89-477: Ecclesall Ward —which includes the neighbourhoods of Banner Cross , Bents Green , Carterknowle , Ecclesall , Greystones , Millhouses , and Ringinglow —is one of the 28 electoral wards in the Sheffield district, in the county of South Yorkshire , England. It is located in the southwestern part of the city and covers an area of 3.6 square miles (2,300 acres; 9.3 km). The population of this ward in 2007
178-505: A city and metropolitan borough in the north of England , vary widely in size and history. Some of the areas developed from villages or hamlets , that were absorbed into Sheffield as the city grew, and thus their centres are well defined, but the boundaries of many areas are ambiguous. The areas of Sheffield do not play a significant administrative role, but the city is divided into 28 electoral wards for local elections and 6 parliamentary constituencies for national elections. Prior to 1848
267-543: A papal bull authorising some limited reforms in the English Church as early as 1518, but reformers (both conservative and radical) had become increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress. In November 1529, Parliament passed Acts reforming apparent abuses in the English Church. They set a cap on fees, both for the probate of wills and mortuary expenses for burial in hallowed ground; tightened regulations covering rights of sanctuary for criminals; and reduced to two
356-527: A consequence, religious houses in the 16th century controlled appointment to about two-fifths of all parish benefices in England, disposed of about half of all ecclesiastical income, and owned around a quarter of the nation's landed wealth. An English medieval proverb said that if the abbot of Glastonbury married the abbess of Shaftesbury , their heir would have more land than the king of England. 200 more houses of friars in England and Wales constituted
445-540: A number of wards; Brightside and Hillsborough , Central , Hallam , Heeley , South East , and Penistone and Stocksbridge , which also includes parts of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley . There are other areas that do not fit into the list above: Dissolution of the Monasteries The dissolution of the monasteries , occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries ,
534-689: A population of 203,892. It is now in the unparished area of Sheffield. In ancient times this area was part of the Barnsdale Forest that, together with Sherwood Forest , made up the forest of the Robin Hood legends. The River Sheaf was thought for a time to be a "boundary" between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia to the south. There is no historical proof of such a boundary as Northumbria stretched deep within Lindsey and modern Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire at different stages between
623-455: A royal servant and counsellor, in the course of which his correspondence included strong condemnations of the idleness and vice in monastic life, alongside his equally vituperative attacks on Luther. Henry himself corresponded continually with Erasmus, prompting him to be more explicit in his public rejection of the key tenets of Lutheranism and offering him church preferment should he wish to return to England. On famously failing to receive from
712-409: A second distinct wave of monastic zeal in the 13th century. Friaries , for the most part, were concentrated in urban areas. Unlike monasteries, friaries had no income-bearing endowments; the friars, as mendicants , were supported financially by donations from the faithful, while ideally being self-sufficient and raising extensive urban kitchen gardens. The dissolution of the monasteries took place in
801-609: A small hamlet that grew around the Ecclesall Corn Mill. Bents Green ( grid reference SK316843 ) lies to the west of the district of Ecclesall Ringinglow ( grid reference SK290837 ) is a village on the western border of Ecclesall Ward. Although it is within the boundary of the City of Sheffield, it is self-contained, entirely surrounded by open countryside. It is focussed on the intersections of Fulwood Lane and Houndkirk Road with Ringinglow Road. Ecclesall Road
890-476: A treatise which declared that the monastic life had no scriptural basis, was pointless and also actively immoral, incompatible with the true spirit of Christianity. Luther also declared that monastic vows were meaningless and that no one should feel bound by them. Luther, a one-time Augustinian friar , found some comfort when these views had a dramatic effect: a special meeting of the German province of his order held
979-478: Is a scheduled ancient monument. Ecclesall electoral ward was created 1934 when the old Ecclesall Bierlow ward was divided into Ecclesall, Broomhill and Hallam. The boundaries of the ward include about half of the area that was historically known as Ecclesall Bierlow —one of the six 'townships' that made up the old Parish of Sheffield. Ecclesall Bierlow encompassed most of the land between the River Sheaf and
SECTION 10
#17327763478071068-476: Is made up of rural areas, parkland, or woodland. These areas include a large portion of the 350-acre (140 ha) Ecclesall Woods , an area of ancient woodland that is known locally for being a bluebell wood . In the north section of the ward is Bingham Park, Whiteley Woods and part of the Porter valley; Millhouses Park marks the ward's southern boundary. The ward also includes some of Whirlow Brook Park and
