Welsh Journals

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Welsh Monastic Bells By J. CONWAY DAVIES. THE Dissolution of the Monasteries was dictated by financial and economic rather than by doctrinal or religious considerations. Henry VIII was in need of money, his chief adviser on business matters turned to the most readily accessible untapped source of national wealth, the revenues and capital assets in buildings and lands, first of the lesser, and later of the greater monasteries. The country was suffering from a land hunger. City merchants and the new industrialists encouraged the King and Cromwell to continue on their work of spoliation and to extend its scope. They were willing, indeed eager, buyers at a price. That price was not their own it was a valuation, not wholly scientific and not entirely adequate, determined largely, by rule of thumb, by the Court of Augmentation of the King's Revenues. At the outset, the policy was to lease much of the lands, for short terms of years, by payment of a substantial fine and a low annual rent. As the demands on the Treasury increased, outright sales became increasingly the rule. The monastic estates, with their various manorial rights, were clearly the most valuable part of the property of the abbeys and priories but the domestic buildings, too, were valuable assets and there was a market for their furniture and other contents, especially those containing jewels, or precious metals. Generally two factors operated against the domestic buildings reaching anything approaching their proper value. Firstly, they were too large and expensive to run for the type of buyers who were available. Secondly, they were often situated in remote or secluded places, which did not cause them to be considered to be desirable resi- dences by the new squirearchy. This was especially so in Wales. From the prices, which they realised, and. the use to which they were sub- sequently put, the domestic buildings of the monasteries would seem to have lacked the modern coveniences and that degree of comfort which the new Tudor house provided. The solidly built stone buildings were cold and old fashioned and out-moded. The new rich of the time preferred the half-timbered house, with its picturesque chequered black and white. The taste was for wood and plaster, not for stone and mortar. There was probably another reason why so little occupational use was made of the monastic domestic buildings. Most of them were probably in a very dilapidated condition, and their cost of repair would have been prohibitive compared with the cost of a new Tudor house. But the monastic domestic buildings and the conventual churches