Question about Irish monasteries before Reformation

Roger Buck

"There were around 400 religious houses in Ireland in 1530—many more, relative to population ... than in England and Wales."

This sentence, slightly abridged, is found on internet in many places. Is it true? I need to know for sure. If anyone can tell me and/or how I could corroborate it, I would be very, very grateful. Thank you!

Peregrinus

It would have been well-documented at the time, since the first step in the Henrician dissolution was to send Commissioners around to survey all the monasteries and religious houses, and the contents, properties and communities. So there would be data not only on how many monasteries there were, but how many monks were in each monastery, what the income of each monastery was, etc, etc.

The primary records of this survey were destroyed in the burning of the Public Record Office in 1922, but information from the survey survives in other archives. At a guess, information on the total number of monasteries, and on the total income of the monasteries, surives in many archives, including the British public archives (since it would certainly have been reported back to the court in London).

Roger Buck

Thank you, Peregrinus. It is good to know this about the extensive documentation at the time. Also to be reminded of the tragic burning in 1922.

More basically, I still want to know if that statement is true or if there's a reliable book/source about it - rather than just an endlessly repeated internet sentence.

If I could just confirm this in a trustworthy source, it would help. I don't know if I have it in me to do extensive research of all the records in both England and Ireland.

But again, it is definitely good to know what you say and I thank you.

Dr Crippen

I would look at books by colm Lennon,

Peregrinus

"The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland Under Henry VIII" by Brendan Bradshaw was first published in 1974, and reissued by Cambridge University Press in 2008. I haven't read it, but it would be a good place to start.

Arsemageddon

If you want to look up the location of known monasteries, abbeys and other such institutions that existed prior to the dissolution you use the archaeology.ie map viewer (only for the Republic though)
http://webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/

If you lick on the 'notebook' symbol at the top of the screen you can query the database, if you click on 'class' you can scroll down until you reach religious houses which are subdivided by religious order (Augustinian, Franciscan, etc.)

I'd suspect that the 400 figure is the number of monasteries that were subject to the dissolution and that the actual historic number of monasteries in Ireland was much greater (i.e.) some sites had become uninhabitable, or control of small abbeys/monasteries was passed to larger institutions

Peregrinus

The OS published a print map of religious houses (32 counties) some time in the 1960s. I don't know whether they still sell it, but there would be many copies in existence. However I think it would have included all houses from all periods, including those which had closed before 1530.

Aubrey Gwynn and R. Neville Hadcock published Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland in 1970. That would be another possible source for the "400" figure. I think the research which formed the basis of that book was also the basis of the OS map.

Arsemageddon

Peregrinus wrote: »

The OS published a print map of religious houses (32 counties) some time in the 1960s. I don't know whether they still sell it, but there would be many copies in existence. However I think it would have included all houses from all periods, including those which had closed before 1530.

Aubrey Gwynn and R. Neville Hadcock published Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland in 1970. That would be another possible source for the "400" figure. I think the research which formed the basis of that book was also the basis of the OS map.

Thanks for that Peregrinus, Gwynn & Haddock's book was on the tip of my tongue but I just couldn't think of the authors, it would have bugged me all day.

Their book also formed the basis for much of the records subsequently compiled by the Archaeological Survey of Ireland.

ParsleyQueen

Thanks for posting this. He has written some other interesting works on Irish history as well.

Fratton Fred

Why was Glendalough monastery destroyed in 1398?

I can understand why the Normans destroyed it in 1214 as I presume it was not a "Roman" monastery, but why was it again destroyed in 1398 prior to the reformation?

Thinkingaboutit

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Why was Glendalough monastery destroyed in 1398?

I can understand why the Normans destroyed it in 1214 as I presume it was not a "Roman" monastery, but why was it again destroyed in 1398 prior to the reformation?

At that point in time the foundations there in Glendalough were conventionally Latin like St Saviour's Augustinian Priory. The figure probably could be checked as the Dissolution of the Monasteries involved detailed surveys or extents which have been published. A small number of houses survived the Dissolution either with the monks living close to the former house or even in the religious with the collusion of a friendly landowner.

donaghs

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Why was Glendalough monastery destroyed in 1398?

I can understand why the Normans destroyed it in 1214 as I presume it was not a "Roman" monastery, but why was it again destroyed in 1398 prior to the reformation?

Just reading up on that now, and that thought occurred to me too. I can't get any detail on why it was destroyed. Most web pages say "the English" did it. But that's a tad vague given the complexity of Hiberno-Normans, Palesmen, Gaelic Irish etc.

Bit more reading. The eroding of the power of the local Normans, and also English royal power, and mini-civil wars between local Irish powers - led to an invasion by Richard II in 1394, to 1395. The conflicts appeared to drag on after he left, with Art Macmurrough of Leinster being one thorn in the side of Royal power. Richard returned in 1399.

http://www.historyireland.com/medieval-history-pre-1500/thomas-holand-richard-iis-king-of-ireland/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_M%C3%B3r_Mac_Murchadha_Caomh%C3%A1nach

This book also says "Richard burnt Glendalough in his pursuit of Art".
However if he was not in the country in 1398 he coudn't have done this personally, but I think we have the reason for why and how Gelndalough was destroyed.
https://books.google.ie/books?id=UgBtwO7zm1MC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=art+macmurrough+glendalough&source=bl&ots=LTFVTXAMnE&sig=fUCGK8pLM2NvH5CU8LNtol0NDJ0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBmoVChMI6eC9jsDdxwIVqRTbCh14wAhb#v=onepage&q=art%20macmurrough%20glendalough&f=false

Fratton Fred

donaghs wrote: »

Just reading up on that now, and that thought occurred to me too. I can't get any detail on why it was destroyed. Most web pages say "the English" did it. But that's a tad vague given the complexity of Hiberno-Normans, Palesmen, Gaelic Irish etc.

Bit more reading. The eroding of the power of the local Normans, and also English royal power, and mini-civil wars between local Irish powers - led to an invasion by Richard II in 1394, to 1395. The conflicts appeared to drag on after he left, with Art Macmurrough of Leinster being one thorn in the side of Royal power. Richard returned in 1399.

http://www.historyireland.com/medieval-history-pre-1500/thomas-holand-richard-iis-king-of-ireland/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_M%C3%B3r_Mac_Murchadha_Caomh%C3%A1nach

This book also says "Richard burnt Glendalough in his pursuit of Art".
However if he was not in the country in 1398 he coudn't have done this personally, but I think we have the reason for why and how Gelndalough was destroyed.
https://books.google.ie/books?id=UgBtwO7zm1MC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=art+macmurrough+glendalough&source=bl&ots=LTFVTXAMnE&sig=fUCGK8pLM2NvH5CU8LNtol0NDJ0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBmoVChMI6eC9jsDdxwIVqRTbCh14wAhb#v=onepage&q=art%20macmurrough%20glendalough&f=false

That's very interesting, thanks.

I visited Caernarfon castle in the summer and they have a life sized chessboard depicting the "Game of Thrones" in Wales. Politics was a very complex thing in those days.