1157-702: Is often considered the leader of the dissolution, he merely oversaw the project—he had hoped for reform, not eliminating the practice. The dissolution project was created by England's Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley , and Court of Augmentations head, Richard Rich . Historian George W. Bernard argues that: The dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s was one of the most revolutionary events in English history. There were nearly 900 religious houses in England, around 260 for monks, 300 for regular canons , 142 nunneries and 183 friaries; some 12,000 people in total, 4,000 monks, 3,000 canons, 3,000 friars and 2,000 nuns. If
1246-472: Is split evenly between Nether Edge/Sharrow and Ecclesall Wards. Banner Cross Hall , an ancient esquire seat, was virtually rebuilt in 1820. The main place of worship is Banner Cross Methodist Church . The nearby Banner Cross pub gained infamy when the notorious criminal Charles Peace shot and killed Arthur Dyson in the passageway beside the pub on 29 November 1876. The base of an old stone cross still remained at Banner Cross in 1819. Addy (1888) suggested that
1335-650: Is the main road ( A625 ) from central Sheffield to the south-west, at first following the Porter Brook , then running through Ecclesall and Dore . The road is a major shopping area. Attractions including the Sheffield Botanical Gardens and the Sheffield General Cemetery lie alongside it, as does one of the campuses of Sheffield Hallam University . Abbeydale Road South ( A621 ) is another major road that runs through
1424-547: The Avignon Papacy . Their suppression was supported by the rival Roman Popes , conditional on all confiscated monastic property being redirected into other religious uses. The king's officers first sequestrated the assets of the alien priories in 1295–1303 under Edward I , and the pattern repeated for long periods over the course of the 14th century, most particularly in the reign of Edward III . Alien priories with functioning communities were forced to pay large sums to
1513-461: The Church of Rome and had ridiculed such monastic practices as repetitive formal religion, superstitious pilgrimages for the veneration of relics, and the accumulation of monastic wealth. Henry appears to have shared these views, never having endowed a religious house and only once having undertaken a religious pilgrimage, to Walsingham in 1511. From 1518, Thomas More was increasingly influential as
1602-630: The Jesuits and Capuchins emerged alongside the older orders. The religious and political changes in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI were of a different nature from those taking place in Germany, Bohemia , France, Scotland and Geneva . Across much of continental Europe, the seizure of monastic property was associated with mass discontent among the common people and the lower levels of clergy and civil society against powerful and wealthy ecclesiastical institutions. Such popular hostility against
1691-650: The Limb Valley . The Sheffield Round Walk skirts the ward, running through a number of these parks. There are two secondary schools within Ecclesall ward, High Storrs School and Silverdale School . The ward also includes Ecclesall Primary School (formerly Ecclesall Infants) and Clifford All Saints C Of E Primary School (formerly Ecclesall Junior School), Dobcroft Junior School, Greystones Primary School, Mylnhurst Convent School, and St Wilfrid's Primary School. Areas of Sheffield The areas of Sheffield ,
1780-413: The Porter Brook from The Moor to Ringinglow. It also included the areas of Broomhall and Crookesmoor to the north of Porter Brook. Though this area contained numerous small villages and hamlets, there was never a village called Ecclesall. The parish of Ecclesall was formed on 1 April 1904 from "Ecclesall Bierlow", on 1 April 1933 the parish was abolished and merged with Sheffield. In 1931 the parish had
1869-598: The 1530s corresponded little with the movement by Protestant Reformers, and encountered much popular hostility when they did. In 1536, Convocation adopted and Parliament enacted the Ten Articles , containing some terminology and ideas drawn from Luther and Melanchthon ; but any momentum towards Protestantism stalled when Henry VIII expressed his support for the Six Articles of 1539 , which remained in effect until after his death. Cardinal Wolsey had obtained
SECTION 20
#17327763478071958-470: The 6th and 11th century. What is thought to be the earliest historical record of this area refers to the submission of the local Northumbrian army to Egbert of Wessex and his invasion force at nearby Dore in 829. The name Ecclesall (either from Heeksel-Hallr meaning the witches' hill, or Eccles (church) halh (hollow)) is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086—at that time Ecclesall
2047-491: The 8,105th most deprived (hence 309th least deprived) ward out of 8,414 wards in the country. The demographic consists largely of white, middle-class families. Evidence of early occupation of the area can be found in Ecclesall Woods . A cup and ring-marked stone was discovered in 1981, and has been dated to the late Neolithic or Bronze Age periods. It, and the area a 2-metre (6 ft 7 in) diameter around it,
