ABSTRACT
When the Reformation Parliament was summoned by Henry VIII and began its meetings on 3 November 1529, few in the region could have dreamed of the sweeping changes in religion and in religious institutions which the next few decades were to witness. No one would have been rash enough to forecast that within little more than a decade the wealthy and powerful religious houses, whose buildings dominated the towns and whose vast estates extended throughout all parts of the region, would have ceased to exist, and that the familiar figures of monks, friars and nuns would no longer be seen; that soon all the chantries would be dissolved, the Latin mass brought to an end, new services in English introduced, and radical changes made to the interior appearance of the multitude of parish churches throughout the region. There was little indication of the scale of the upheavals to come, for in spite of criticisms of its doctrine and organisation, and the unpopularity of some sections of its hierarchy, the strength of the Church throughout the whole of southern England in 1529 must have seemed overwhelming. The wealth, antiquity and splendour of the great monastic houses, including the richest of all at Glastonbury and the wealthiest English nunnery at Shaftesbury, as well as ancient, opulent foundations at Abingdon, Sherborne, Reading, Salisbury, Winchester, Wilton, Malmesbury, Lacock, Stanley, and a host of others, together with the many smaller houses, hospitals and other institutions seemed secure against all disasters and likely to last for ever. Nowhere in the region was more than a few miles from a major monastery or nunnery, and the Church estates and influence extended everywhere. Likewise money had been lavished upon the parish churches by their congregations during the previous century. The splendour of their architecture, towering over town and countryside, bore witness both to the wealth and to the piety of the people of Wessex, and apparently also to their attachment to the Catholic Church.
