Talk:Anti-clericalism/Archives/2014/October

England

I'm very surprised that there's no mention of anti-clericanism in England in the Middle Ages, since that was one of the lead causes of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and eventually the break with Catholicism when England became Protestant.

If you're thinking of writing such a section, my source of information (which should be out of copyright) is Trevelyan's English Social History, published 1942 (my edition is the third edition, published 1946 and my copy is from the 1948 reprinting) by Longman's in London. It makes the interesting point that although monks were sinful in that they had mistresses, common opinion didn't mind that as much as the fact that monks were idle and did not contribute to society. To quote Trevelyan, "It was not the sinfulness but the uselessness of the monk on which the world commented most," (page 50). Trevelyan substatiates this with a contemporary quotation from the writer Langland, who describes monks as "A rider, a roamed by streets" with " A heap of hounds at his arse as he a lord were." Trevelyan continues by mentioning (same page, 50) that even parliament asked the king to disendow the abbeys substantially. 86.156.59.113 (talk) 23:04, 21 October 2014 (UTC)