2136-557: The Benedictine St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge to found Jesus College, Cambridge (1496), and William Waynflete , Bishop of Winchester acquiring Selborne Priory in Hampshire in 1484 for Magdalen College, Oxford . In the following century, Lady Margaret Beaufort obtained the property of Creake Abbey (whose religious had all died of sweating sickness in 1506) to fund her works at Oxford and Cambridge. She
2225-725: The Crown; some were kept, some were given or sold to Henry's supporters, others were assigned to his new monasteries of Syon Abbey and the Carthusians at Sheen Priory ; others were used for educational purposes. All these suppressions enjoyed papal approval but successive 15th-century popes continued to press for assurances that the confiscated monastic income would revert to religious uses. The medieval understanding of religious houses as institutions associated monasteries and nunneries with their property: their endowments of land and income, and not their current personnel of monks and nuns. If
2314-630: The Diet allowing him to confiscate any monastic lands he deemed necessary to increase royal revenues, and to allow the return of donated properties to the descendants of the donors. By the following Reduction of Gustav I of Sweden , Gustav gained large estates, as well as loyal supporters among the nobility who reclaimed donations given by their families to the convents. The Swedish monasteries and convents were simultaneously deprived of their livelihoods. They were banned from accepting new novices, and forbidden to prevent their existing members from leaving. However,
2403-591: The Divine Office. Even in houses with adequate numbers, the regular obligations of communal eating and shared living had not been fully enforced for centuries, as communities tended to sub-divide into a number of distinct familiae . In most larger houses, the full observance of the Canonical Hours had become the task of a sub-group of 'Cloister Monks', such that the majority of inhabitants were freed to conduct their business and live much of their lives in
2492-614: The King and reject papal authority. Cromwell delegated his visitation authority to hand-picked commissioners, chiefly Richard Layton , Thomas Legh , John ap Rice and John Tregonwell , for the purposes of ascertaining the quality of religious life being maintained in religious houses, of assessing the prevalence of 'superstitious' religious observances such as the veneration of relics , and for inquiring into evidence of moral laxity (especially sexual). The chosen commissioners were mostly secular clergy, and appear to have been Erasmian, doubtful of
2581-525: The King as founder for assistance, only to find themselves dissolved arbitrarily. Rather than risk empanelling a jury, and with papal participation no longer being welcome, the Lord Chancellor , Thomas Audley , recommended that dissolution should be legalised retrospectively through a special act of Parliament. In 1521, Martin Luther had published De votis monasticis ( On the monastic vows ),
2670-696: The King. By the Submission of the Clergy , the English clergy and religious orders subscribed to the proposition that the King was, and had always been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. Consequently, in Henry's view, any act of monastic resistance to royal authority would not only be treasonable, but also a breach of the monastic vow of obedience . Under heavy threats, almost all religious houses joined
2759-466: The Latin West. Bernard says there was: widespread concern in the later 15th and early 16th centuries about the condition of the monasteries. A leading figure here is the scholar and theologian Desiderius Erasmus who satirized monasteries as lax, as comfortably worldly, as wasteful of scarce resources, and as superstitious; he also thought it would be better if monks were brought more directly under
Ecclesall - Misplaced Pages Continue
2848-596: The Papal Curia ; and although such arrangements were nominally temporary, commendatory abbacies often continued long-term. Then, by the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, Pope Leo X granted to Francis I authority to nominate almost all abbots and conventual priors in France. Around 80 per cent of French abbacies came to be held in commendam , the commendators often being lay courtiers or royal servants; around half
2937-640: The Pope a declaration of nullity regarding his marriage, Henry had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531, and instigated a programme of legislation to establish this Royal Supremacy in law. In April 1533, an Act in Restraint of Appeals eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any matter. All ecclesiastical charges and levies that had previously been payable to Rome would now go to
3026-515: The Union became Nether Edge Grammar and later Brincliffe Grammar School. Historic sites within the ward include Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and Shepherd Wheel (both now museums). Ecclesall Wood has many examples of white coal kilns and the grave of a wood collier who was killed here when his cabin burned down on 11 October 1786. Banner Cross is a district of Sheffield centred on the intersection of Ecclesall Road and Psalter Lane. This district
