120-852: Harry Sidebottom is a British author and historian, best known for his two series of historical novels the Warrior of Rome , and Throne of the Caesars . He is Quondam Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at St. Benet's Hall , Oxford , and lecturer at Lincoln College . Sidebottom was born in Cambridge and brought up in Newmarket , Suffolk , where his father worked as a racehorse trainer. He attended Fairstead House School, Newmarket, and King's Ely . Sidebottom read Ancient History for his first degree, at Lancaster University (1977–1980). He
240-671: A Roman Catholic religious house of studies. It closed in 2022. The principal building was located at the northern end of St Giles' on its western side, close to the junction with Woodstock Road , Oxford. Benedictine monks had studied at Oxford since at least 1281, when Gloucester Abbey founded Gloucester College . The area today known as Gloucester Green was named after this college. In 1291, Durham Abbey founded Durham College , and in 1362, Christ Church Priory in Canterbury founded Canterbury College . All three Benedictine houses of study were closed between 1536 and 1545, during
360-507: A football team joint with Regent's Park College . The Benet's rugby sevens team is the back-to-back 2018 and 2019 Oxford University rugby sevens champion. St Benet's Hall used the same coat of arms as Ampleforth Abbey and Ampleforth College but, like the college, without the abbot's crozier and galero (ecclesiastical hat with tassels). The arms were granted to the abbey by the English College of Arms in 1922. The abbey made
480-407: A moulded string course which is the only decorative feature of the façade. The slate mansard roof has attic windows inserted. The dining hall took up most of the ground floor, and the common room and library were above that. The chapel is a red brick garden annexe in a vaguely Gothic style. The original building dates from 1830, and was constructed as two separate houses (38 and 39). The site
600-543: 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
720-402: A 14-year old schoolboy at the monastery's school, Ampleforth College , in the previous year. He was put on probation and prohibited from teaching. Despite this, the abbey sent him to reside and teach at St Benet's Hall in 2000 without, allegedly, informing the hall of his conviction. He was issued with a "final" letter of warning by the university in 2005, after being accused of sexually harassing
840-452: A 19-year-old undergraduate member of the hall. This letter was supposedly unknown to the hall until 2006, but Green was subsequently kept in residence until 2012 when he was finally dismissed. The scandal came to the notice of the national media. Until 2012, the Master of the hall was always a Benedictine monk from Ampleforth. On 1 September of that year, Werner Jeanrond , formerly holder of
960-518: 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 the church was rare in England before 1558;
1080-521: A mixed focus on theology, philosophy and the humanities. There was never a policy that lay members of the Hall, both undergraduates and postgraduates, should be Catholics - and in the 21st century most were not. However, all members were asked to be supportive of the monks' life and values. A review of the PPHs conducted by the university in 2007 concluded that St Benet's had a "good sense of its place within
1200-644: A new novel featuring Ballista, was published on 30 September 2021. The series centres on the Anglo-Roman soldier Marcus Clodius Ballista (a fictionalized version of Balista , a.k.a. Callistus, one of the Thirty Tyrants ) as he must live through and survive the machinations of the Roman Empire and several of the crises of the second half of the third century AD. Sidebottom has written another series set in ancient Rome and its empire called Throne of
1320-552: A new wing was added as a student hostel providing 21 rooms. These rooms also accommodated women at St Anne's, which became a constituent college of the university in 1952. The association with St Anne's lessened over time and women students (mostly undergraduates) from across the university lived in the hostel, whilst the Sisters lived in the villa. By the 1990s the student population in the hostel became entirely postgraduate, housing both men and women of any faith or none. In spring 2015,
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#17327723676491440-679: A presenter on the History Channel's Ancient Discoveries . From the beginning Sidebottom intended the Warrior of Rome to be a series structured in trilogies. The first three volumes take place in the Middle East and subsequent arcs are set around the Black Sea , the Baltic, Sicily, North Africa, and Italy. Sidebottom stated he drew inspiration for the series from historical writer Tacitus and commented that he had based several of
1560-456: 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 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;
1680-502: A red shield with two keys in saltire to symbolise Saint Peter to whom its Abbey Church was dedicated. In addition, Westminster also used a blue shield with a gold “cross flory” between five gold martlets (heraldic birds). This forms the attributed arms of St Edward the Confessor (reign 1042–1066), the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who is regarded as the principal patron and founder of Westminster Abbey. Both these arms appear in
1800-455: 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
1920-476: 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
2040-540: Is now a guest-house. The hall was there until 1904, when it moved to the former Grindle's Hall in Beaumont Street , from which it removed in 1922 to the present buildings of 38 and 39 St Giles. The Beaumont Street houses were demolished in 1938 to make space for the Oxford Playhouse theatre. St Benet's became a permanent private hall of the university in 1918, after new university legislation created
2160-585: The 1640 Chair of Divinity at the University of Glasgow , became the new Master. He was the first Catholic layman ever to run the hall. Jeanrond became a full member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford and was engaged in both teaching and research, as well as serving as head of house. Until 2016, St Benet's was the last constituent body of the University of Oxford admitting only men. It
