i899 J. BELLOWS — MONASTIC ORDERS 43 



i-ei)ort already alluded to, in order to guard existing in- 

 terests, reeomm ended that the older monks should be 

 allowed to continue for the rest of their lives, while all 

 the younger postulants should be sent to their homes. 

 The English government aeted in the spirit of this, and 

 gave to every monk and nun who was under twenty-four 

 years of age at the dissolution the option of remaining 

 under the vow of celibacy, and receiving a pension for 

 life ; or, of being released from it, and receiving one year's 

 pension and a suit of clothes. 



Those who imagine that the object of the government, 

 or of the King, in dissolving the monasteries, was to 

 obtain their revenues, have probably never endeavoured 

 to reconcile this theory w^ith the fact that no monk or 

 nun of over the age of twenty-four was allowed to go 

 free with the one year's salary, although many entreated 

 permission to do so ; for in every case without exception 

 such persons were compelled to keep under the celibate 

 vow for the rest of life, although it involved the payment 

 to them of the annual pension. The amount of this 

 pension varied with the rank of the recipient : that is, more 

 for abbots and other dignitaries, but for the monks them- 

 selves the usual income of a parish curate ;* and for the 

 nuns one-half as much. 



If spoliation was the aim it was clumsily managed. 

 That favoritism affected the allotment of the estates 

 thrown into the market by the nation, is probable. It 

 affects many things now ; but if the allottees paid 20 

 years' purchase for the lands and 15 years' for the buildings, 

 the terms, on the whole, do not appear very different from 

 those which would be secured at the present day, if a 

 twentieth part of all the land in the country were suddenly 



* Several years before this, a luimber of priests waited ou Wolsey to remonstrate 

 against a tax laid on them. They stated that "twenty nobles a year" was a bare income, 

 that would not stand such a tax. A noble was six and eightpence. 