3115-506: The adult male population was 500,000, that meant that one adult man in fifty was in religious orders. In the end, Henry gave most of the money to supply the war. At the time of their suppression, only some English and Welsh religious houses could trace their origins to Anglo-Saxon or Celtic foundations before the Norman Conquest . The overwhelming majority of the 625 monastic communities dissolved by Henry VIII had developed in
3204-536: The agreement of the papacy. Monastic wealth, regarded everywhere as excessive, offered a standing temptation for cash-strapped authorities. Almost all official action in the English dissolution was directed at the monasteries. The closing of the monasteries aroused popular opposition, but resistors became the targets of royal hostility. The surrender of the friaries, from an official perspective, arose almost as an afterthought, once it had been determined that all religious houses would have to go. In terms of popular esteem,
3293-462: The authority of bishops. At that time, quite a few bishops across Europe had come to believe that resources expensively deployed on an unceasing round of services by men and women in theory set apart from the world [would] be better spent on endowing grammar schools and university colleges to train men who would then serve the laity as parish priests, and on reforming the antiquated structures of over-large dioceses such as that of Lincoln . Pastoral care
3382-539: The balance tilted the other way. Almost all monasteries supported themselves from their endowments; in late medieval terms 'they lived off their own'. Unless they were notably bad landlords, they tended to enjoy widespread local support; they also commonly appointed local notables to fee-bearing offices. The friars were by contrast much more likely to have been the objects of local hostility, especially since their practice of soliciting income through legacies appears to have been perceived as diminishing family inheritances. By
3471-402: The bishop would seek to obtain papal approval for alternative use of the house's endowments in canon law . This, with royal agreement claiming 'foundership', would be presented to an 'empanelled jury' for consent to use of the property of the house in civil law. The royal transfer of alien monastic estates to educational foundations inspired bishops and, as the 15th century waned, this practice
3560-538: The chapel until the Dissolution of the Monasteries when Beauchief Abbey was abandoned. The chapel was restored in 1622 but was demolished when the present church was built nearby in 1788. Until the 19th century Ecclesall Bierlow was very sparsely populated—in 1801 there were just 5362 people. This changed with the coming of the industrial revolution and the subsequent expansion of nearby Sheffield and by 1831
3649-516: The church was rare in England before 1558; the Reformation in England and Ireland was directed from the king and high society. These changes were initially met with popular suspicion; on some occasions and in particular localities, there was active resistance to the royal programme. Dissatisfaction with regular religious life, and with the gross extent of monastic wealth, was near universal amongst late medieval secular and ecclesiastical rulers in
Ecclesall - Misplaced Pages Continue
3738-575: The entire ecclesiastical estate of England and Wales, including the monasteries (see Valor Ecclesiasticus ), for the purpose of assessing the Church's taxable value, through local commissioners who reported in May 1535. At the same time, Henry had Parliament authorise Cromwell to " visit " all the monasteries , including those like the Cistercians previously exempted from episcopal oversight by papal dispensation, to instruct them in their duty to obey
3827-547: The former monks and nuns were allowed to reside in the convent buildings for life on state allowance, and many communities survived the Reformation for decades. The last of them was Vreta Abbey , where the last nuns died in 1582, and Vadstena Abbey , from which the last nuns emigrated in 1595, about half a century after the Reduction. In Denmark–Norway , King Frederick I made a similar act in 1528, confiscating 15 of
3916-428: The house when they died. In addition, though this scarcely ever happened, the endowments of the house would revert to the founder's heirs if the community failed or dissolved. The status of 'founder' was considered in civil law to be real property , and could consequently be bought and sold, in which case the purchaser would be called the patron . Like any other real property, in intestacy and some other circumstances
4005-682: The houses invited to receive them might refuse to co-operate; and local notables might resist the disruption in their networks of influence. Reforming bishops found they faced opposition when urging the heads of religious houses to enforce their monastic rules, especially those requiring monks and nuns to remain within their cloisters. Monks and nuns in almost all late medieval English religious communities, although theoretically living in religious poverty, were paid an annual cash wage ( peculium ) and received other regular cash rewards and pittances , which softened claustral rules for those who disliked them. Religious superiors met their bishops' pressure with
