'Pickpurse' Purgatory, the Dissolution of the Chantries and the Suppression of Intercession for the Dead

Abstract

Recent historical scholarship has explored the important and varied roles played by chantries and other intercessory foundations, emphasising their positive contributions to late-medieval religion and society. Art historians and archaeologists have also investigated their architecture and imagery. The complex history and the cultural consequences of the chantries' suppression have received less attention, although it has been recognised that they exerted an even greater effect on the lives and beliefs of the Tudor laity than the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the previous decade. This essay has two components. The first comprises a brief, chronologically organised, narrative, contrasting Henry VIII's unsystematic assault on the chantries with the radically destructive approach of Protector Somerset two years later. The second part borrows approaches from the anthropological study of the built environment to examine some of the physical consequences of the suppressions.