The Pensioner Monks of Shap Abbey [Background]
When Shap Abbey was dissolved in 1540, the former monks all got pensions for life averaging over £5 a year. Other monks elsewhere were not so lucky.
Although only a relatively small abbey, worth under £200 a year, Shap escaped the first wave of closures in 1536, but it surrendered during the second wave, on 14 January 1540. At that date, there appear to have been fourteen monks at the abbey, plus the Abbot, Richard Baggott. He was also rector of Kirkby Thore, and may therefore have often been absent from the abbey, leaving its running to his Sub-prior, Robert Laylond. The surrender deal which Henry VIII’s Chief Minister, Thomas Cromwell, oversaw generally provided that, if the abbot and monks of an abbey agreed to go quietly, they would get pensions – usually around £5 or £6 a year for life. This was not a fortune - it was equivalent to 166-200 days wages for a skilled labourer - but it was probably roughly equal to the annual stipend for a chaplain. Those monks who were also priests (and this applied to all fourteen of the Shap monks), could probably have gone on after they left the abbey to find jobs as curates in parish churches or chapels, or perhaps worked as schoolmasters. As all would have been literate in English and Latin, some might even have found employment as clerks.
These pensions were for life – and taxation records show two of these monks, John Adison and Hugh Watson, were still drawing their £6 pensions in 1576, 36 years after their surrender. Presumably all the other ex-monks were dead by this date.
We have two lists for the monks of Shap at the time of the surrender, and their pensions. One is from the date of the Dissolution (1540), and comes from the Augmentations Office, and is transcribed in Dugdale’s Monasticon. The other dates from the start of Mary’s reign in 1553, at which date all but one of these fourteen men were still drawing their pensions
This 1553 document was transcribed in a letter to the editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1823, signed George Hall, Rosegill. This was probably Rev. George Hall (1783-1845), originally from Rosgill, Shap, who was Vicar of Tenbury, Worcestershire and Rector of Rochford, Herefordshire. The two lists are the same, although the spelling of the names varies. In the list below, the first name version is from the 1540 list, the second from 1553. Why there is this variance in the size of the pensions paid is not known, but presumably it reflects seniority at the time of the Dissolution – although all are said to be priests.
Pension of £6 per annum: Robert Layland (Barlonde), former sub-prior: John Adison (Addison): Edmund Carter: Hugh Watson (Watsonne ): Edward Michell (Machael).
Pension of £5 6s 8d per annum: Thomas Typpyng (not on the 1553 list, so presumably dead by then): John Bell.
Pension of £5 per annum: Martin Makareth (Mackerethe): John Dawson (Dawston): Richard Moll (Mell)
Pension of £4 per annum: Anthony Johnson: Ralph Watson (Watsonne): John Rudd (Rode): George Elerson (Ellerston)
Their abbot, Richard Baggott, also known as Richard Evenwode (it was not unusual for monks to adopt a new name upon taking their vows, to dissociate themselves from their family and previous life) did a lot better, being granted a pension of £40 a year, more than enough to live comfortably as a country gentleman, especially if he also continued on as rector at Kirkby Thore.
Although monks generally got around £5 a year, nuns got much less. Thus Agnes Drinkwater, the prioress of the nunnery at Armathwaite, in the Eden valley, was granted a pension at the dissolution of a mere £2 13s 4d a year – and her two sisters would have received even less.
Those monks who did not go quietly fared even worse. Thus the monks of Whalley in Lancashire found themselves caught up in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. Their abbot, John Paslew, and one monk, William Haydock, were executed for treason – and the rest of the monks were turfed out without pensions. Similarly, in Cartmel, where the Augustinian Canons had briefly reoccupied their dissolved Priory in October 1536, four canons were tried and executed (Augustine Fell, William Panell, Richard Bakhous and John Cowper) – and again the other monks were expelled without pensions.
It did not pay to mess with Thomas Cromwell!
Text by Bill Shannon
Photo of Shap Abbey church, Bill Shannon
For some background on Shap Abbey’s history, see ttps://shapcumbria.weebly.com/shap-abbey.html
For the list of pensioners, see Gentleman’s Magazine, 1823, pt 2, vol 93: Scroll down to p.515 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435054261284&seq=11
This source also includes a transcription of the Gentleman’s Magazine letter, 1823 https://www.lakesguides.co.uk/html/lgaz/lk10317.htm
Source for background of George Hall https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/WES/Shap/MIsBellasis
For the wider background to the Dissolution and its aftermath: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/dissolution/
For the nuns of Armathwaite, see https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/poor-nuns-cumbria-background-armathwaite-seaton
For the Pilgrimage of Grace, see https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/pilgrimage-grace-background-cartmel
The source for the surviving ex-monks of 1576 is The National Archives, E 179/369/358 (Clerical Subsidy) – at which date the men were required to pay a tax of 10% on their pensions.
To find out more about the history of Shap, click here
https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/township/shap
For a full list of all interesting facts, click here
https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/full-list-interesting-facts
