Identifier: greaterabbeysofe00gasq (find matches)
Title: The greater abbeys of England
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Gasquet, Francis Aidan, Cardinal, 1846-1929
Subjects: Abbeys -- England England -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : Chatto & Windus
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Thirtymonks out of the thirty-three named as the communityby Sussex signed the document, two were in prison inLancaster, only one apparently did not affix his nameto the instrument of their corporate extinction. No pension was granted to the monks in exchangefor the surrender. All they had of their own on beingturned out into the world was forty shillings each, ex-cept three out of the thirty, which being sick andimpotent were given sixty shillings. The vast and magnificent edifice of Furness wasforsaken, writes Canon Dixon, the lamp of the altarof St Mary went out for ever, and in the desertedcloisters no sound was heard but the axe and hammerof those who came to cut away the lead, dash downthe bells, hew away the rafters and break in pieces thearches and pillars. Thus dismantled, the ruin was left asa common quarry for the convenience of every country-man who could cart away the sculptured stones forbuilding a pigstye or a byre. The sales of the monastic goods realized the great 82
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Furness Abbey sum of close on >C^oo» ^^^ bands of imported work-men were employed for a long time on the work ofwrecking the buildings. Also, says the official ac-count, paid to divers and sundry labourers and arti-ficers hired, as well for taking down of the lead of thesaid monastery, with costs of melting and casting thesame, as for pulling down of the church, steeple andother housing of the said monastery, with emptionand provision of ropes and other engines occupiedabout the same, ^-jo 4s. gd. Here, as elsewhere, the poor felt the suppression mostkeenly. From time immemorial, on Maundy Thurs-day, alms had been bestowed on the poor at the abbeygate, and a hundred poor boys in the cloister each re-ceived more than a shilling of our money. Yearly onSt Crispins Day five oxen were distributed among themost needy. Each week eight poor widows had theirbread and beer at the monastic kitchen, daily the poorwere relieved at the almonry, whilst from the founda-tion of the house till the

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