4094-779: The houses of the Observant Friars were handed over to the mainstream Franciscan order; the friars from the Greenwich house were imprisoned, where many died from ill-treatment. The Carthusians eventually submitted, other than the monks of the London house which was suppressed; some of the monks were executed for high treason in 1535, and others starved to death in prison. Also opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were Bridgettine monks from Syon Abbey . The Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage,
4183-450: The houses of the wealthiest monasteries and convents. Further laws by his successor in the 1530s banned the friars and forced monks and nuns to transfer title to their houses to the Crown, which passed them out to supportive nobles who soon acquired former monastic lands. In Switzerland, too, monasteries were under threat. In 1523, the government of the city-state of Zürich pressured nuns to leave their monasteries and marry and followed up
4272-804: The income of French monasteries was diverted into the hands of the Crown, or of royal supporters, all with the Popes' blessing. Where the French kings led, the Scots kings followed. In Scotland, where the proportion of parish tiends appropriated by higher ecclesiastical institutions exceeded 85 per cent, in 1532 the young James V obtained from the Pope approval to appoint his illegitimate infant sons (of which he eventually acquired nine) as commendators to abbacies in Scotland. Other Scots aristocratic families stuck similar deals, and consequently over £40,000 (Scots) per annum
4361-420: The invasion. At Beauchief they established a corn mill on the river Sheaf, which was part of Beauchief Abbey . Many of the buildings of Ecclesall corn mill can still be seen at the northern end of Millhouses park—the district of Millhouses taking its name from this mill. In payment for the mill the monks of Beauchief were to provide a canon to say prayers daily at the Ecclesall chapel. These services continued at
4450-476: The king, while mere estates were confiscated and run by royal officers, the proceeds going to the king's pocket. Such estates were a valuable source of income for the Crown in its French wars. Most of the larger alien priories became naturalised (for instance Castle Acre Priory ), on payment of heavy fines and bribes, but for around 90 smaller houses, their fates were sealed when Henry V dissolved them by act of Parliament in 1414. The properties were taken over by
4539-618: The late 1950s / early 1960s by local building firm Gleesons. The area was home to Sheffield College 's Bannerdale campus, but after its closure and demolition, a new educational academy, the Mercia School was opened on the site adjacent to Carter Knowle Road in September 2018. The district of Ecclesall ( grid reference SK323844 ) is centred roughly on Ecclesall parish church at the intersection of Carter Knowle Road and Ecclesall Road . The present church, dedicated to All Saints,
SECTION 50
#17327763478074628-411: The latter was abolished in 1955 and the former was replaced by a revived Central constituency in 1983. Sheffield is divided into 28 electoral wards for the purposes of City Council elections. The number of electors per ward was set at about 13,500 ± 10% in 2004, following a Local Government ward boundary review. Sheffield is currently covered by six parliamentary constituencies , each formed from
4717-427: The monasteries continued to attract recruits right up to the end. Only a few monks and nuns lived in conspicuous luxury, but most were comfortably fed and housed by the standards of the time, and few orders demanded ascetic piety or religious observance. Only a minority of houses could now support the twelve or thirteen professed religious usually regarded as the minimum necessary to maintain the full canonical hours of
4806-419: The name derives from bæna kross , meaning the cross of prayers. Carter Knowle or Carterknowle ( grid reference SK335843 ) lies south of Brincliffe Edge, between Ecclesall Road and Abbeydale . A residential area, which includes what was originally known as Knab Farm Estate. Housing was built on former farmland there, in the valley between Brincliffe Edge and the upper part of Carter Knowle Road during
4895-623: The next year by dissolving all monasteries in its territory, under the pretext of using their revenues to fund education and help the poor. The city of Basel followed suit in 1529, and Geneva adopted the same policy in 1530. An attempt was also made in 1530 to dissolve the famous Abbey of St. Gall , which was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in its own right, but this failed, and St. Gall survived until 1798. In France and Scotland, by contrast, royal action to seize monastic income proceeded along entirely different lines. In both countries,