2280-547: 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
2400-461: 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
2520-628: The First Suppression Act in 1535 and the Second Suppression Act in 1539. While Thomas Cromwell , vicar-general and vicegerent of England, 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
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#17327723676492640-562: The Lorraine region of north-eastern France. The monks adopted St Lawrence as their patron saint. In 1792, Dieulouard Priory was closed and the monks were expelled from France as part of the hostility against the clergy associated with the French Revolution . They opted to return to England. At that time a Benedictine monk-priest, Fr Anselm Bolton, was the chaplain to Lady Anne Fairfax at Gilling Castle , North Yorkshire . She
2760-472: 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
2880-456: The University of Oxford . The hall was not founded as a theological college but rather as a place where student monks could read for a degree in any secular subject. Private halls of study at the university took their name from their Master , and so the hall was known successively as Hunter-Blair's Hall and Parker's Hall. It was initially housed at 103 Woodstock Road . This house is still in existence, opposite SS Philip and James Church , and
3000-525: The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII . Gloucester College was eventually re-founded as Worcester College . Durham College was re-founded as Trinity College , but the original college's name is preserved in Trinity's Durham Quadrangle . Canterbury College's property was acquired by Christ Church . Until the establishment of St Benet's Hall in 1897, the Benedictines had been absent from
3120-614: 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 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
3240-598: 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
3360-494: 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 the Jesuits and Capuchins emerged alongside the older orders. The religious and political changes in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI were of
3480-580: The 1960s, more and more Roman Catholic laymen were admitted - especially under Master James Forbes OSB, including some Old Amplefordians. Under Master Philip Holdsworth OSB (1979–1989), the hall again emphasised a monastic ethos and also became more theological in character, with many monks from the English Benedictine Congregation and other Benedictine Congregations studying theology at Blackfriars . Master Henry Wansbrough (1990–2004) started again to admit laymen, thus creating
3600-562: The Ampleforth Abbey Trust. In 2016, Abbot Cuthbert Madden resigned after allegations of sexual abuse and was replaced as chair by a lay fellow. Unlike the university's colleges and other PPHs, St Benet's had a joint common room of which all at the hall were members. The JCR had its own committee, and was responsible for running the St Benet's bar and gym facilities. Again unlike the university's constituent colleges,
3720-557: 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
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3840-428: The Caesars . The new trilogy is set 30 years before the first Warrior of Rome book in the reigns of Severus Alexander and Maximinus Thrax (AD 235–38) beginning with the assassination of Alexander and ending with the deaths of Pupienus and Balbinus . St Benet%27s Hall, Oxford St Benet's Hall (known colloquially as Benet's ) was a permanent private hall (PPH) of the University of Oxford , originally
3960-725: 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
4080-630: 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,
4200-591: 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
4320-502: The Italian Cassinese Congregation , and thereby allegedly passed on to them the "rights and privileges" of the mediaeval English Benedictine abbeys (to be distinguished from the post-Reformation English Benedictine Congregation ). In 1615, these two English monks became part of a community which took up residence in the abandoned collegiate church of Saint Laurent, in the town of Dieulouard , near Nancy in
4440-614: 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
4560-525: 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 ),
4680-751: 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
4800-466: 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
4920-596: 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
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5040-640: 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
5160-631: The Rev. S. J. Hulme, chaplain of Wadham College (1884–1887). In 1889, it served briefly as the Oxford Eye Hospital which is today part of the John Radcliffe Hospital . In 1891, it was acquired by Madame de Leobardy and opened as St Ursula's Convent, a boarding and day school for Roman Catholic girls. The southern house (39 St Giles) was the private home of Letitia Pett (1841–1846) and Maria Brown (1852–1861), both widows. It
5280-606: The River Thames for many years. In recent years, it has had a good record of winning 'blades', the trophy awarded for 'bumping' (rowing past teams ranked above) every day in the Torpids and Summer Eights bumps races . The Boat Club's M1 won blades most recently in 2019. Although the Hall is closed, the St. Benet's Hall Boat Club still exists. The hall also had its own netball , rugby sevens , and field hockey teams, as well as
5400-536: The Sacred Heart Sisters decided to sell the house and hostel complex to St Benet's Hall to enable the latter to become fully co-educational by Michaelmas Term 2016. The governing body of the hall comprised the trustees of a charity known as the St Benet's Trust, created in 2012 with the trust's chair being ex officio the Abbot of Ampleforth Abbey. However, the assets of this Trust were wholly owned by
