ABSTRACT
In the 1500s, with agricultural profits again rising, such demands were more easily met. But until that time, within a generation of suppression, most of England religious houses had seen no real increase in receipts for upwards of 200 years. Arguably, they had only themselves to blame for that outcome. Other religious orders, in particular the Cistercians had handled things better from the start. But Cistercian policy, from the time of St Bernard, had always been to insist on a sufficient endowment. The belief that a religious community should never fall below 12 persons was of great antiquity. But for many lesser houses in post-plague England there was little hope of regaining that total. The monks of Westminster, concluded Barbara Harvey after a very thorough study of their estate policies, were remarkably insensitive, as landlords, to market forces. Glastonburys monks, with personal cash allowances of 3 and over, were among highest-paid religious in the kingdom.