4984-472: The number of church benefices that could in the future be held by one man. These Acts were meant to demonstrate that royal jurisdiction over the Church would ensure progress in "religious reformation" where papal authority had been insufficient. The monasteries were next in line. J. J. Scarisbrick remarked in his biography of Henry VIII: Suffice it to say that English monasticism was a huge and urgent problem; that radical action, though of precisely what kind
5073-472: The parish of Sheffield was divided into six townships: Attercliff-cum-Darnall; Brightside Bierlow; Ecclesall Bierlow; Nether Hallam; Sheffield township; and Upper Hallam. In 1832 the new borough constituency of Sheffield was formed from these townships with the exception of most of Upper Hallam and parts of Ecclesall Bierlow. In 1843 the Municipal Borough of Sheffield was created from the whole of
5162-435: The personal compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes. G. W. O. Woodward concluded that: All but a very few took it without demur. They were, after all, Englishmen, and shared the common prejudice of their contemporaries against the pretensions of foreign Italian prelates. In 1534, Cromwell undertook, on behalf of the King, an inventory of the endowments, liabilities and income of
5251-536: The political context of other attacks on the ecclesiastical institutions of Western Catholicism. Many of these were related to the Reformation in Continental Europe . By the end of the 16th century, monasticism had almost entirely disappeared from those European states whose rulers had adopted Lutheran or Reformed confessions of faith (Ireland being the only major exception). They continued in states that remained Catholic, and new community orders such as
5340-570: The population had increased to 14,239. In 1837 the Ecclesall Bierlow Poor Law Union came into being. As well as Ecclesall Bierlow, this encompassed Nether Hallam, Upper Hallam, Beauchief , Dore , Norton , and Totley . A workhouse was built at Nether Edge , in 1929 the Ecclesall Bierlow Union 'Workhouse' was renamed Nether Edge Hospital and it remained in use as a hospital into the 1990s. Part of
5429-478: The practice of nominating abbacies in commendam had become widespread. Since the 12th century, it had become universal in Western Europe for the household expenses of abbots and conventual priors to be separated, typically appropriating more than half the house's income. With papal approval, these funds might be diverted on a vacancy to support a non-monastic ecclesiastic, commonly a bishop or member of
SECTION 60
#17327763478075518-481: The previous century, resulted in their being singled out for royal favour, in particular with houses benefitting from endowments confiscated by the Crown from the suppressed alien priories. Donations and legacies had tended to go instead towards parish churches, university colleges, grammar schools and collegiate churches, which suggests greater public approbation. Levels of monastic debt were increasing, and average numbers of professed religious were falling, although
5607-775: The property of the houses to have reverted to the Crown as founder. The conventional wisdom of the time was that the proper daily observance of the Divine Office of prayer required a minimum of twelve professed religious, but by the 1530s, few communities in England could provide this. Most observers were in agreement that a systematic reform of the English church must involve the drastic concentration of monks and nuns into fewer, larger houses, potentially making monastic income available for more productive religious, educational and social purposes. This apparent consensus often faced strong resistance in practice. Members of religious houses proposed for dissolution might resist relocation;
5696-449: The property with which a house had been endowed by its founder were to be confiscated or surrendered, then the house ceased to exist, whether its members continued in the religious life or not. The founder and their heirs had a legally enforceable interest in certain aspects of the house; their nomination was required at the election of an abbot or prior, they could claim hospitality within the house when needed, and they could be buried within
5785-693: The religious houses of England and Wales—with the notable exceptions of those of the Carthusians , the Observant Franciscans , and the Bridgettine nuns and monks—had long ceased to play a leading role in the spiritual life of the country. Other than in these three orders, observance of strict monastic rules was partial at best. The exceptional spiritual discipline of the Carthusian, Observant Franciscan and Bridgettine orders had, over
5874-407: The response that the cloistered ideal was only acceptable to a tiny minority of regular clergy, and that any attempt to enforce their order's stricter rules could be overturned in counter-actions in the secular courts, if aggrieved monks and nuns obtained a writ of praemunire . The King actively supported Wolsey, Fisher and Richard Foxe in their programmes of monastic reform; but even so, progress
5963-580: The rest of the Church in acceding to the Royal Supremacy; and in swearing to uphold the validity of the King's divorce and remarriage. Opposition was concentrated in the houses of Carthusian monks, Observant Franciscan friars and Bridgettine monks and nuns. Great efforts were made to cajole, bribe, trick and threaten these houses into formal compliance, with those religious who continued in their resistance being liable to imprisonment until they submitted or if they persisted, to execution for treason. All