5520-533: The St Giles house on 7 October. The wine cellar of 1,100 bottles was donated to Blackfriars . Students relocated individually to other colleges and halls of the university to continue their studies. The St Benet's Hall Boat Club continues to operate. The St Benet’s Hall Association is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2007 by Benet’s alumni. Its purpose is to promote a close relationship amongst those who studied, lived or taught at St Benet’s Hall. Following
5640-536: 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,
5760-540: The application to the College of Arms to regularise its armorial position as the alleged lineal descendant of Westminster Abbey. The purpose of this move was to conform to proper authority and thus not be open to the charge of lack of consideration for post-Reformation bodies already bearing variants of the Westminster arms in their own line of heraldic descent. The Pre-Reformation City of Westminster sometimes used
5880-462: 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
6000-539: 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
6120-402: 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
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#17327723676496240-448: The chief (top portion) of the shield. The base (lower portion) of the shield is gold and blue divided “dancetté” (by a zigzag line). This represents the arms of the pre-Reformation Abbots of Westminster who would place their personal coat of arms in the top portion (chief) of the shield. The last Benedictine Abbot of Westminster to use this coat of arms was John Feckenham (c. 1515–1584) who was removed from office by Elizabeth I in 1560 at
6360-489: The collegiate University" and drew attention to the "commitment and care" of the hall's academic staff. In May 2013 the Student Barometer survey results showed that St Benet's Hall had the highest overall student satisfaction score out of the 44 constituent colleges and permanent private halls of the university. In 1996 Bernard Green OSB (1953-2013), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey, was convicted of sexually abusing
6480-479: The dissolution of the Hall, the Association became the focal point for Old Benetians worldwide, organising regular social and networking events, both independently and with other constituents of the University of Oxford. The hall occupied 38-39 St Giles from 1923 to 2022. This is a rather plain late Regency style edifice of four storeys, with a further attic storey and cellars. The cellar area ensured that
6600-510: The dissolution of the monasteries, one solitary Benedictine monastery was re-established in Westminster Abbey in 1553 by Mary I as part of her unsuccessful attempt to restore Catholicism in England. After her death, Elizabeth I dissolved the monastery once again. By 1607, only one of the Westminster monks was still alive, Dom Sigebert Buckley (c. 1520–1610). In 1608, Buckley "aggregated" two English exiles who had become monks of
6720-465: 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 the wave of monastic enthusiasm that swept western Christendom in
6840-575: 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
6960-484: The final suppression of the abbey. The abbey church then became known as the Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which remains its official name to this day. The shield of Ampleforth Abbey, Ampleforth College, and St Benet's Hall was thus a combination of three shields – the first representing St Peter (top left), the second representing St Edward the Confessor (top right), and the bottom representing
7080-729: The first professor of Egyptology at Oxford. Griffith's archaeological finds form the backbone of the Egyptian collections at the Ashmolean Museum . In 1932 the Society of the Sacred Heart , a Roman Catholic order of nuns, purchased the villa. The purpose of this acquisition was to provide accommodation for women students at Oxford registered at the Society of Oxford Home-Students which later became St Anne's College . In 1951,
7200-547: 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
7320-473: 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 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
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#17327723676497440-684: The hall became a co-educational academic community, latterly consisting of 84 undergraduate students and 48 graduate students of all faiths and none. The degree subjects to which the last undergraduate students were admitted by St Benet's were: Theology , Philosophy and Theology, Theology and Oriental Studies , History, History and Politics, History and Economics, Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Classics , Classics with Oriental Studies, Oriental Studies (Egyptology; Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, Hebrew Studies, and Jewish Studies), Oriental Studies with Classics, and Human Science . The hall admitted graduate students from
7560-472: The hall did not have a high table but one common dining table shared by all members. Members of the hall were entitled to invite guests to all meals, with the result that fellows, lecturers, monks, students, and their guests mixed freely. The dining hall was known as the refectory , in accordance with monastic tradition. The following grace was said in Latin before every formal Hall meal, which at St Benet's
7680-600: The hall, owing to these serious financial issues. May 2022 was the deadline for deciding this point as regards the academic year 2022–3. In that month it was made public that the University Council had decided not to renew the hall's PPH licence, which implied that the hall would close at the end of the 2022 academic year. The university had decided that the new arrangements proposed by the Barry Foundation would not be financially viable and questioned
7800-428: 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
7920-682: 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
8040-779: 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,
8160-450: 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
8280-410: The implications of the new board, and so they were rejected. In June 2022 it was finally announced that the buildings would be vacated by October 2022, and that the university was seeking alternative colleges to which existing students would transfer. The buildings were subsequently purchased by St Hilda's College . The hall was formally closed on 30 September 2022. The last member of staff vacated
