the king wouldn't have had to go to such lengths as he did.
Throughout this series, you have pointed out that while monastic life may seem terribly confining and dreary to our modern sensibilities, we need to remember that for the nuns at Barking there were very few options in the secular world. As regimented (joyless?) as the life of a nun seems, it actually offered many opportunities that women simply did not get in the outside world. Viewed through this lens the closure of Barking would have been a tremendous personal tragedy for the nuns. Being forced back into the secular world meant their universe became smaller and more confined, not bigger or better.
I realize, I'm revealing nothing new; you've been pointing us in this direction the entire time. Perhaps what I am saying here is thank you. I did not appreciate any of this until you spent the time to explain it. It is through the work of generous people like you that my understanding of the world grows.
On another note, with confidence endowed by ignorance, I'd like to speculate that the final abbess of Barking knew what Cromwell's agent was doing when he inspected the house.
The abbess would likely have known some of the lesser houses that were dissolved in 1536 under Cromwell's accusations. It is unlikely many (if any) of these houses were truly "guilty." Knowing the truth about these houses and their inevitable fate, the last abbess probably knew what was coming. The fact that there was a flurry of lease agreements and financial deals between 1536 and 1537 suggests she was trying to entrench the Abbey's position, building resistance to dissolution. I suspect she was nobody's fool.
Hi Dan,
Thanks again for watching/listening all the way through and the thoughtful comments. When one puts such things out into the world, you never know by whom or how it will be received. It's sort of how I feel with my students. I've seen many hundreds of faces over the years, and for 90% of them I'll never know if they learned anything from me or I made a difference in any way. I keep trucking along purely for the passion for it. But then there are the 10% who, like you with your comments here, reach out to let me know and make it all worth it.
I think you are correct about Dorothy Barley, the last abbess, once the later rounds of visits started. I think she could have thought they might be safe when the smaller houses were suppressed, but by the late-1530s the writing had to have been on the wall. But even still, imagine being them and existing in an ecosystem and historical context where the Catholic faith had reigned supreme in your country for centuries. Why on earth would you suspect that it could or would all come crashing down so quickly? I'm sure they probably thought "no way," until it was pretty close to too late to do anything about it, not that they could have anyway. I'm just glad they secured the pensions that they did. It was literally the very least the Crown could have done for them for, as you note, what's a middle-aged former nun supposed to do in that society? Not a lot of options there.
And don't get me wrong about the "reform" aspect. While we know the charges on that front were largely trumped up, it certainly wasn't the first time in the history of the Catholic Church that those institutions had come under scrutiny for "lax living." In some cases I've no doubt that was probably true. But like I said in this episode, the only real reason for Henry and Cromwell to resort to extra-parliamentary means to achieve their goals was that the public in general supported the monasteries and what they provided. If they were all just corrupted and rotten places full of sin and vice, and everybody knew it, the king wouldn't have had to go to such lengths as he did.