6052-686: The same year voted that henceforth every member of the regular clergy should be free to renounce their vows, resign their offices, and marry. At Luther's home monastery in Wittenberg all the friars, save one, did so. News spread among Protestant-minded rulers across Europe, and some, particularly in Scandinavia, moved very quickly. In the Riksdag of Västerås in 1527, initiating the Reformation in Sweden , King Gustav Vasa secured an edict of
6141-676: The secular world. Extensive monastic complexes dominated English towns of any size, but most were less than half full. From 1534 onwards, Cromwell and King Henry wanted to redirect ecclesiastical income to the Crown—they justified this by contending that they were reclaiming what was theirs. Renaissance princes throughout Europe were facing severe financial difficulties due to sharply rising expenditures, especially to pay for armies, ships and fortifications. Many had already resorted to plundering monastic wealth. Protestant princes would justify this by claiming divine authority; Catholic princes would obtain
6230-432: The six townships, becoming the City of Sheffield in 1893. The Sheffield constituency was broken into five divisions in 1885: Attercliffe ; Brightside ; Central ; Ecclesall ; and Hallam , with the addition of Hillsborough and Park constituencies in 1918 after the City extended its boundaries. The Central and Ecclesall constituencies were abolished in 1950 in favour of two new constituencies, Heeley and Neepsend , but
6319-650: The status of 'founder' would revert to the Crown—a procedure that many houses actively sought, as it might be advantageous in their legal dealings in the King's courts. The founders of the alien priories had been foreign monasteries refusing allegiance to the English Crown. These property rights were therefore automatically forfeited to the Crown when their English dependencies were dissolved, but their example prompted questions as to what action might be taken should English houses cease to exist. Much would depend on who, at
6408-504: The time Henry VIII turned to monastery reform, royal action to suppress religious houses had a history of more than 200 years. The first case was that of the so-called ' alien priories '. As a result of the Norman Conquest , some French religious orders held substantial property through their daughter monasteries in England. Some of these were granges , agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise; others were rich foundations in their own right (e.g., Lewes Priory
6497-401: The time the house ended, held the status of founder or patron; as with other such disputes in real property, the standard procedure was to empanel a jury to decide between disputing claimants. In practice, the Crown claimed the status of 'founder' in all such cases that occurred. Consequently, when a monastic community failed (e.g., through the death of most of its members, or through insolvency),
6586-533: The value of monastic life and universally dismissive of relics and miraculous tokens. By comparison with the valuation commissions, the timetable for these monastic visitations was tight, with some houses missed altogether, and inquiries appear to have concentrated on gross faults and laxity; consequently, where the reports of misbehaviour can be checked against other sources, they commonly appear to have been both rushed and greatly exaggerated, often recalling events from years before. The visitors interviewed each member of
6675-483: The ward. The Midland Main Line railway line runs along the southern boundary of the ward, though the closest stations are outside of the ward at Sheffield and Dore & Totley . The former Millhouses & Ecclesall station was closed on 10 June 1968. The Sheffield Supertram currently has no routes through Ecclesall ward, but a planned extension to Dore would skirt the southern boundary. About half of Ecclesall ward
6764-477: The wave of monastic enthusiasm that swept western Christendom in the 11th and 12th centuries. Few had been founded later than the end of the 13th century; the youngest was the Bridgettine nunnery of Syon Abbey , founded in 1415. Typically, 11th and 12th-century founders endowed monastic houses with revenue from landed estates and tithes appropriated from parish churches under the founder's patronage. As
6853-453: The widespread decline of the fervent monastic vocation, and that in every country the monks possessed too much of wealth and of the sources of production both for their own well-being and for the material good of the economy. Pilgrimages to monastic shrines continued until forcibly suppressed in England in 1538 by order of Henry VIII, but the dissolution resulted in few modifications to England's parish churches. The English religious reforms of
6942-602: Was 19,211 people in 7,626 households, reducing to 6,657 at the 2011 Census. Ecclesall ward is one of the four wards that make up the South West Community Assembly and one of five wards that make up the Sheffield Hallam Parliamentary constituency . The Member of Parliament is Olivia Blake , a Labour MP. Ecclesall is one of the least socially deprived wards in the entire country, with a 2002 deprivation score of 4.7—making it