8400-591: 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
8520-476: 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
8640-427: 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
8760-422: 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 the adult male population was 500,000, that meant that one adult man in fifty was in religious orders. In
8880-623: 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,
9000-472: 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
9120-430: The original set of wrought iron railings have survived, as has a wrought iron balcony across the façade at the second storey. The first storey has six round-headed windows in recessed frames, flanked by a pair of matching doors with fanlights . The second storey has eight tall rectangular windows, complemented by shorter ones for the third storey and square ones for the fourth. The third and fourth storeys are separated by
9240-435: 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
9360-567: The policy of expansion begun in 2012. The original Victorian Gothic villa was built in 1860 and designed by William Wilkinson , who was also responsible for the Randolph Hotel, Oxford . Norham Gardens is in an area originally known as Norham Manor and was owned by St John's College . Past occupants of 11 Norham Gardens include Henry Balfour , the first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum , and Francis Llewellyn Griffith ,
9480-498: The policy was originally envisioned as a way to increase the regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property 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
9600-478: 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
9720-458: The pre-Reformation Benedictine Abbots of Westminster. The heraldic blazon of the arms is as follows: Per fesse dancetté Or and Azure a chief per pale Gules and of the second charged on the dexter with two keys in saltire Or and Argent and on the sinister with a Cross Flory between five martlets of the first. Although not official, the motto associated with the hall is Ausculta, O fili, praecepta magistri which translates as "Listen, O [my] son, to
9840-813: The precepts of [thy] master." This is taken from the Latin original of the opening line of the prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict . St Benet's had twelve masters following its establishment in 1897: Notable fellows of the hall include: Dissolution of the monasteries The dissolution of the monasteries , occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries , 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
9960-481: 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
10080-775: 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;
10200-449: 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
10320-693: 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
10440-407: 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
10560-580: 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
10680-708: The same subjects as undergraduates as well as those who studied at the Blavatnik School of Government , the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, and the Saïd Business School . In September 2021, it was announced that the John and Daria Barry Foundation, a philanthropic trust run by the venture capitalist John F. Barry III, was making a £40 million rescue offer to enable the hall to become completely independent of Ampleforth Abbey. This
10800-686: 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
10920-676: 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
11040-699: The series' elements on real people and events from history. The series has sold well, with Fire in the East selling over 100,000 copies and spending five weeks in the UK top 10 upon its release. Worldwide the series has sold over half a million copies. The Last Hour is a thriller set in the City of Rome. It was shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Gold Crown for the outstanding historical novel of 2018. The Burning Road ,
11160-650: 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
11280-476: The status of PPH. It took as its official name Aula Privata Sancti Benedicti : in English, "St Benedict's (or St Benet's) Private Hall". (Benet is a mediaeval English variant of the name Benedict.) It was named after St Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–547), the founder of the Benedictine order, father of western monasticism and a patron saint of Europe and of students. The character of the hall changed over
11400-504: 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
11520-401: 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),
11640-457: The university for over 350 years. St Benet's Hall was not a re-foundation of any of the former Benedictine colleges of Oxford. Rather, the hall had a tenuous connection with Westminster Abbey by virtue of its establishment by Ampleforth Abbey . In the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan , assisted by King Edgar , installed a community of Benedictine monks at Westminster . Although the Benedictine priories and abbeys in England were closed during
11760-489: The university stated that without the abbey's continued financial support, "it cannot be confident that the hall can support a new undergraduate cohort for the full duration of their studies". The major issues were that the hall's endowments were inadequate, the two buildings were owned by Ampleforth Abbey and operational deficits were being covered by subsidies from the abbey. So, the university announced that it would temporarily cease to accept undergraduate matriculations from
11880-472: The university, so those of its student body who matriculated were full members of the university in all ways, and were able to supplicate for degrees on the successful completion of their studies. For most of its members the only noticeable difference made by the hall's legal status is that it was very much smaller than any of the Oxford constituent colleges. With the decline of monastic vocations beginning in
