Dissolution of the Monasteries

For other uses of the term dissolution see Dissolution. The Dissolution of the Monasteries, referred to by Roman Catholic writers as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the formal process during the English Reformation by which Henry VIII confiscated the property of the monastic institutions in England, Wales and Ireland between 1538 and 1541. He was given the authority to do this by the Act of Supremacy, passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church of England, and by the First Suppression Act (1536) and the Second Suppression Act (1539).
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