7031-410: Was a daughter of Cluny and answered to the abbot of the French house). Owing to frequent wars between England and France in the late Middle Ages , successive English governments objected to money going overseas to France. They also objected to foreign prelates having jurisdiction over English monasteries. After 1378, French monasteries (and alien priories dependent on them) maintained allegiance to
7120-467: Was a part of the manor of Hallam . The name Ecclesall/Eccleshall is thought to be of Anglo-Scandinavian origin. The name is first found about 150 years later in the name of Sir Ralphus De Ecclesall a Norman feudal overlord who had took over lands in the area from native Northumbrian landlords after the Norman invasion. The De Ecclesall family gave land to Norman and French monks who had come to Britain after
7209-586: Was advised in this action by the staunch traditionalist John Fisher , Bishop of Rochester . In 1522, Fisher himself dissolved the women's monasteries of Bromhall and Higham to aid St John's College, Cambridge . That same year, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved St Frideswide's Priory (now Oxford Cathedral ) to form the basis of his Christ Church, Oxford ; in 1524, he secured a papal bull to dissolve 20 other monasteries to provide an endowment for his new college. The remaining friars, monks and nuns were absorbed into other houses of their respective orders. Juries found
7298-416: Was another matter, was both necessary and inevitable, and that a purge of the religious orders was probably regarded as the most obvious task of the new regime—as the first function of a Supreme Head empowered by statute "to visit, extirp and redress". The stories of monastic impropriety, vice, and excess that were to be collected by Thomas Cromwell 's visitors to the monasteries may have been exaggerated but
7387-475: Was built in 1788, consecrated in 1789 and has been altered several times since. Banner Cross Hall , also in the area, was built in 1820. Greystones ( grid reference SK322851 ) lies to the north of the district of Ecclesall. It is on a headland overlooking the Porter valley to the north and west. Millhouses ( grid reference SK330833 ) lies to the south of the district of Ecclesall. Its origins lie in
7476-514: Was common. The subjects of these dissolutions were usually small, poor, and indebted Benedictine or Augustinian communities (especially those of women) with few powerful friends; the great abbeys and orders exempt from diocesan supervision such as the Cistercians were unaffected. The resources were transferred often to Oxford University and Cambridge University colleges: instances of this include John Alcock , Bishop of Ely dissolving
7565-654: Was diverted from monasteries into the royal coffers. It is inconceivable that these moves went unnoticed by the English government and particularly by Thomas Cromwell , who had been employed by Wolsey in his monastic suppressions, and who would become Henry VIII's King's Secretary . Henry appears to have been much more influenced by the opinions on monasticism of the humanists Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More , especially as found in Erasmus's work In Praise of Folly (1511) and More's Utopia (1516). Erasmus and More promoted ecclesiastical reform while remaining faithful to
7654-472: Was painfully slow, especially where religious orders had been exempted from episcopal oversight by papal authority. It was also never certain that juries would find in favour of the Crown in disposing of the property of dissolved houses; any action that impinged on monasteries with substantial assets might be expected to be contested by a range of influential claimants. In 1532, the priory of Christchurch Aldgate , facing financial and legal difficulties, petitioned
7743-525: Was seen as much more important and vital than the monastic focus on contemplation, prayer and performance of the daily office. Erasmus had made a threefold criticism of the monks and nuns of his day, saying that: Summarising the state of monastic life across Western Europe, David Knowles said, The verdict of unprejudiced historians at the present day would probably be—abstracting from all ideological considerations for or against monasticism—that there were far too many religious houses in existence in view of
7832-672: Was sold off to fund Henry's military campaigns in the 1540s. Henry did this under the Act of Supremacy , passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church in England . He had broken from Rome's papal authority the previous year. The monasteries were dissolved by two Acts of Parliament, those being the First Suppression Act in 1535 and the Second Suppression Act in 1539. While Thomas Cromwell , vicar-general and vicegerent of England,
7921-491: Was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541, by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries , priories , convents , and friaries in England, Wales , and Ireland ; seized their wealth; disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions. Though the policy was originally envisioned as a way to increase the regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property
#806193