12000-533: 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
12120-453: 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
12240-490: The years, acquiring fellows in imitation of the university's constituent colleges. However, as a PPH of the university, the hall's fellows did not constitute its governing body. Rather, they shared with the master the day-to-day running of the hall, and elected one of their number to serve as a trustee of the St Benet's Trust when that charity was founded in 2012. Before then, the hall was a private possession of Ampleforth Abbey. The hall matriculated students to be members of
12360-463: 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
12480-586: 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
12600-522: Was also the last single-sex college or hall in the university after St Hilda's College , the last all-women's college in Oxford, admitted men in 2008. In November 2013, under Professor Jeanrond, the hall announced its intention to admit women graduate students within one year and women undergraduates as soon as additional housing facilities were obtained. Women were admitted as graduate students in October 2014, and as undergraduates in October 2016. Thus 2016
12720-416: 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
12840-553: Was awarded an MPhil in 1982 from the University of Manchester and later a DPhil from the University of Oxford. He studied at Corpus Christi College , where he is a member of the senior common room. He has written for The Times, Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Literary Review, El Pais, and The Irish Times, and contributed to several scholarly journals, including Classical Quarterly, Journal of Roman Studies, Classical Review, L`Antiquite Classique, and Historia: Zeitschrift fuer Alte Geschichte. He has appeared as
12960-514: 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
13080-654: 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
13200-401: Was elevated to the status of an independent abbey in 1899 by Pope Leo XIII in the papal bull Diu quidem est . Ampleforth Abbey renamed the hall of studies as St. Benet's Hall in 1918 when it became a permanent private hall of the university. In October 1897, the priory had established a private hall of studies at Oxford for the purpose of enabling its monks to read for secular degrees at
13320-475: Was latterly held on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. It was recited by the Master or a person he designated. In addition, after grace, an undergraduate student would read a short passage from the Rule of St Benedict in English. Grace after the meal was said in Latin after formal hall by the chaplain in the following form: Despite the small size of the hall, the St Benet's Hall Boat Club raced an eight boat on
13440-551: Was on condition that the buildings would be purchased from the Ampleforth Abbey Trust for £15 million (less than their market value), that the St Benet's Trust was to be made completely separate from the abbey and that the chair was to be the prominent conservative philosopher and academic Robert P. George of Princeton University. Barry himself was on record as describing the venture as a Hail Mary pass , indicating limited expectations of success. However, in December of that year,
13560-472: 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
13680-508: Was previously part of a coster's (i.e., fruit seller's) yard and stable. In the nineteenth century, the two houses served as private homes for several Anglican clergy connected to the university, and to a number of widows of independent means. The northern house (38 St Giles) was, in 1841, occupied as the private dwelling of the Rev. Philip Bliss , Registrar of the University of Oxford and later principal of St Mary's Hall . Bliss lived there with his wife and four servants. A decade later, it
13800-464: Was purchased by Madame de Leobardy and became an extension of the convent school next door. The chapel in the garden is evidence of this. St Ursula's Convent School closed in 1922. Ampleforth Abbey acquired both buildings in 1923, and combined the two into one residence. It was the sole building of St Benet's Hall until 2015. A large house in Norham Gardens was acquired in 2015, as part of
13920-525: 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
14040-524: Was the home of the university's public orator and vice principal and later principal of Magdalen Hall , the Rev. Richard Michell . In 1874, Michell became first principal of the refounded Hertford College . After a two-year period as the Oxford High School (1879–1881), it became a private home once more, belonging briefly to Charlotte Cotton, widow of the Rev. Richard Lynch Cotton , provost of Worcester College (1881–1882). It then belonged to
14160-473: Was the only daughter of Charles Gregory Fairfax, 9th and last Viscount Fairfax of Emley. She built Ampleforth Lodge for Fr Bolton just before she died in 1792. In 1802, Bolton handed this house over to his brethren from Dieulouard who had been living in England without a permanent home for a decade. The lodge became their new monastery, Ampleforth Priory. In 1803, the monks established Ampleforth College , today an independent Catholic secondary school. The priory
14280-487: Was the year when all constituent colleges and halls of the university became fully coeducational. (The University of Cambridge retains two constituent colleges for female students only.) To allow for the admission of undergraduate women, in October 2015 St Benet's Hall acquired a hall of residence owned by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart , at 11 Norham Gardens , next to University Parks and near Lady Margaret Hall . So
14400-485: Was then acquired by the Rev. Richard Greswell , tutor in theology at Worcester College, and his family (1861–1881). After his death in 1881, his widow Joanna Greswell lived in the house until 1894. The British military historian Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman , a fellow of All Souls College and the Chichele Professor of Modern History , acquired the house in 1898 and lived there until 1908. In 1909, it too
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